Yeah, that's what makes this even more frustrating.... The datasheet numbers are good. The real word numbers and measurements are good. But I know when I'm listening to PCM5xxx..... It has a "signature" for me, in the same was as some people find the ESS silicon has a "brand" signature. (Typically that it is more hi-fi than musical, that's comes up quite often.) Anyway, if you like PCM5xxx series, more power to you..... One mans junk is anothers treasure! 
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I am thinking about using rpi3/kali with dddac (is2). Any suggestions on the setup would be appreciated (is it rpi3/kali/hifiberry digi+ ? Or is there a better way).
Verified... it does work on piCorePlayer 3.02
related:
Allo KALI Reclocker & Raspberry Pi DACs running as Slave or Master?
I wonder how much of the PCM5xxx sound is that of middling power supplies.
My main personal experience with that line started with the stock HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro which showed some promise, but clearly needed help. After 4 major mods (separate 5v to the DAC output side, separate 3.3v to the DAC digital and clocks, PPS film caps replacing many of the on-board ceramics, and Soundchecks special sauce configuration tweaks) it was sounding very good and getting to the same realm as my best setups.
Last weekend I swapped in a couple of Uptone Audio LPS-1 supplies to replace the 2 good DIY linears feeding the 5v & 3.3v regs and it went up to the stunning level. Nope, it didn't replace my Soekris DACs at the top of my heap. OTOH, without having done the head-to-head, I would say it has jumped at least even with and possibly ahead of my hyper-modified Sony HAP Z1-ES. At least when I come downstairs from listening to the super-mod HFBD+P I can clearly hear I'm missing details and naturalness I heard upstairs. Of course the systems and rooms are not the same and I have to schlep the HAPZ upstairs to really find out.
But getting this performance out of the HFBD+P board took a lot of work and expensive add-ons, with the addition of one of OPC's dual-rail parallel LT3042 power supply boards for the 5v & 3.3v AND a very high-test raw DC feed AND the circuit part mods... all together if someone was to sell the combo with the other board part mods, it would surely top $1000 USD. So I am not surprised how good it sounds.
I have spent a little time with a Piano on top of a Kali (with little effort to try and get the best sound out of it via power feed optimation and configuration) and I am reminded of the stock HFBD+P sound. The stock Piano is better than I remember the HFBD+P with separate 5v power to be, but well behind the super-mod'd version.
Tonally, ALL of the BB/TI PCM DAC setups I have (modified S47 w/PCM1752, modified Sony HAP Z1-ES w/dual PCM795, and the HFBD+P and Allo Piano with PCM5122) all tend around neutral to dull-ish. Only with really excellent power supply setups do I get good inner detail and treble delineation. And as the 384 patch makes its way into the distros, I am hopeful that I can upsample to 384 and bypass the on-chip filters of the HFBD+P for even more improvement. Oh, and configure it to work with the Kali which I am hopeful will push it up a bit more.
The ESS DAC setups I've had and have (Buffalo32, EUVL ES9022, Mamboberry) push the bright-ish side and to my ear sound more 'exciting' but can get tiring and fatiguing. I hear some of that in the Mamboberry and hope I can move it towards neutral with some mods and in sync mode. My comparisons of the Mamboberry against the stock and mods-in-process HFBD+P show the benefits of the much more sophisticated on-board power supplies of the stock Mamboberry versus the stock HFBD+P. I'm hoping to enhance those benefits AND not lose its strengths while moving it more to a neutral balance.
Honestly, if all I heard was the stock HFBD+P and to a lesser extent the Piano (without any effort spent optimizing it), I'd not be impressed with the 'sound' of the PCM5122 either.
Greg in Mississippi
P.S. I have an IQAudio DAC here too, I keep thinking I should fit a 3.3 reg to it so I can try it with the Kali, but find myself having a hard time getting excited about doing anything but selling it off.
My main personal experience with that line started with the stock HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro which showed some promise, but clearly needed help. After 4 major mods (separate 5v to the DAC output side, separate 3.3v to the DAC digital and clocks, PPS film caps replacing many of the on-board ceramics, and Soundchecks special sauce configuration tweaks) it was sounding very good and getting to the same realm as my best setups.
Last weekend I swapped in a couple of Uptone Audio LPS-1 supplies to replace the 2 good DIY linears feeding the 5v & 3.3v regs and it went up to the stunning level. Nope, it didn't replace my Soekris DACs at the top of my heap. OTOH, without having done the head-to-head, I would say it has jumped at least even with and possibly ahead of my hyper-modified Sony HAP Z1-ES. At least when I come downstairs from listening to the super-mod HFBD+P I can clearly hear I'm missing details and naturalness I heard upstairs. Of course the systems and rooms are not the same and I have to schlep the HAPZ upstairs to really find out.
But getting this performance out of the HFBD+P board took a lot of work and expensive add-ons, with the addition of one of OPC's dual-rail parallel LT3042 power supply boards for the 5v & 3.3v AND a very high-test raw DC feed AND the circuit part mods... all together if someone was to sell the combo with the other board part mods, it would surely top $1000 USD. So I am not surprised how good it sounds.
I have spent a little time with a Piano on top of a Kali (with little effort to try and get the best sound out of it via power feed optimation and configuration) and I am reminded of the stock HFBD+P sound. The stock Piano is better than I remember the HFBD+P with separate 5v power to be, but well behind the super-mod'd version.
Tonally, ALL of the BB/TI PCM DAC setups I have (modified S47 w/PCM1752, modified Sony HAP Z1-ES w/dual PCM795, and the HFBD+P and Allo Piano with PCM5122) all tend around neutral to dull-ish. Only with really excellent power supply setups do I get good inner detail and treble delineation. And as the 384 patch makes its way into the distros, I am hopeful that I can upsample to 384 and bypass the on-chip filters of the HFBD+P for even more improvement. Oh, and configure it to work with the Kali which I am hopeful will push it up a bit more.
The ESS DAC setups I've had and have (Buffalo32, EUVL ES9022, Mamboberry) push the bright-ish side and to my ear sound more 'exciting' but can get tiring and fatiguing. I hear some of that in the Mamboberry and hope I can move it towards neutral with some mods and in sync mode. My comparisons of the Mamboberry against the stock and mods-in-process HFBD+P show the benefits of the much more sophisticated on-board power supplies of the stock Mamboberry versus the stock HFBD+P. I'm hoping to enhance those benefits AND not lose its strengths while moving it more to a neutral balance.
Honestly, if all I heard was the stock HFBD+P and to a lesser extent the Piano (without any effort spent optimizing it), I'd not be impressed with the 'sound' of the PCM5122 either.
Greg in Mississippi
P.S. I have an IQAudio DAC here too, I keep thinking I should fit a 3.3 reg to it so I can try it with the Kali, but find myself having a hard time getting excited about doing anything but selling it off.
I don't think you need hifiberry. Setup would be pi3 -> kali -> dddac. Will receive kali soon and test it with dddac. Will give feedback if it is worth it.
I'm running RPI+Kali+DDDAC and it's working fine with Moode player and basic raspberry driver selected. I don't even have to use resampling 16->24bit anymore with red book material. According to my experiences, the sound does improve by using Kali compared to my earlier Hifiberry DAC+pro reclocker. Seems like the sound is more analog and the backround is deeper black than earlier. I know I'm bad describing the sound...
Kali is a very nice device and it enhances sound quality big time but....
How on earth can I encase these boards ? is there someone who has thought about that ? I don't feel for some stacked PCBs glued on a piece of wood staying as an "audio device" in my system...
It would be so much nicer if RPI, Hats or whatever they are called would have all connections at one side. Why do it like it is now with connectors at more or even all sides ?
* When looking at complexity of boards it shouldn't be too hard too make an SBC with reclocker and DAC onboard and all connectors at the backside.... the "Audio SBC" or does it already exist ? The use of a generic SBC only makes matters more complicated with unnecessary onboard cheap DAC, HDMI, much IO ports etc. It may offer "possibilities" but wouldn't it be more efficient and better for audio to make it a dedicated device that has "possibilities" regarding its main job which is processing audio ?
Seriously my Olive One is so much more. it is user friendly and it looks nice too. No connector te be seen at the front. Switch it on and use it, must be for different users ?!
How on earth can I encase these boards ? is there someone who has thought about that ? I don't feel for some stacked PCBs glued on a piece of wood staying as an "audio device" in my system...
It would be so much nicer if RPI, Hats or whatever they are called would have all connections at one side. Why do it like it is now with connectors at more or even all sides ?
* When looking at complexity of boards it shouldn't be too hard too make an SBC with reclocker and DAC onboard and all connectors at the backside.... the "Audio SBC" or does it already exist ?
The use of a generic SBC only makes matters more complicated with unnecessary onboard cheap DAC, HDMI, much IO ports etc. It may offer "possibilities" but wouldn't it be more efficient and better for audio to make it a dedicated device that has "possibilities" regarding its main job which is processing audio ? Seriously my Olive One is so much more. it is user friendly and it looks nice too. No connector te be seen at the front. Switch it on and use it, must be for different users ?!
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I agree with Greg . PCM , ESS AKM , SQ on them depends heavily on the components that surround the dac ic and PSU quality. Thats the most important factor.
I also agree there is a certain "signature" to the DAC Ics , but clearly at 50$ (or less) customers get a pretty good DAC that would have costed many times more.. just look at reclocking technology .Any hardware with reclocking was 1000Eur ++ just a few years back. Compare a RPI + reclocker + DAC to a Sonos system , they are not even close.
In the end , I think that a lot of you guys are at the forefront of a digital revolution in music , a sort of HIFI revolution where those stratospheric prices are coming down fast , where closed systems are changing to opensource and a whole MP3 generation is starting to taste what real music is all about.
I also agree there is a certain "signature" to the DAC Ics , but clearly at 50$ (or less) customers get a pretty good DAC that would have costed many times more.. just look at reclocking technology .Any hardware with reclocking was 1000Eur ++ just a few years back. Compare a RPI + reclocker + DAC to a Sonos system , they are not even close.
In the end , I think that a lot of you guys are at the forefront of a digital revolution in music , a sort of HIFI revolution where those stratospheric prices are coming down fast , where closed systems are changing to opensource and a whole MP3 generation is starting to taste what real music is all about.
A small update on TI
Over the weekend we received an email from legal dept of TI basically saying that those files (dsp flows) are to be used with OEMs customers. ( good news)
For the bad news... they did not tell us "under what license"...so yet again we are on the phones and emails with them
Over the weekend we received an email from legal dept of TI basically saying that those files (dsp flows) are to be used with OEMs customers. ( good news)
For the bad news... they did not tell us "under what license"...so yet again we are on the phones and emails with them
I have not compared them, but just a informed guess... Given equivalent clocks, I would expect the BBB-Cronos-Hermes setup to be a bit better both due to the isolation AND that the isolation in that string is placed very close to the end of the reclocking process, doing a better job of keeping as much noise as possible out of the downstream units.
While an isolator board is promised by Allo AND Ian Canada is soon to make one available too, their best setup will be with the isolator board ahead of the Kali, meaning that all of the Kali's noise contribution will come after the isolators. Not ideal. OTOH, the bang for the buck is un-equaled AND there are a lot more software options available in the R-Pi universe (Meiro's efforts notwithstanding, he does a GREAT job with the BBB Audio SW world).
My 2 cents.
Greg in Mississippi
While an isolator board is promised by Allo AND Ian Canada is soon to make one available too, their best setup will be with the isolator board ahead of the Kali, meaning that all of the Kali's noise contribution will come after the isolators. Not ideal. OTOH, the bang for the buck is un-equaled AND there are a lot more software options available in the R-Pi universe (Meiro's efforts notwithstanding, he does a GREAT job with the BBB Audio SW world).
My 2 cents.
Greg in Mississippi
I don't want to put anyone hardware down... Cronos is a well designed device..however..
If you have 2 time domains and no buffer its guaranteed that some DATA will be shifted .
If you have 2 time domains and no buffer its guaranteed that some DATA will be shifted .
That's why Cronos is designed to be the clock master, and the player need to be slaved to this clock.
Only one time domain.
It's just a different use case.
And both devices are great for what they are designed for
I misunderstood how Cronos works, yeah if its a master no such problem
That's why Cronos is designed to be the clock master, and the player need to be slaved to this clock.
Only one time domain.
It's just a different use case.
And both devices are great for what they are designed for
Hi Greg,
That makes sense. And as you also note the rpi is more flexible than bbb due to the big community.
I am currently using both bbb-cronos-hermes and rpi (formerly with acko reclocker but this one broke down) rpi is nice for spotify and airplay for the kids while bbb is for my serious listening sessions.
Both are connected to a moded dddac.
I just bought the new rpi rev.3 and will use a new reclocker for this unit.
How does the allo compaire with acko board?
That makes sense. And as you also note the rpi is more flexible than bbb due to the big community.
I am currently using both bbb-cronos-hermes and rpi (formerly with acko reclocker but this one broke down) rpi is nice for spotify and airplay for the kids while bbb is for my serious listening sessions.
Both are connected to a moded dddac.
I just bought the new rpi rev.3 and will use a new reclocker for this unit.
How does the allo compaire with acko board?
Thank you for your replay. I am looking forward to the feedback and details as to how you did it.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey Supersurfer!
I wish I knew how they compare, I have two projects ALMOST done, one with an Ian FIFO setup to be fed via R-Pi and the other with an Acko S03 to be fed via a BBB and they've been ALMOST done for the last 6 months or so while I've played around with either making lesser setups sound great (like my modified HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro and recently modified Mamboberry on a Kali) or my other alternative setups (a couple of Soekris DAM 1021 setups).
I think I reached the point of diminishing returns on the lesser setups (except for trying the HFBD+P in slave mode on a Kali), so I'll get back to my ALMOST done projects (and continuing to modify my DAM DACs) soon.
Greg in Mississippi
Have received kali today. Was directly working with setup odroid -> kali > dddac. Is it worth it? YES !!!! I have not had much time for serious listening but first impression is great. Have modded my dddac with many tweaks but this is one of best mods. Better stage, more natural sound, black background. Will give more feedback after serious listening.