Before I purchase the Rivo, I would like to check something first.
I use a Geek Pulse fi DAC. At the moment it is being fed by a Squeezebox Touch via USB, whichs allows 24/192 PCM and DSD64.
I wish to upgrade to the Rivo, but am concerned about possible compatibility issues. The reason I am concerned is because I know my Geek Pulse fi DAC is not compatible with a Raspberry Pi via USB (tried various OS, but apparently it lacks the necessary driver). And I understand that the Rivo (like the RPi) is Linux based?
So, should I assume that the Geek Pulse fi DAC will also not work with the Rivo via USB?
The DAC is a class 2.0 compliant audio device, which means that it should be compatible with linux machines.
However, whether it will support DSD depends on the vendor and product id of its usb interface. You could try and connect it to a windows pc and find vendor id (VID) and product id (PID) using the windows device manager.
Report back here and we can tell you more.
Thanks—but the RPi is a “Linux machine” and I already know the DAC is not compatible with that. Before I do this test, are you saying that even though it plays DSD fine from a Squeezebox Touch it may not accept DSD from the Rivo, but be otherwise compatible?
It should, I can’t guarantee as I don’t owe one.
But, when you have a laptop or a windows machine, why not flash an x86 volumio version to a usb stick and boot from it? That will show you whether the DAC works with linux or not. When it works, it will work with a Rivo as well.
When people say, the DAC is not compatible with a Raspberry PI, they might be referring to its DSD capabilities. You can check the vendor/product details with the linux pc version by using command “lsusb” and share the results here.
It’s not that “people say” my DAC is not compatible with the RPi, it was me who went through days of troubleshooting with online technical support and established it is not compatible as the appropriate drivers were not in place. That’s why I was wondering if the same issue would apply to the Linux-based Rivo as well. But I’ll try your suggestion later after work, many thanks
I would do the test as suggested by Gé, but if it did not work with the PI, it won’t probably work with this method.
In any case, I see that this DAC has also AES-EBU and Coaxial SPDIF inputs, so you could use these inputs with the Rivo (AES-EBU will be the preferred one).