The Volumio Motivo Co-creation Thread

Volumio Community Forums News and Announcements
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Dear Folks,
as you know, as Volumio team we are now working on our most ambitious project yet: Motivo.

Motivo is, in our intentions, the most technologically advanced, beautiful and usable Audiophile Streamer. If you havent’ had the chance yet, hurry to this thread to understand all motivations and design concepts: https://volumio.org/epic-journey-called-volumio-motivo/

Yet, the best thing about Motivo is that we want YOU to join the last part of its development. Of course, we already have clear ideas on the final designs and specifications, but there are some areas in where we would like to involve our beloved community, to truly deliver something meaningful to all of you.

So, we started a dedicated mailing list (you can subscribe from the thread linked above) and we are gathering precious insights from everyone participating.

First: many thanks to all of you who took some time to participate, we were blown away by the amount of replies and useful feedbacks received.

We decided to share the outcomes in this dedicated thread, to foster even more interesting debates and conversations, and to keep everyone posted.

PHASE 1: Let’s get to know each other and understand our relationship with Hi-Fi

This was an initial survey, meant to get useful feedback about your relationship with Hi-Fi and what you consider important in a streamer. Some very interesting insights emerged, here is the summary of what we understood from you.

  1. Audio Engineering Superiority definitely emerged as the most important aspect for Motivo with 40% of votes. Price / Quality ratio is second with 20% of votes and Features, Integrations and User Friendliness have 10% of votes each. In the next weeks we are going to prepare a complete product page of Motivo where we will share with you all the engineering components, audio features and product details. We will leave many options open and we plan on doing a second survey fully dedicated to the tech aspects of the product. That’s where we will really talk about the core of the product. Stay tuned for that.

  2. We will back it up with independent reviews. Many of you named Darko Audio, Hans Beekuyzen, Stereophile and many other reviewers and magazines as the top personalities in the HI-FI scene. We recognize that you really appreciate a 3rd party, independent review before purchasing an important product and, for this reason we are contacting them to organize in depth product reviews to let you make a well-informed decision and provide the confirmation that you are buying a truly amazing product.

  3. There’s going to be a super meet-up in Milan at the beginning of September. This is going to be the first Volumio Live event. It will be focused on Motivo and everyone will have the possibility to try it and discuss it directly with the Volumio team, the community and many industry experts that will participate to the event. And of course, you can expect a lot of free food and music.

  4. We are working to let you the possibility to buy it on Amazon. We understand that for many of you it is much easier to buy stuff on Amazon. It simply has the best service in the world and for almost 30% of you is also the ideal place to purchase Volumio Motivo. If possible and if in line with our distribution partners strategy we will contact Amazon soon to have our hardware products listed in as many countries as we can so that you can comfortably purchase Motivo.

  5. There’s going to be an in-depth Q&A session. This has been one of the most requested activities in the survey and we are definitely going to organize a live Q&A (online) where everyone of you can ask questions and leave comments to the Volumio Team.

If you want to have a look at the survey results:
docs.google.com/forms/d/1RANr-s … wanalytics

We opened this thread for you to freely leave your opinion to the rest of the community. This is what community means for us. Feel free to enter and leave you thoughts on everything related to Motivo!

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Touch panel is MUST for everyone here ?

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Should have brutefir (or similar) capabilities; the DACs available now can very plausibly recreate the intended sounds but the results in anything but a recording studio fall down far too often.

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If it has a display then yes. Browsing through the library without touchscreen wouldn’t be something you call exiting.

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I am hoping the Motivo comes in two versions: one with built in DAC and one without. This way I can make a more economical choice if I already have a DAC and just want a replacement for my SBC running Volumio.

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From when will it be for sale and how much will it cost? :unamused:

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Great design and adding a touch of red to make it stand out.

The Hifi music server, for some audio freaks like myself it need to be almost like a center piece of your audio equipment. Like a work of art.

Only thing from my experience, is life span, handling huge library’s. Is there thoughts of like pro version, with a heavy duty x86 or high end arm processor and 11 inch screen. I know the software can handle 80k songs, x86 version so far is only thing that don’t choke when browsing.

Depends on your audio setup, you may need a stand to prop it up to achieve 45 degrees, and maybe a cover on the back to hide the wires if it’s propped up.

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I don’t understand the need for a touchscreen, if it’s sitting in a cabinet/rack with my other audio equipment. I use the phone/tablet app or a browser on my laptop/computer to control Volumio currently. I like the fact that it is headless and isn’t running a display.

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Its all about what you like, It’s a nice extra feature, walk over and pick a playlist, change a song. I have used touch screen systems, non touch screen systems, wall mounted ipad controlling volumio, used my phone and laptop. Key feature is viewing angle.

Volumio Ipad Mounted for my buddy

My first volumio project, i used till my library overloaded raspberry pi 3b+

Next Version, i started to design haven’t got back too

Nativ Vita had the right idea, but a under powered piece of junk

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My preference is a touch screen interface, so Volumio Motivo is a great idea

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To have this option would be also interesting for all who use active speakers with integrated DAC (e.g. https://www.nubert.de/nupro-x-8000-rc/p3352/).

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Dear development team,
Did you know that there is a software-house in the Netherlands called MOTIVO B.V. Somwhere near Zwolle. See their website motivo.nl.

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I’ve Nubert NuPro X 4000 RC active speakers myself. What option are you speaking about?

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Hi Hagen,
I rever to MatLum’s message:
“I am hoping the Motivo comes in two versions: one with built in DAC and one without. This way I can make a more economical choice if I already have a DAC and just want a replacement for my SBC running Volumio.”

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Thanks Axel,

I thought so. My inquiry was just about clarification. I’m absolutely with you, my Primo DAC section unfortunately doesn’t make sense in my setup cause of the integrated DAC in the NuPros. Also the Primo should be offered as a streamer-only option. This way you also are able to upgrade your streamer by adding an up-to-date DAC unit in the future. I guess this option would make the Volumio streamers much more interesting for a lot of potential customers.

EDIT: I think Volumio should integrate WLAN 6 in all of their new streamers. Next year it will be the standard for all new devices at the market.

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Motivo, at least initially, will come only in one version: with the integrated DAC + SPDIF + USB.
The reason is that the whole motivo concept pivots around this new technology we are fitting inside, which provide the best result possible in conjunction with the integrated DAC.

However, we have one more product coming up which won’t have an integrated DAC and fits the exactly the purpose that you describe :wink:

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And please - a power button!

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We heard you guys on that. All our next products will have a power button

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@Hagen,
btw how do you like your NuPro X 4000 RC? Especially can you say something about the integrated DAC?
(Because this is not the topic here you can answer direct to axel.endriss@gmx.de)

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Can the FPGA code be updated via firmware updates? It should at least.