Pi2 Design Idiot-Proof Ready-To-Go RPi/AES Streamer

So, when are you going to take my money for the Mercury? The wait is killing me!!!!

 

Update on Mercury Streamer

CM4AES PCB's are assembled and heading my way. Debug will begin next week. In the mean time I made some changes to what the final system will look like.

I am removing the rotary and the OLED as they are not well supported (in some cases not at all) by the various players (Volumio, Moode, Ropieee, etc). Instead we are increasing the case to the next size up (Galaxy Maggiorato GX187) and adding a 3.5" DSI LCD. This has the exact same interface as the Raspberry Pi Official 7" display and will work "out of the box", once enabled in the player configuration.

I am also replacing the front USB with a header and cable to a panel mount USB on the back.

Some screen caps to get an idea of the unit are below. Overall size is 124mm (4.88") x 80mm (3.15") x 174mm (6.85").

 

Looking Good

 

Any updates?

 

We just got the protos back and will be doing initial testing this week.

 

Would love to see photos.

 

It will be ready when it's ready. Let him take his time. It's a one man operation.

 

Actually I meant to post a photo when the boards came in on Wednesday.

 

Pleased to see this is coming along. Design looks good.
Have you been able to do any A/B sound comparisons with comparably priced gear like Bluesound Node 2i, Audiolab 6000, etc.
I'm assuming you had some baseline sound you wished to emulate and/or exceed.
Thanks for your efforts Michael.

 

Oh yes, this is hitting the bullseye for me. Nice to see things coming along - best of luck getting through the process.

 

The goal is to provide the same sound as the pi2aes, but with some extra functionality.

 

I'll go ahead and remove that pi4 from the amazon cart. This looks great!

 

Ditto Me too!

 

Hi Michael,
Just wondering, Is this forum the best place to stay on top of Mercury launch?
If keeping a lust, email or anything, please add me.
I wish you were closer, I'm retired computer he engineer looking for something to do.
I would have been happy to assist in anyway to ease your multiple hats needed to run a small company.
Ill keep watching.
I would have gone with pi2aes but Mercury pulls things together.
Take it slow.
Its your thing.
Hart Audio Cables was able to go full time with his dream.
Perhaps you too!
You won't become rich, but you'll live what you do.
Neil Thegratefuldad

 

it is the best place. Current status is getting ready to build the next revision Protos. Most functionality is working, but we need to change some parts that have become very hard to get. The global chip shortage is very real unfortunately. Because COVID was not enough I guess!

hopefully I’ll have the next revision for testing in about 3-4 weeks. I’ll post some new renders as the changes also will let us make the box a bit bigger with a 5” LCD instead of the 3.5 or 4.3. And a dac option is now planned.

 

I really like how this has evolved. Love this compact form factor.

 

Hi Michael any rough idea of how much it will cost?
Regards

 

I believe the target was $399, as mentioned on page 1 of the thread. Considering the updates this might have changed.

Neptune (Mercury with a DAC) will be 200-300$ more. Also mentioned one page ago

 

Mercury update

Sorry for the long silence. First rev protos had some serious issues which did not allow much testing. Second pass came in this morning and look very good. USB is broken though, so we will need one more revision. SSD testing is to be done Tuesday when the drive come in. I thought I had them,. but turns out I had SATA, not nVME.

Audio output (and the whole point of this) looks very good. I need get my Audio Precision out of storage to do full jitter testing. The dScope I use for production test is not quite as accurate.

 

Some 3D screen caps below. Note that we did not go with the 4.3" display option. Text was tiny and the cost would have pushed the price up $75-$100. Also we are not likely to provide pre-configured versions of Moode and Ropieee. Just Volumio to start.

[edit] Corrected Dimensions are 164mm W x 120mm D x 44mm H