The Elac amp is one of the best amps in his class tested by many trade journals and you call it a ‘bad amp’…
We are going our independent way … 
perhaps we come to Hypex or somewhere else…
Hi Judy,
Have you compared Daphile systems with I2S boards anytime?
Regards.
Sanjeev
Hi SanjeevM,
no, i did not.
regards, j.
part I of Soundcheck, yesterday.
First i explained the six guests the advantages of volumio.
in the ‘warm up’ round we had a setup with three amp’s to compare.
(allo said, the announced elac amp would not be great)
so we compared the Marantz PM6003 (used in the souncheck past), the Elac EA101EQ-G and the allo volt + D amp.
We used 3 ELAC FS 78 speaker pairs. The volumio primo provides the signal with a switch and a remote control to the three amps.
We realized very fast, that the elac did not sound as well, as the other. (in a blind check, of course)
The Marantz was more warm. the allo a bit more detailed. The group was 50/50 to decide which one would be best.
I decided to take the allo in the next round, the DAC competition, because we already heard most of the DACs with the marantz…
i’ll come back later on, to write about the DAC round 
stay tuned…
Can some explain me some configuration ?
My friend have Allo Boss 1.2 , Allo Isolator 1.3 and RPi.He wants to know how to connect right ?
He have linear power suply and power bank
… and our winner in best sound quality is : volumio primo !
very closed followed by the allo Katana THD board and DACBerry Pro.
Some of us also said that they would prefer the Katana Board in a certain genre of music, and in others the volumio player…
All of the tested boards were very good. no board disappointed us.
Katana v1.2 with THD stage and Isolator with Dual LPS Thel NT-25HQ-09
Volumio ‘Primo’ (on Tinkerboard S) with shipped psu
DACBerry Pro with one line of NT-25HQ-09 LPS
X400 DAC extension module, 19V IQaudio PSU
DACBerry ONE+ with one line of NT-25HQ-09 LPS
Mamboberry HD DAC+(crystek) & kali with mambopower LPS
Khadas gneric tone board on RPI 3b+ and ifi ipower
IQaudio DAC PRO with 5V allo dual PSU
volumio 2.555 was used in all setups. same playlist as before.
Piano 2.1 with Kali reclocker did not work in dual mono.
I was happy to see the new I2S driver for the DACBerry boards in this volumio version.
The apple pi was gone, because orchadaudio asked for his board to get it back.
Many thanks to allo, michelangelo, collybia and OSA electronics for the great support of the soundcheck.
We used the allo volt+D (Dual) amp, with the 19V from allo dual PSU.
Loudspeaker were the compact ELAC BS 244.3 (they are great)
The pleasure is always the come together and speak about what we are hearing.
When people are talking about " i was falling in the music scene", or “the sounds were frayed” …
thanks for coming!
No comparison between boards? What happened?
I think the most interesting point is
that with different people, different speakers and another amplifier
we still (blind) identify the same boards as best. (primo, katana). The DACBerrys come very closed to them and i’m sure, apple pi would be also great again with this setup.
Thank you so much for your great patience.
Next soundcheck is on june, 13 and everybody is invited the hear together with other the best volumio setups…
I am so proud to have some new devices for you.
Just got the PecanPI streamer - a new, complete player setup from orchardaudio.com! (have attention enthusiasts)
Also i have now the AroioDAC from abacus-electronics.de
collybia is sending me the Mamboberry HD+ v2, and we hopefully get some new stuff from osaelectronics.com (isolator, etc)
01 Katana v1.2 with THD stage and Isolator 1.2
02 Orchard Audio’s PecanPi DAC streamer
03 Volumio ‘Primo’ (on Tinkerboard S)
04 Piano 2.1 with Kali reclocker
05 IQaudio DAC PRO
06 DACBerry PRO
07 DACBerry ONE+
08 Boss 1.2
09 Mamboberry HD DAC+ Crystek v2
10 AroioDac
11 Khadas generic tone board USB DAC
12 X400 DAC extension module
A round to tune in is currently being coordinated with michaelangelo. volumio vs. volumio
stay tuned…
so it’s free. just write an email to linux @ kompage.de to register and getting more information…
You are welcome.
Many thanks to all supporters to make this event happen!
I’m just developing a better questionnaire to get a more detailed statement to publish here.
Soundcheck is an independent and non profit association of HI-FI enthusiasts, gathering together to evaluate with double-blind methodology several Audio equipments. (typically I2S hats for Raspberry PI)
we heard in the past:
DAC:TauDAC-DM101 with TauOUT-TP101, Dial-DAC, HIFI Shield & HIFI Shield2, SabreBerry Z, JustBoom DAC HAT, Terraberry Dac 2, ApplePi, Curryman DAC
PSU: Raspberry, allo 5V3A, allo Dual, ifi Ipower, SBooster, Thel NT-25HQ-09, MamboPower
Reclocker: Kali, ApplePi Reclocker, 3R USB Renaissance, iFi iPurifier2
USB-DAC: iFi nano ione, Elac EA101EQ-G
Hi Jody
Can you tell us what amp you will be using ?
Thank you very much for setting this up. Looking forward to seeing the results.
HI Judy
are you doing the blind testing using Volt + D , Marantz or another amplifier ?
Hi Judy,
There are many filters in the Katana Dac like linear fast/slow, Apodising etc which have their bearing on the sound. Which one will you be using?
i’m using
Katana THD board with Linear phase, fast roll-off Filter enabled.
@allo
it is intended to use NAD C 268 or Marantz PM 8006 (amp direct mode).
regards!
At what setting will you be enabling the fast roll off filter (32/44/48) ?
I will use these settings as well.
Set Deemphasis to ‘Bypass’
(That was the recommendation of allo)
Thanks, Judy.
Thanks, Judy.
Hi Judy
NAD C 286 THD (20 Hz - 20 kHz) : <0,03% (THD+N will be worst)
Marantz PM 8006 has a THD at 0.02 % (same as above)
In both cases Volt+D has less distortion . (at around 130$)
What I am trying to say is : Primo , Pencan Pi and our own Katana are like F1 cars . THD +N on all units are below 0.00035 THD+N (so not only harmonic distortion but noise as well ) or better. (yes that 0.00035)
Visualize the amps your are using equal to a country road (gravel). You are racing F1 cars on gravel . You might learn who has the better suspensions but not who has a better sports car .
I made the same point last time , I observed (from THD data) how bad the Elac AMP was (that apparently had good reviews) . On blind test you found the same as I advised . (Elac amp was sounding bad/distorted ). It has 0.02 THD if I remember correctly… and you switched to Volt+ D
You are using amps that are rather equal to the Elac . None from the list (including our Volt) will allow you to really hear what those DACs can do .
Try using a landline and tell us what violin sounds better from a concert .
Sorry its an exaggeration but I am trying to explain that your testing has a fundamental problem , but I think , you might not be interested in hearing it.
allo, thank’s again for your efforts that we should use an amplifier that can map the full potential of the ‘F1 DAC board’ class.
Please see my efforts to present great sound quality at an affordable price to my listeners.
We had your 130$ amplifier last soundcheck and the independent listeners did find out in the blind test the so-called F1 boards.
But we did find out the F1 also when using the Marantz, for example!
And sorry for clarify that, but your amplifier was not perceived as better as Marantz, rather worse.
And as i told you, approx. over 95% of the amps sold to musican does have a THD of 0,02% and worse.
There is no point in having an amplifier with a low THD value that you do not want to hear.
Anyway, i’am still looking for the best affordable amp. Any suggestions?
Love, judy