The ALLO Audio music steamer - Pic heavy review

[Bonky]

I have another 12v battery with spade terminals. Can anyone recommend a dedicated lead that will allow connection to this and the Rpi?
Thanks.
Richard

[Kit1cat]

I have another 12v battery with spade terminals. Can anyone recommend a dedicated lead that will allow connection to this and the Rpi?
Thanks.
Richard

Richard, I hope you remembered that the Rpi works off 5V?

[Bonky]

Yikes! confuseddotcom here; so sorry; yes of course!

(although I have a 6.3V supply at present into my Rpi3 + Sabre DAC - I must have read somewhere that upping the voltage into a unit comprising two modules each of which would cause a voltage drop - is a Good Thing) (?)

Thanks,

Richard.

[Yatsushiro]

I'd seriously consider disconnecting the 6.3v supply ASAP. RPi supply is recommended at 4.75 to 5.25v, with a suggested top limit of ~5.8v. You may be getting away with it, but it could possibly catch up with you...

[Bonky]

Hi, thanks. I believe the 6.3V powers the sabre DAC first (capable of a 9V + feed I believe) and the Rpi is fed a lower voltage from the DAC...but I could be wrong...(?)

Thanks again,

Richard

[Emmings]

System
Roon Server
Raspberry Pi 2 running Ropieee as Roon Endpoint with HifiBerry Digi+ Pro
Raspberry Pi 3 running Ropieee as Roon Endpoint with Allo DigiOne
M2Tech Young DAC
Temple Audio Bantam One
Wilmslow Audio Gemini Speakers

Well it's been a while since I volunteered to review the Allo DigiOne (June - sorry for the delay but read on) but at last I can report my thoughts.

The Allo DigOne is an S/PDIF transport rather than a DAC - it provides the connection between your stored music files and your DAC.
Bit more background info here - https://www.allo.com/sparky/digione.html

Unfortunately the first Allo DigiOne that BlackAdder (Josie) forwarded to me was DOA (which was a shame) but Andre from Allo quickly organised a replacement unit so the testing/listening could start.

And all was going well - the Allo DigiOne when compared to the HifiBerry Dig+ Pro I was running at the time provided more detail and presence.

I have been trying the upsampling capability of Roon and was running at 24/192 quite happily and enjoying the experience.
However when running the Allo DigiOne whilst upsampling I experienced problems after pausing playback. Sometimes the Allo DigiOne appeared to lose 'control' of the connection between Roon/itself and the Young DAC.
And when this happened it was quite difficult to get the system to play properly again - to the extent of re-starting Roon, the Pi endpoints and the DAC.

So there then followed a number of emails between myself and Andre of Allo - who has been extremely helpful and responsive in all my dealings with him.
To the extent that he spent some time with his development team, sourced an older DAC and managed to reproduce the problem. And then produced a solution which resulted in him sending me another updated Allo DigiOne to test.

And I'm glad that Andre and his team went to this trouble because the Allo DigiOne has proved a more than capable device - which is staying in my system.

I had been running a HifiBerry Digi+ Pro as a Roon endpoint and was very happy with what I was hearing/experiencing with that unit.

However after running the Allo DigiOne for a few days and trying some A/B testing I have to say the Allo DigiOne edges the HifiBerry Digi+ Pro in terms of musical enjoyment and sonic reproduction.

For example I used Fools Gold by the Stone Roses to compare the two units. In this track there is a snare drum that is quite prominent in the mix - on the HifiBerry Digi+ Pro this sounded fine.
But when playing through the Allo DigiOne the snare became more 'lifelike' - it went from 'oh that's good' to 'blimey - that REALLY sounds good'.
There's just more of a 'crack' to the snare - almost as if you can hear the rattle of the wires on the snare rather than just the striking of the snare skin.

On other tracks cymbals have more life to them, more ring and sparkle/decay, piano sounds more lifelike - that's the best way I can describe the difference between the two units - the Allo DigiOne sounds more lifelike/open.
There's more clarity, detail and seperation to the music when compared to the HifiBerry Digi+ Pro.

So for me anyway the Allo DigiOne is an excellent piece of kit as an S/PDIF transport and I have to say a big thank you to Andre of Allo for all his help and advice.

[The Black Adder]

Hiya guys.

First of all, sorry for the delay in reviewing this. Life is hectic at the moment.

A while ago I was given the Allo Isolator to try.

The isolator sandwiches between the RPI 3 and the Allo Boss DAC. See pic below.

Installation is quick and dead easy. It does however need a separate power supply. This I bought from CPC. (thanks Jez).

It can also be powered by rechargeable batteries to which I've not tried yet. This option is however recommended by Allo. So this is something I would like to try later on.

Once fitted the isolator needs to be powered up first before the Pi.

Once powered up there is no difference to the boot-up time using Moode.

I've been using the BOSS DAC for some time now and I personally prefer it to the Piano 2.1 and certainly find it a good leap forward over the IQ DAC+.

The BOSS DAC is lovely sounding. It's realism and speed is simply superb. So what can be improved on? Well I would have said nothing much but once the isolator was in place I found a very nice step up in clarity and definition.

The timing is also more engaging. Everything snapping in to place and with an impressive bass improvement.

When I first switched on the bass was the most noticeable aspect which I really noticed but after a week, then after two weeks the sound just got more and more lively, more stable and more balanced.

Right now it's opened up so much. It's a much different thing to how it sounded initially so if you purchase one I'd suggest a few weeks burn-in for true lovelyness. ️

For now I've had it running with 16bit/*.khz as I always believe in native sampling rates.

Saying that it plays all native bit/sample rates including DSF (SACD) files perfectly which is cool.

So my conclusion with this combo is you have to hear it... It's a magical sound. It's not forced in any way, it's balanced , powerful yet delicate and therefore brings out emotion in music.

If you are lacking any of these aspects then I recommend it wholeheartedly.

With all of my reviews I make sure I play my benchmark albums throughout and I also never try to read anyone else's reviews beforehand as I find it can sometimes cloud my judgement. Any equipment that is changed between reviews will be noted for you.

I hope this is helpful to you and as always I'm open to questions.

Btw.. I'm running the latest moode software with the advanced kernel.



Sent from my 9001X using Tapatalk

[Daru]

Josie, thanks for the Isolator update. I was looking to get one but I read some folks having trouble with the Isolator when resampling is in use. You reported no issues with higher native sampling rates. Can you confirm if your isolator works with resampling turned on in Moode?

[ALLO.com]

Josie, thanks for the Isolator update. I was looking to get one but I read some folks having trouble with the Isolator when resampling is in use. You reported no issues with higher native sampling rates. Can you confirm if your isolator works with resampling turned on in Moode?

hi Daru,
Any isolators introduce a delay in the system in order of ns. In the case of slave DACs , all i2s signals are delayed so overall there is no impact . However in the case of master DACs the i2s signal has to travel one way (to RPI) and second time from RPI to DACs (second delay). Master DACs will then play up to 192Khz. Even then its possible to make a small change in the driver (that takes in account the extra delay) so it can play up to 384Khz.

regards
Andre

[Gazjam]

Sorcery!

Hiya guys.

First of all, sorry for the delay in reviewing this. Life is hectic at the moment.

A while ago I was given the Allo Isolator to try.

The isolator sandwiches between the RPI 3 and the Allo Boss DAC. See pic below.

Installation is quick and dead easy. It does however need a separate power supply. This I bought from CPC. (thanks Jez).

It can also be powered by rechargeable batteries to which I've not tried yet. This option is however recommended by Allo. So this is something I would like to try later on.

Once fitted the isolator needs to be powered up first before the Pi.

Once powered up there is no difference to the boot-up time using Moode.

I've been using the BOSS DAC for some time now and I personally prefer it to the Piano 2.1 and certainly find it a good leap forward over the IQ DAC+.

The BOSS DAC is lovely sounding. It's realism and speed is simply superb. So what can be improved on? Well I would have said nothing much but once the isolator was in place I found a very nice step up in clarity and definition.

The timing is also more engaging. Everything snapping in to place and with an impressive bass improvement.

When I first switched on the bass was the most noticeable aspect which I really noticed but after a week, then after two weeks the sound just got more and more lively, more stable and more balanced.

Right now it's opened up so much. It's a much different thing to how it sounded initially so if you purchase one I'd suggest a few weeks burn-in for true lovelyness. ️

For now I've had it running with 16bit/*.khz as I always believe in native sampling rates.

Saying that it plays all native bit/sample rates including DSF (SACD) files perfectly which is cool.

So my conclusion with this combo is you have to hear it... It's a magical sound. It's not forced in any way, it's balanced , powerful yet delicate and therefore brings out emotion in music.

If you are lacking any of these aspects then I recommend it wholeheartedly.

With all of my reviews I make sure I play my benchmark albums throughout and I also never try to read anyone else's reviews beforehand as I find it can sometimes cloud my judgement. Any equipment that is changed between reviews will be noted for you.

I hope this is helpful to you and as always I'm open to questions.

Btw.. I'm running the latest moode software with the advanced kernel.



Sent from my 9001X using Tapatalk