did you try it both using http and https? sometimes they use ssl even for an internal connection
Good thoughtā¦tried both with same result. Fortunately my ISP restored service this morning, so all good now. Iāll have to see if thereās a setting I need to change to allow for offline management.
That sounds like an internal connection issue, if your internet is down then internal networking should still work. Moode (and Volumio) has no settings to do with this and http or https wonāt affect it. As long as your local network has working DHCP it will have an IP number and should be reachable by that. Local DNS will allow for connection by name such as moode.local. Usually your router will be handling local DHCP and DNS for you, unless you have set up something else.
Does your ISP have control of your router? That might explain it. I know some ISPs like to centralize router configs and have you access via their servers. That would explain why your internal networking failed along with their external connection. Usually if the external connection goes down then the local network is unaffected other than connecting out to the internet.
If this is the case then the only way to solve it is to buy your own router and put theirs in bridge mode so you have control of your own network.
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Thanks. I already use my cable modem in bridge mode to a mesh network even though it has a built in router/wifi. I can connect to the mesh network and can see the connected devices, so Iām not sure whatās going on. Iāll have to mess with it later to see if I can figure it out for next time.
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Hello,
Iāve been looking into streamers.
I used to have the Node here and found it terrible both software and hardware wise.
Then I thought about the Ifi streamer which would be interesting.
However, there are a lot of reviews about it crashing and it takes a lot of effort to get it going again.
So the path falls.
What I found interesting now was the
allo usbridge signature player or the Volumio Primo
Hi-Fi Edition.
They both look interesting.
However, as a newbie, I donāt know which operating system to choose.
With the Allo, I read that you have to look at which one you take because of Roon ectā¦
Unfortunately I donāt know 100% if it will be possible to connect both or one of the two to the Singxer Su 2 via Usb.
My streaming provider is currently Tidal.
Current system,Pc usb via Singxer Su2 with Asio driver, which is connected via I2S to the Singxer Sda 2 and played back software-wise with Audirvana 3.5.
Personally, I donāt know how to operate both devices.
Presumably with an ab that logs on via the network?
Are there any other objections in this respect or do I have to/should I pay attention to anything?
I havenāt bought anything yet, so I would wait until I am more immersed in the subject.
In terms of OS options you either get proprietary or on Raspberry Pi based gear either Moode or Volumio and very occasionally PiCorePlayer.
Moode and Volumio are essentially the same software. The main difference being that Volumio has an optional premium version that gates off CD playing/ripping and multi room function. Volumio does have a more modern UI and I think a larger user base. In general I have found it to be slightly more stable since version 3 was released. Itās my preference from the three. They can both act as Roon bridges and Spotify plugins.
PiCorePlayer is setup to work with the Squeezelite ecosystem. Iāve not used it myself.
Both Moode and Volumio have phone/tablet apps that work as remote controls. They also have webpages you can access from your own ethernet that can be used to control them or can have a small touchscreen added to control them.
They can both access either NAS libraries or USB harddrives to play local files. You can also stream to them from a PC, using them as an external soundcard, for any music streaming provider that they do not work with. They can use MPD, Airplay or DNLA to receive music.
Apart from Allo I know Audiophonics has some interesting in house versions and kits, including a complete balanced dac/streamer kit. They will also supply a preinstalled copy of either Moode or Volumio with them.
To get music out of your pi streamer you can either use USB or get one with a dac hat that gives you toslink, spdif or aes out. From there your choices are as usual. Many people feed it straight to a dac but you can off course add in a DDC. More expensive pi based streamers start to add galvanic isolation and linear power within the streamer itself.
Hopefully that helps you out!
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Thanks for the help that helps. 
As for the Audiophonics in-house units, which ones do you mean?
If one of the devices still had Bluethooth or could possibly be connected with an adapter, I could possibly use it to feed my MAtrix Audio mini 2 in the living room.
That would be interesting for me in that respect.
With the Volumio PrimoHi-Fi Edition, it would be good to know whether the Lifetime software is with or without a subscription?
Otherwise, it doesnāt look bad from a technical point of view.
I would have found it more ideal if the streamer didnāt offer an audio output so that you can always freely choose the Dac without a mandatory intergrated Dac because I find that you are more flexible that way.
Thatās where the Allo appeals to me a bit more.
In terms of price, the two are not necessarily far apart.
In the end, itās more about connectivity and ease of use for me.
Connect, download the app or software and enjoy.
That would be important to me personally.
Cd ripping ect is not a must. It would be a nice to have.
But not a must. I am too lazy to rip the CDs from my youth :-).
1 Like
On this page you can find theirs listed after the Allo ones:
With all of them it is worth paying attention to if they are pi 3 or pi 4 based. Pi 4 has a (relatively) much cleaner USB bus if you use one of the two usb3 sockets. The Pi3 one was pretty terrible.
The Pi 4 has built in bluetooth and on Volumio that is one of the paywall gated options. Moode has it out of the box.
These pi based streamers will always give you usb out as an option. You can select the outpu to be either via USB or via internal i2s. I tend to agree with you but thought it useful to give a complete explanation 
Edit to add
As far as I know the Volumio lifetime plan is a lifetime subscription to the Volumio OS add ons like CDs, bluetooth etc.
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Okay, Iāll make sure that if itās something pi that I go to the 4th gen.
Thanks for the tip 
.
Audiophonics is currently sold out of allo devices.
Iāll have to read up on the individual operating systems to find the best one for me.
With the Volumio, it might be interesting to know if there is a normal power supply or if it is already psu-based, and if not, whether it makes sense.
Their lifetime version also sounds promising.
Thank you @Gothique for being very helpful in this regard.
Iāve always shied away from Pi devices because they werenāt that sophisticated back then.
But as it looks now, you can already see much more success and be confident.
In any case, more than with Bluesound devices, I think.
5 Likes
Hello,
I have another question or two.
The Allo Usb Box is currently not available.
As it also has a Raspberry pi built in I thought why not buy a Rasp touch with display, memory card and whatever else you need to stream.
Would make it easier I thought, if that is possible?
Should be theoretically feasible to stream with a Pi4 or?
If so you could always look later for a better power supply to run the Pi4 should be feasible or?
If it makes sense. With a Psu from Ify or Audiophonics.
The other side of this is that you could probably be a bit more flexible software-wise with a Rasp touch.
I havenāt looked at that yet.
I have looked at other devices like the Sonore which looks very good but is quite expensive.
The small older version would probably have been enough for my purposes.
The Project Stream Box 2 Ultra didnāt look too bad either, but it was almost $700.
Silent Angel Munich also makes a good impression and I think they all run with a Pi 3 or Pi 4.
With coordinated software.
So why not go straight for a simple Pi 4 that would be a bit cheaper.
Iām not a big expert on these things but Iām open to it.
Not sure if this helps, but I very recently reached out to Small Green Computer, and they had some refurbished microRendus for $350 USD (plus the cost of whatever power supply you decide to go with). So not as cheap as a Pi 4, but not terrible, and Iāve seen them even slightly cheaper than that on the used market.
Itās a very simple device though: no screen, no wireless, only USB output, etc., so it also depends on what you need.
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They are all variations on a theme, most of them are not Pi based, but use similar ARM processors, the differences are in the removed features, power sections, and if they have them how they do SPDIF or AES out.
The Rendus for example have no switching mode circuitry for power regulation, so run hot and require power supplies with a relatively narrow voltage range, and the USB sections are pretty carefully isolated.
This is true of even very high end streamers like the NS1 or DCS network bridge. Your not going to find a lot of variation in the āgutsā of a streamer, they are just low powered computers with ethernet connections, and in some cases drivers for AES/SPDIF.
You can just use a Pi3 or 4, itās a good entry level streamer, but the better units deal with itās compromises.
9 Likes
Thanks for the tip, I could write to them.
From a purely practical point of view, that would actually be enough for me.
Something similar also crystallised a bit when looking at the devices.
One of them had better hardware features, then it didnāt, then it was better software-wise.
With the Sonore devices I see an increase but also in the price.
The Pi could really be a good entry point at first.
Actually, I just want to connect the thing to the internet via lan and the Singxer SU 2 via usb, play the software on it and then forget it.
Maybe upgrade the power supply later.
Should it be better than the PC, I would also have less power consumption, and could think about selling the Matrix Audio Element H card.
And later go to something that is maybe one or two levels higher.
If you want go go a bit more for convenience, maybe have a look at this as an alternative for the piās, Its the MK 1, the MK 2 is basically an AKM to ESS refactor. 250 is the correct used price imo.
Sotm Ultra Neo is also found sub 1k used, iām pretty happy with it on my 2 channel. I have the Project Stream Box S2 Ultra on my desk, its small, sounds clean. The NP5 I have for the rest of the family and as a source to cast from android to stereo from soundcloud and stuff. Budget wise old squeezebox touch devices are also pretty sweet with the right setup.
Except for the NP5, without Roon I would probably not use any of these due to their poor interfaces (and maybe coughed up and bought a Naim XS2 or NDX2). Something like Audionirvana or Roon is a must imo for these and takes the UI factor out when looking around. How you will control it and how you will connect it are important questions and maybe also count in that most benefit from a good power supply.
4 Likes
Hello,
how did you like the Primare NP 5 if you had it?
It doesnāt make a bad impression either.
The usb port is undefined when skimming the description.
Would have to look in the manual if available.
Great suggestion otherwise.
I would have Audirvana 3.5 if you could still use it, that would be great of course, the Project I read supports Audirvana.
I didnāt necessarily think Roon was bad.
Stupid is that I would have to look like my Tidal playlist paralell get on it.
That bothers me with Roon that I have to start the app at the end so that I also have the song on the Tidal playlist.
From the connection point of view, it shouldnāt have any problems with the Dac/DDC if you connect it via USB.
That would be my condition.
The rest with power supplies would come later and would not be a priority for now, of course nice to have if it is on board, but we are talking about a different price range.
And then we go back to the 1K direction.letās say if I had to set a budget I would have said 700$ or wait until the situation is better to maybe go towards 1K.
Its not going to work with the su2, the NP5 has only SPDIF out, USB is for external HD. I mainly use it as a convenience source, not as a critical source. I did some A/B when I got it and the Sotm won but my test was crippled since I used an adapter on the NP5 cable into the DAC and the Sotm was on the āspecialā etherregen port. That doesnāt feel fair and you start wondering what youāre comparing. Iām planning to get a decent rca-bnc cable for a more fair test but its not high prio right now.
Audirvana or Roon, its doesnāt matter, both are very good. If Audirvana suits your use case best, stay with it and make sure to check if the device youāre targetting is supported. I just installed audirvana and the NP5 immediately shows, seems its using the chromecast protocol so limited to 24/192. Project and sotm are not showing but Iām assuming Iāll need to enable upnp or something first for that.
The stream box S2 is indeed expensive at 700, certainly now with zen stream. I wanted a Roon Ready streamer at the time for my desk and made an impulse buy. I already had the Pre Box S2 Digital and its a neat little combo together. I canāt compare with pi2aes or allo or whatever but I find it a very clean signal out of the USB.
My advice is to buy used if possible, streamers evolve more than amps & dacs.
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FWIW, auralic aries mini can also be scored for around 200-300 used, it has SPDIF & USB out but you might have USB driver issues with some devices.
Hello,
I have a technical question.
Do such additional cards make sense when listening to music with the PC?
And does one gain something in terms of sound or is the normal port built into the motherboard sufficient?
Does anyone know of any other manufacturers besides J cat or Pink faun?
I was also wondering what would be better in the end - a PC equipped with such a card for the LAN port and Matrix Audio Element H or a streamer that is cleanly constructed.
So a streamer like Raspberry pi 4 or better.
Just asking out of interest and curiosity.
Somehow itās hard for me to choose something when Iām looking for a streamer.
I donāt think Raspberry Pi is bad if you look at the power supply, they seem to run quite well.
Even if there is a lot to some in the diy area, Iām not versed enough to make my own if you would possibly go to a transformer.
That something like this would come out in the end.
I would still be able to solder something together and install it, but measuring and adjusting the current would be rather difficult.
I thought Iād put it in here because it also addresses the basic idea of Pc vs Streamer in a rough way.
Apart from that, it also answers certain technical questions to get to the goal.
Even if it is sometimes a bit self-critical.
3 Likes
Yes butā¦
They wonāt have all the baggage of a motherboard USB connection, or if they take an external power supply, all the noise on the PC power rails, BUT, they are still stuck inside a a big metal box which is spewing RF interference everywhere, and at least part of the card is connected to the PC ground, even if the output is galvanically isolated.
Hard to say to be honest, The element H is in itās own metal box which will help with RF, no idea how the power sections would compare, or and of the rest of it, Iāve never done a comparison, so I donāt think I can comment.
My 2c.
Both are going to be better than nothing.
If you want to use the connected device for gaming, get the card, or an external USB filter.
I think the best solutions are outside the PC case, thatās not to say a Pi would be better that some specific card.
4 Likes
Hello,
And thanks for the feedback,.
Interesting as itās obviously never really been tested before, either metrologically or with the ears.
Regarding the matrix card, I can only say that it was better than without the card, but also had a few disadvantages where the sound seemed a bit cooler than without the card.
The rest was more defined, blacker in the background but the general increase was moderate.
I canāt say if this is due to the Audiophonics power supply, I havenāt tested another one yet.
It got better when the Singxer Su 2 was added 6 months later as a complete package and combination.
The sound was altogether less cool, and the increase somewhat better.
Thatās all I can say about the Matrix.
As for the rest, I agree with you - I almost thought something similar.
Thatās why I was a bit worried about the Pi.
Whereas the Piās arilles ferse is the power supply.
I have seen some devices that are based on this principle.
Unfortunately, depending on what you buy, most of the power supplies are 3-5 times more expensive than the Pi even if itās supposed to be decent.
In the end it will probably be better than a Pc in point Hf Emf ectā¦
But whether it beats the Pc with such upgrades could really be 50:50 or really give a winner.
There are other aspects to streaming in general, Lan cables, power supply for routers, phone sockets etcā¦
I am definitely on a standard level there.
Itās not that easy to find something personal for you if you already have a piece of audio hardware plugged into your PC.
Because you also have an expectation that should be at least the same or better, but rather more in the direction of Phenomenal.
You also notice that despite the market being a bit stagnant, new things are still coming out like a dac with direct lan connection for direct streaming without bells and whistles.
Like Matrix Element I as a rough example.
Even if it is still partially immature.
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