My VTA ST-120 is on the way .....and other loose ramblings of an old fart

Roy wrote:Couldnt get the Allo Boss then or  other reason why you thing the berry will do better from eying the boards?

Hmmmmm .....working on that now   ...was trying to order from Amazon USA and the Boss was not coming up for some reason, only from UK.
But I see it comes up now and only a couple bucks more. Trying to Cancel the Berry and order the boss.

Yup success again! ....order changed. But will have to order a case elsewhere or make one.

2TB Hitachi USB External HD Hooked right up to the Rpi no issues

Boss sells its own case but  there are a few ready made ones out there - the best one I found  ( most sturdy ) is this one https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/cases-183/raspberry-pi-b-plus2-and-3-cases-1122/cases-for-hats-and-boards-1133/allo-boss-dac-case-black   https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/cases-183/raspberry-pi-b-plus2-and-3-cases-1122/cases-for-hats-and-boards-1133/allo-boss-dac-case-clear  

nice fat standoffs and thumbscrews hold things together - not very good looking lol but its just something to keep the dust off  and it wont fall apart anytime soon

The Boss should be audibly better yes.. Nice fat cap for its output stage on the bottom of the board, very discrete circuitry, and its own darn accurate clock for less jitter - not as good a clock as the addon Allo Kali board but meh..

Speaking of standoffs - when I ordered my Allo Boss from a local vendor the two standoffs for in between the rpi3 and the allo boss hat board opposite side of the gpio connector were not included.. when I ordered that allo boss case those standoffs came included with it! when I mailed the allo boss dac board vendor before I got that boss case they sent me the standoffs and mentioned it was not standard with the allo boss dac board but sent it to me anyways its not uber critical not to have them if they are in a good fitting case with the cinch connectors poking through tight holes but there is some motion without those standoffs..

I am actually going to get a GPIO extender ribbon cable so I can put the boss dac néxt to the main board and flipped over 90°  so I can mount a nice non conductive ceramic heatsink on the rpi cpu https://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/raspberrypi_projects/blog/2016/03/03/raspberry-pi-3-cooling-heat-sink-ideas and mount the whole thing in a nice wooden box so the audio IO cables are actually in the rear where they should be  and the rpi's cpu and that heatsink are clear so I can put a silent wings 120mm fan in that case running at 5v or so  for ultra quiet runnings..   All that effort mostly for one thing     to run more emulation games without that chip getting hot lol   ánd being able to play back x265 encoded media   which even the rpi3 does not take kindly to without running into thermal throttling...

Yup, I saw that case, but decided I will machine my own. Order for the Boss confirmed, In the interim, I'm using the Rpi audio output ....not great but decent

Be sure to either make the through holes for those cinch sockets of the boss line up nice and tight or find some fitting standoffs - there really is too much play without =( That gpio socket is pretty well connected - unlike the hdmi connector - but the amount of play is such that with some bad luck you could if jostling the pi and boss a bit too much that hat board will touch something on the pi board it should not =S

Should've mentioned, iPeng, while not fully cross-platform, will run on Samsung gadgetry as well -- or so I'm told.
I don't want to have a laptop either on my lap or next to any audio gear while I'm ripping or playing music. So I control the actual ripping with the desktop in the den, which contacts Innuos via our LAN, (which AudioBill helped set up about a year ago to capture Tidal). Then when I'm in the mood to listen and the toobs are lit, I control playback with an iPhone or iPad via iPeng - also through the LAN. These are merely controls and not in the way of the signal path.
Someday, if I live long enough, there will be a way to rip from an HD streaming service, but not in the foreseeable future. Likely some teenager has hacked it, but is keeping it to himself  

rofl https://torrentfreak.com/tidal-downloads-made-by-possible-by-teenage-coder-160830/ you nailed it deepee

Thanks for this advice guys!   ...I'm happy as punch with this rig!    
My laptop and desktop are both ripping away!

Roy wrote:rofl https://torrentfreak.com/tidal-downloads-made-by-possible-by-teenage-coder-160830/ you nailed it deepee

Roy, thanks for this.
Sounds like a good project for an otherwise boring weekend.
Tidal and Spotify ain't going to like this. I guess from the command-line language he's in Windows. I didn't know they still even have a terminal mode. I'm a Linux guy. Go for the code

the direction things are going in now it amounts to usury in my book..

watch this for a laugh ^^

Roy wrote:the direction things are going in now it amounts to usury in my book..

watch this for a laugh ^^

And I was having such a nice Sunday . . .

Roy wrote:rofl https://torrentfreak.com/tidal-downloads-made-by-possible-by-teenage-coder-160830/ you nailed it deepee

Very interesting!  ....later today I will try to wrap my little old-fart hardware brain around this software development!
Right now, I'm going flying!
https://youtu.be/IX2HslHAn64

https://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-linux-bash-shell-on-windows-10/
If you can't beat em, join em...

Reworked the Rpi system this morning   .....gone from Rune Audio to Volumio    .....I much prefer the Volumio so much smoother and user friendly

http://moodeaudio.org/ going to try this one tomorrow

 looks slick

Looks good. My Allo Boss will be here on Friday, but so far I'm very impressed with the Rpi and Volumio.
KT-88s will be here tomorrow so the tube-rolling begins. I've got about 100hrs on these 6550s now.

Roy wrote:http://moodeaudio.org/ going to try this one tomorrow

 looks slick

Looks a whole lot like the Innuos desktop interface.

Debating weather to go with a single switching 5V 2A supply, dual switching 5V 2A or build a pair of 5V 3A Regulated Linear supplies for the Rpi /Allo Boss    ....comments invited
Hans Beekhuyzen seems to be die-hard about using dual, linear supplies in this application, but then again, Hans is an extreme dude!

What I had to listen to from a couple gentleman who had dealings with him  - they put very little stock in his engineering and audio insights and  think he is an overblown  something or other lol..  but yeah   you got that option w the Boss ^^

oh nice

pity still no mounting holes for heatsink but very nice added wifi capability etc =]

One thing that bothers mé about Hans – for example the video on the Boss 1.2 – is he goes on about how he does not want to scare people off with incomprehensible measurements, then he shows basic S/N measurements of the Boss dac on a switching vs lineair psu showing minute difference in the noisefloor and mentions ‘its very little but it is probably causing other irregularities too’
but then does not show these 'other irregulaties measured'... and that seems to be the way he usually goes about things.

Roy wrote:One thing that bothers mé about Hans – for example the video on the Boss 1.2 – is   he goes on about   how  he does not want to   scare people off with incomprehensible measurements, then he shows basic S/N measurements of the Boss dac on a switching vs lineair psu showing minute difference in the noisefloor and mentions  ‘its very little but it is probably causing other irregularities too’
but then   does not show these 'other irregulaties measured'... and that seems to be the way he usually goes about things.

.....yup, a bit "wishy-washy"  at best!.
I will first power both with the same 5V 2A power supply which I have (I believe the boss only presents like 500mA additional load). then I will try switching to two of the same power supplies to determine if I can hear any difference. BEFORE even thinking about building dual linear power supplies. On my system presently, the direct output from the Rpi is quite decent indeed. Ordered a case for the Rpi/Boss from a UK outfit and it shipped today, I fgure maybe two weeks before I see it, so my cardboard box prototype will have to do for a while    .....it is very impressive nonetheless!

I love it.. The only thing my wife does not like so much is since we moved to this house I have not put in shelving or anything to store records and cd's in the livingroom - most of our cd's I got on a harddisk anyways, lots of stuff we got on vinyl ánd cd, and the ease of skipping and picking stuff off the drive is such that the 'album' thing is sort of lost you know - the physicality of it.
Played round with the idea to just buy a bucketload of dirt cheap SD cards and put stuff on them alphabetically lol Just for the flip through - ponder - choose and stick with it experience XD

https://www.usbmakers.com/audio-cassette-usb-flash-drive/
ha =]

Roy wrote:https://www.usbmakers.com/audio-cassette-usb-flash-drive/
ha =]

Hahahaha!   ....I really don't want to be reminded of cassette and 8-track days!
....Maybe I'll get just one for giggles!

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/allo-boss-v1-2-info/33562/17 check out the posts by one of the Allo crew



Not so   pretty imo  but very tidy  and apparently somesort of tie in to the cpu package to conduct heat into the case which then acts as a heatsink
Not out yet - possibly  they knew about the rpi3 b+ changes to the cpu packages with that extra metal lid on it which would need to be accounted for in this case..
Wonder how they  manage to do it with the Boss hat board on top.. heatpipe maybe. Or as that case looks like it is in three layers, possibly the middle has an arm reaching out to touch the cpu

FLIRC case has it easy - just an extrusion down onto the cpu..