Gentooplayers and Audio Linux

[ajuvignesh]

Have anyone here used gentooplayers or Audio Linux or both?
I want to run Audirvana on these linux distributions.
I run my mindsp shd studio as current streamer and room correction. I can buy an Allo signature player to run gentoo or audiolinux. It can be connected to minidsp studio via coaxials
I don't have a compatible Diretta target to use with these players. I will have diretta later sometime. As far as the streamers go, SoTM is not in the list as the USB implementation on minidsp is crap. Holo red might be an option.
Does, gentooplayer or Audiolinux on Allo signature player + minidsp shd studio can outperform decent streamers or network bridge?

 

[vishalrao]

Tagging @mbhangui

 

[CKumar]

Tagging @mbhangui

Tagging other expert @reignofchaos

 

[reignofchaos]

Tagging other expert @reignofchaos

I don't have much experience with this. I use SOTM which is plug and play.

@ryanrulez4ever has setup this entire stack on a holo red before. He's the right person to ping.

 

[ajuvignesh]

I don't have much experience with this. I use SOTM which is plug and play.

@ryanrulez4ever has setup this entire stack on a holo red before. He's the right person to ping.

Sotm has both host and target in diretta?

 

[reignofchaos]

It has a host driver that works on windows or linux

 

[Kannan]

At present, it is best to get a supported hardware.

 

[ajuvignesh]

At present, it is best to get a supported hardware.

Correct. I was thinking the same.

 

[mbhangui]

Have anyone here used gentooplayers or Audio Linux or both?
I want to run Audirvana on these linux distributions.
I run my mindsp shd studio as current streamer and room correction. I can buy an Allo signature player to run gentoo or audiolinux. It can be connected to minidsp studio via coaxials
I don't have a compatible Diretta target to use with these players. I will have diretta later sometime. As far as the streamers go, SoTM is not in the list as the USB implementation on minidsp is crap. Holo red might be an option.
Does, gentooplayer or Audiolinux on Allo signature player + minidsp shd studio can outperform decent streamers or network bridge?

DISCLAIMER: I don't use any of the above, except that I do use the allo usb signature (without the digione spdif board). But I run my own distribution written in C by me and built on Raspbian Bookworm. All I can say is that with nirvana DS dac it outperforms Denafrips Aries II R2R dac, PI2AES. When using DSD the difference is significant. I have not compared it with any other streamer.

audinirvana will run on allo signature player. However the signature version should be one with rpi4 and not rpi3. If you are familiar with linux you can put down a stripped down version of linux with the processor usage solely optimized for audio. minidsp shd studio runs volumio3 and has a arm processor running linux. Which linux version, I don't know? While the miniDSP SHD Studio contains an ARM processor running Linux for network streaming, miniDSP does not support any additional software installation or custom Linux builds on this processor. This means you can't optimize it. Also because of volumio, it will be running a webserver continuously, just to provide you a gui, and as I have seen by trying out volumio on my allo devices, a small portion of the processing will be eaten up for non-audio purposes. Also as it is with 3rd party software like volumio, dietpi, etc the actual OS that does the hard work will be old and non-upgradeable without bug fixes as time goes.

 

[drkrack]

Have anyone here used gentooplayers or Audio Linux or both?

I have tried both of them on Holo Red Streamer, preferred Audiolinux as it was more noob friendly.
I Have Audiolinux on Nuc as well, which works as Diretta Host. Diretta system is more livelier sounding and faster overall.

 

[ajuvignesh]

DISCLAIMER: I don't use any of the above, except that I do use the allo usb signature (without the digione spdif board). But I run my own distribution written in C by me and built on Raspbian Bookworm. All I can say is that with nirvana DS dac it outperforms Denafrips Aries II R2R dac, PI2AES. When using DSD the difference is significant. I have not compared it with any other streamer.

audinirvana will run on allo signature player. However the signature version should be one with rpi4 and not rpi3. If you are familiar with linux you can put down a stripped down version of linux with the processor usage solely optimized for audio. minidsp shd studio runs volumio3 and has a arm processor running linux. Which linux version, I don't know? While the miniDSP SHD Studio contains an ARM processor running Linux for network streaming, miniDSP does not support any additional software installation or custom Linux builds on this processor. This means you can't optimize it. Also because of volumio, it will be running a webserver continuously, just to provide you a gui, and as I have seen by trying out volumio on my allo devices, a small portion of the processing will be eaten up for non-audio purposes. Also as it is with 3rd party software like volumio, dietpi, etc the actual OS that does the hard work will be old and non-upgradeable without bug fixes as time goes.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Good to know that usb signature player and ds dac sounds better than ares 2. May I ask, which DS dac you’re referring to?
Yes, no custom os or any other version of volumio can be loaded to minidsp shd studio. Hence looking for a better streamer. Can you please tell me how to run audirvana on a allo signature player?

I have tried both of them on Holo Red Streamer, preferred Audiolinux as it was more noob friendly.
I Have Audiolinux on Nuc as well, which works as Diretta Host. Diretta system is more livelier sounding and faster overall.

Thanks Drkrack. Does audiolinux by itself sounds better even without diretta compared to other players?

 

[drkrack]

Thanks Drkrack. Does audiolinux by itself sounds better even without diretta compared to other players?

Yes, to some extent,
There's an option to run Audiolinux whole OS on RAM, which is called RamRoot mode, Where in it sounds as instant and lively as diretta. There's a very marginal difference in that mode and Diretta, my Roon library being huge; I had to upgrade to 32gb ram to make it work without roon server crashing . Nevertheless audiolinux is a great sounding OS from audiophile standpoint.

 

[ajuvignesh]

Thank you so much