Dummies Guide to Pi2AES! Throw away your PC or laptop.

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by purr1n, Jan 29, 2020.

  1. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Shiny new Pi2AES+Pi 4 B AESing into Yggdrasil A2 ready for shoot-out with original USBridge+Sbooster>Unison. Breaking news at 11 -- or whenever I get another listener to confirm my prejudices do an independent evaluation.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Independent listener (my very musical wife) verdict: Pi2AES is more incisive, less soft, closer to live performance: Roon>streamer>Yggdrasil A2>Phonitor XE>ZMF Verité Closed. Streamers: 1) original USBridge with Sbooster LPS for the USBridge board and an SMPS for the Sparky SBC, into a beta Unison board, running DietPi; 2) Pi 4 B + Pi2AES with Mean Well 24V SMPS, running RopieeeXL, AES to DAC This was a pretty consistent response for both solo piano and large orchestra. It confirmed my earlier impressions with the Pi2AES stand-alone system I have now at work.

    Of course this comparison is vs Unison with a specific now-discontinued USB streamer. As I experienced earlier, that Unison setup beat another AES source, Auralic Aries, but with a different amp (Hegel H360) and transducers (KEF Reference 1s+REL t7I).

    TL; DR I'll likely be retiring the USBridge and power-supply boxes it depends on.
     
  3. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I was gonna suggest guitar picks for removing backing. Head to a local music store with some off-cuts of acrylic and try different ones until you find something that works best, then buy a bag.
     
  4. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    Dummie needs more here. I'd like to run an ethernet cable direct from a Windows 10 machine to the pi, bypassing the router. Anyone know how to do this? Crossover cable? WIN10 machine has wifi for the internet.
     
  5. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    In general, you need something to map the hardware MAC addresses of devices on your ethernet to IP addresses, typically a DHCP server that runs on your router. If you can/know how to make your Win 10 machine run DHCP (there's also Zeroconf but AFAIK Win 10 does not run it out of the box) a crossover cable should be enough.
     
  6. jcn3

    jcn3 New

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    you would need to "bridge" your wi-fi connection with your ethernet connection on your windows machine to connect the pi and allow communication with the router. i've typically seen people add a second nic to their machine and bridge the two ethernet connections, so don't know if you can bridge the wi-fi and the ethernet. do a google search -- i haven't done it, but it's a bit tricky to make it work.

    can you just connect your pi to the network via wifi?
     
  7. loadexfa

    loadexfa MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    For those interested in streaming Tidal or Qobuz without paying for Volumio, I finally found an easy setup guide:
    https://www.hifizine.com/2016/06/how-to-stream-tidal-to-the-raspberry-pi/
    One thing to note, the iOS/Win/Mac players they suggested are crap, they involve lots of fuckery and crashing with minimal results. I'm using mconnect lite on my iPhone and that has been good. I take it back, mconnect is also crap. Lumia stopped seeing Qobuz and Tidal on second use. mconnect no longer sees my UPNP renderer (Volumio) on second use. FFS, people can't make apps that don't work more than once? Perhaps the Android app they suggest is good, I didn't try it.

    It's really not complicated, I think just seeing various software mentioned without understanding why you need it made it seem more involved than it is.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2020
  8. Cakecake

    Cakecake Guest

    Besides pie2aes being more incisive, unison rounded, any diff in technicality like detail, microdynamics, etc? Or is the difference more change in sound flavor
     
  9. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    More detail for Pi2AES, especially in the softest passages (plankton?). Not a big difference, but consistent across source material.
     
  10. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    Is this consistent across different head amps too?
     
  11. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    We need a bit more time to evaluate that, the test I reported was just with Phonitor XE. Probably in a couple of weekends, with Apex Peak, Aficionado, and maybe ECP DSHA-3F if it has arrived by then.
     
  12. bigant

    bigant Facebook Friend

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    You should just need a crossover cable, but you will need to assign static ip addresses, preferably in a different IP range than your existing wireless network, to the Ethernet interfaces on your windows machine and the PI. You will also need to set up some kind of routing on the PC if you need the PI to have internet access.

    You might find that it is better to set it up via your router or wireless network initially, familiarise yourself with all the settings and then start exploring alternative connectivity.

    I’m assuming you need to connect it all up this way due to the location of your router/audio system?

    I don’t know what your level of networking knowledge is, hopefully my answers aren’t vague and unhelpful. :)
     
  13. weaver

    weaver New

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    Not sure if you have tried this already but I have JRiver installed alongside moOde on a Pi/Pi2AES. Most of the time I just use moOde as the OS and JRiver/JRemote for everything else. Music files are on a USB drive attached to the Pi.
     
  14. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    Networking knowledge is sufficient for most uses but certainly no total, This has led me to speculate on possible improvements. Currently, pi is connected by ethernet to a switch, the switch is connected to the router downstairs by Home plug ethernet which likely hits my fuse box along the way, limiting bandwidth. It is generally sufficient, 300 mbs, but I wonder how much hash and noise might exist on this connection as it travels thru the walls. I have found some software to set up a dhcp server on the WIN10 ethernet port. The guy only wants 1 euro and the guide is good. Using ropiee, I would need internet and could bridge the ethernet with wifi after setup, hopefully. http://www.dhcpserver.de/cms/
     
  15. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    If powerline ethernet works for you well enough to have no dropouts when streaming (it never did for me two houses ago, gave up on it), electrical noise should not be an issue because ethernet is isolated by design and data is transmitted asynchronously, meaning that it is buffered and reclocked anyway by the devices that control your DACs.
     
  16. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    I remember picoreplayer could retrieve the entire file and play from memory, I'll have to check on ropiee, not much investment, $4.99 for the xover cable I ordered and 1 euro for the software, might as well give it a go. Cheaper than an ether regen by some margin...not to mention the uber switches and cards...
     
  17. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    For what it’s worth you probably don’t need a crossover cable, most implementations now are smart enough to automatically switch. You should be able to just plug your Pi into your computer’s ethernet port with a normal ethernet cable, enter the zeroconf address (or discover the IP address if your operating system doesn’t support zeroconf) and go from there. If you want to access it from your phone or whatever though then you’ll need to actually put it on the network.
     
  18. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Two years(?!?) after getting a 502DAC, I finally got it set up on a RPi3. First off, thank you to @Michael Kelly, and of course Marv for this guide. Cleaner and clearer than the USB Gen 2 on my Gungnir Multibit A1, but not really testable vs the Eitr. I am at the limits of my hearing, and honestly don't want to train to hear more differences. This thread definitely eases any nervosa I might have had, so I can focus on having fun with different headphones instead of tweaking my chain.

    Also, thanks to Michael for sharing his drawings for the case. If anyone is interested, I have isolated just a single cut out for the 502DAC case so I can laser cut just one. Happy to do the same for the Pi2AES if Michael is willing to share the file. I have a local fablab that I am going to use, but anyone can play around with materials and labels for something like Ponoko.
     
  19. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    Send me an email and I will send it to you.

    Cheers, Michael
     
  20. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    Now that I think about it I should probably post it. I have an svg layout for the glowforge laser cutter that we use in house. It gives you three cases total, but not the PI 4 pieces, those I do on a separate run.I could change that to a set of pieces for a single case clustered around each other. Or post the individual pieces.

    Any preferences?

    Michael
     

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