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

Hi, Has this fixed, supposed to be in Q1

DIFFERENTIAL I2S OUTPUT – A DS2063 Differential Transmitter is used to drive the I2S Bus via LVDS over a standard HDMI Connector. Rev. P3.x supports PS Audio, but the channels are swapped. Rev. P4 (coming Q1 2022) will fix this.

 

That is for the PI2AES. Mercury uses the PS Audio pinout.

 

Has this pin out fixed in Pi2aes supposed to coming in Q1 2022


Actually I might prefer Pi2aes as it’s much cheaper by $200 compared to Mercury when they both are exact similar specs minus Alumnium casing
Correct me if I m wrong

 

exact and similar are two different things. They are similar but not exact. However there are very few people who have purchased the pi2aes and been disappointed with the sound. Your choice.

 

I Haven’t doubted Pi2aes capabilities,
I was trying to compare with mercury regards to price difference
Can you highlight few Pros of mercury over pi2aes which would help me in talking final decision pls
Thanks

 

I already did so a few posts back

 

As mentioned by me a day or 2 ago, I tested the Mercury's I2S output with PS Audio integrated amp (Stellar Strata) and it works perfectly. FYI.

 

Sorry for the OT content. @bobfa - Regarding the K50, a $15k streamer? Wow, am I out of touch. Too much time playing with RPi.

I am curious about running 2 RPi4, one as a server only. Did I understand that correctly? What benefit did you find? I ask because I used to run my server on a RPi3 that was lightly used as a player. I didn't notice any change when I swtiched the sever over to my main RPi3, but perhaps I wasn't paying attention. I'm running Picoreplayer/Pi2AES connected by WiFi and a USB SSD on the server. I haven't made the switch to RPi4 because I'm not using Ethernet anywhere and I couldn't see where the extra speed would get me.

Back on topic, I hope you will comment on Volumio vs Picoreplayer on Mercury when you get it running.

Jac

 

Anyone got any experience up sampling using HQPlayer?
I know the WM8804 SPDIF TRANSMITTER max-out at 192K, while HQPlayer supports 1.5M, but I wonder whether up sampling 44.1 FLACs to 192K would sound better...

Edit: to clarify, my question is for either Mercury or PI2AES as both should behave the same in this respect (or so I believe).

 

IDK but you should do a multiple of 44.1 not a multiple of 48 :/

 

Understood, so up sampling 44.1 to 176K...
Anyone tried it on the PI2AES?

 

There is a thread:
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...on-a-pi4-invigorate-your-digital-audio.11231/

 

My i2S Query was regarding Pi2aes, if i2S has been fixed as planned in Q1 22. if not by when it is expected to be fixed ( for Pi2aes)
Thanks

 

I use HQPLAYER upsampling on my macbook and Pi2AES as NAA. All my DAC max out at 192Khz anyways as I'm using Schiit and Sonnet DAC. Sonic benefit will be upto you as it all depends on filter and noise shaper that you end up using for upsampling. But they do make a difference to the final outcome.

 

PI2AES P4, which is shipping now, has the PS-Audio pinout. Please post anymore PI2AES questions in one of the PI2AES threads.

 

Noted, apologies for my ignorance
Thanks

 

Maybe a thread name change to something with Mercury would help? I would also consider saying easy to use rather than idiot proof as I think you’re underestimating idiots.

 

It would be very good if VolumIO Superstar Lifetime subscription were also sold with Mercury and it were shipped with pre-installed VOLUMIO software which includes most important plugins.

I have tried different operating systems including VolumIO, MoodeAudioPlayer, DietPi, RopieeeXL.

DietPi is too complex for a simple user and I would not recommend it to anyone if you are not comfortable with scripting and running CLI. But generally everything except Tidal-Connect works without any problem on its latest version. I have installed the docker version of Tidal Installation on DietPi. However, it did not work, either.

RopieeeXL is very simple and easy to use with an external player(Roon, Tidal, Spotify or SqueezeLite app).

MoodeAudioPlayer is very similar to VolumIO. But it is not good at DSD over PCM(DOP) and Tidal Connect is nearly impossible to install and use successfully on its latest version(I have tried lots of different installations). SqueezeLite/LMS, Spotify, Roon Bridge, UPNP players like BubbleUPNP etc. works without any problem. I am not sure, but I think there is not any ready-to-use mobile app. By the way you can use Tidal/Spotify on SqueezeLite player without any problem on MoodeAudioPlayer. But I think it might somehow downscales the Tidal Flac files on the fly.

I am very new to VolumIO. Therefore I tried the free version. But as far as I see, it does not make sense to use it for free. I do not like the idea of monthly subscription model for such a software. Instead, I'd prefer lifetime license. But unless you buy the VolumIO streamer hardware, Superstar Lifetime subscriptions, which were sold in the past years , are not sold currently. If it were possible, I'd probably buy it and use mConnect as mobile app.

As a result, I can say that I could not find a software which is as feature-rich, complete and good-sounding as Audirvana on RPIs.

Note: I have not tried PiCorePayer and GentooPlayer yet.

 

I tried to convince them to let me include a six month or even 90 day trial. The answer was no. Part of the problem is that they have their own streamer and they see us as competition.

it’s possible we may go with an OEM version where we pay a yearly fee to Support their software and all of the features that you would get with the full subscription. But that’s over $10,000 a year and we’re not quite ready to make that commitment.

We also believe in the idea of customer choice and being able to play around with other software. I expect that the rest of this year will see us offering a couple of different snapshots including volumio and others. Maybe next year once mercury is fully established as a strong seller and we can get reliably get compute modules, we can execute on that plan.

 

If it is developed and supported by the community, I think MoodeAudio may be a strong competitor to VolumIO in the near future. If I were to use Mercury by using 2 Micro sdcard at the same time, I would use DietPi & RopieeeXL together. But it's a little bit cumbersome. By the way I currently use 5 different Micro sdcards . I recommend Kingston Canvas Go Plus-64GB for faster IO operations.