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Pete,

I am not surprised by your findings. Putting a good linear supply on the Pi helps, but I found that just an Intel NUC (albeit with a linear supply) with Daphile sounded significantly better than the Pi on Picoreplayer (both running essentially the same endpoint software, Squeezelite) before I used a custom Atom-based CAPS renderer (also running Squeezelite). This was before I started running Roon.

No rush getting the Pi back to me. It would be gathering dust unless I find another use for it near term. I have a 4G unit sitting idle right now anyway, so please, take your time and play with it if you want.

David

Thanks.

Digital seems to have become a real rabbit hole. The Nucleus comes with a switching wall wart so LPS will probably help somewhat. I should add that when I typed up my impressions, I was listening to the Pi4. Afterwords, I went back to the Nucleus setup again and the improvement was pretty substantial, a bit more than I originally indicated.

Thanks Pete, we've never compared a Nucleus to one of the renderers. I'd like to think since they intended it to be a dedicated audio device, it has some good AC filtering. We have compared a NUC and that faired poorly.

I don't know if there is that much of a difference. The Nucleus is a paired down Nuc (no wifi, fanless, headless, running a stripped down, custom version of ROCK that is different from ROCK software run on generic Nucs etc). But it certainly sounds better than the Pi4 or an audio dedicated MacBook Pro with SSD. I do have a Keces P8 LPS on order to see how that changes things.

[quote="TubeDriver"]Digital seems to have become a real rabbit hole. The Nucleus comes with a switching wall wart so LPS will probably help somewhat. I should add that when I typed up my impressions, I was listening to the Pi4. Afterwords, I went back to the Nucleus setup again and the improvement was pretty substantial, a bit more than I originally indicated.

[quote="Jim G"]

Well, it *can* be if you let it. Visit Audiophilestyle sometime if you want to go down a *real* rabbit hole! Not that there isn't some useful info there, but some folks literally have a dozen costly devices hooked up in a chain to get the "ultimate" digital sound.

Fact is that there are plenty good, fairly clean, not-too-expensive devices out there. It's also a matter of how far your system will let you *hear* these tweaks--if there's really any difference at all. If and when you get a chance to hear Charlie's renderer, that would be worth a listen.

My pal Jim over at Lewes has an Allo USBridge Sig and Shanti PS. He barely uses it--the ethernet/streaming thing is a real challenge for him, and CDs are still his main source. He'd probably let you borrow it for a while. They come into DC fairly often, I could ask when their next trip is--or he could just pop it in the mail to you. I really like mine. For about $400 you might be pleasantly surprised.

Hey Grover, yea I have seen those system descriptions where there is literally 10+ devices all daisy-chained up. I don't care how that sounds, not doing it. When you start throwing 10+ variables into the mix, I don't know how you can really evaluate the contribution of each component?

Thanks for the offer. Maybe mention it to him and if there is a time when he will be in the DC area, I could meet him.

The Allo USBBridge Signature looks pretty interesting, since they designed the mainboard with the I/O with separate regulators and isolation from the RPi compute module. The Shanti PS feeds the mainboard and compute module separately. This is much better than the stock RPi with a common power supply, so naturally should have better audio quality.

One thing I picked up on today is there is a Chinese distro, Silent Angel VitOS, that is reported to be better than other Pi distros as an Roon endpoint. I may try setting that up on my 4GB RPi4.

David

I have to confess my system is beginning to look like that.. Synology NAS -> ROCK on NUC 7i5 -> Intel Atom fanless PC with LPS + JCAT Femto USB3 card + JCAT Femto Ethernet card with dedicated LPSs running Daphile 32-bit Squeezelite as Roon endpoint - > Intona USB2 Isolator -> Chord Qutest. Well it is only 7 devices if you count the two JCAT cards as separate devices. Almost up to 10! Wait, can I count USB cables?

David

Interestingly enough, I saw a post where the reviewer Johnny Darko said a Pi4 running VitOs is about the same as Nucleus! Hard for me to believe but who knows.... I could flash this to your your Pi4 if you decide you like it Dave?