Allo Piano Dac 2.1

Audio Gear DACs
1

Hi,
Before going towards Allo Piano 2.1, I’d like to know the limitation (HW&SW) with Volumio and compatibility of below package.

My HW package shoud be RPI 2 + Allo piano Dac 2.1 + Relay attenuator + I2S Allo Isolator + Kali reclocker. Does this configuration works and does it works with Volumio and what shoud be the limitations?

  1. Is the I2S Allo Isolator compatible with this DAC and Relay and does it worth the buying in term of greater sound quality?
  2. Is the Kali reclocker compatible with this Dac, this Isolator board and this relay attenuator board and does it worth the buying in term of greater sound quality?
  3. Is Volumio able to manage attenuator on both output in case of 2.2 subwoofer use?

Many thanks for your answers.

2

@luckygipi

  1. The Isolator is compatible and in my opinion it makes a marginal improvement.
  2. The Kali is compatible and I think it makes a noticeable improvement and is worth getting.
  3. The attenuator will not work in combination with a sub. You have hardware volume control in Volumio with this DAC anyway, so you don’t really need it.
3

Thank you Jonners for this answer. I have additionnal questions: I saw you own a Terra-Berry DAC2 for feeding a biamplify system to your OB, how did you make the separation of your signal to feed the both channel, do you have active DSP filters or passive filter in your speakers? I want also to make DIY OB with 15" Faital and Tannoy Little Red Monitor 12" coaxial speaker with Hypex 180 for 15" and Valve amplifier PP EL34 for 12" coax (with its own passive filter) and was planning to use piano DAC in 2.2 mode and make a first filtering at DAC/DSP level. is there any point I have to warn with this DAC for such use?

  1. The Isolator is compatible and in my opinion it makes a marginal improvement. OK, more money for speakers :smiley:
  2. The Kali is compatible and I think it makes a noticeable improvement and is worth getting. OK, the clocks make the difference
  3. The attenuator will not work in combination with a sub. You have hardware volume control in Volumio with this DAC anyway, so you don’t really need it. OK, I have Volumio with other DAC and I’m using the SW volume control. With a Piano 2.2 mode use, is Volumio managing the HW volume control separately on both channels? Do you know the filter type and order that is used in this DAC? I understood that the filter is described by a file that need to be load in the Volumio directory, do you have more details on this point? Thank you
4

My OB’s are bi-amped with passive filters. I split the output from the DAC and take the output for the bass through a preamp.
I’ts not possible to manage the hardware volume separately on the channels in Volumio.
The filters, I think, are Butterworth 2nd order. I never got very good results using them on my Piano 2.1. You set the sub mode and the crossover frequency in the Volumio configs. You can configure your own filters if you have the knowledge, but I don’t. Some of the diyAudio members have been doing it.
If you have any money to spare it’s good to have separate power supplies for the RPi and Kali/Piano 2.1.

5

How did you split the signal?
What a pity for the volume control. If we could enter an offset level between the both channel, the Volumio HW control common to both channels becomes OK. I don’t know if the DAC chipset includes this feature.

Thank you for your point of view on Filtering, I will search in the filtering configuration direction. Good to know concerning the separate but additionnal power supply.

6

[quote=“luckygipi”]
How did you split the signal?

Simply with RCA adapters: one input, two outputs in parallel.