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Allo Boss 2 Configuration and Setup

J A

J A

Active Member
After months of pondering and reading/researching I'm finally moving into the DAC portion of my setup. I purchased an Allo Boss2 last night based on the Audio Science Review video/review. I'm seeing there are a lot of player/software configurations. I don't have a digital music collection so I will likely just be streaming directly from Tidal (unless you guys have a separate recommendation I should look into).

My inquiry is really just looking for what information/guidance you guys can share on the remaining configuration questions indicated above (software, streaming platforms, additional hardware, etc).

In addition to that, I'm assuming I can just go RCA out from the DAC to an available slot on my Pre; is there a preference for which label to input to (ie CD, tape, etc)? Does it handle any of them any differently or are they all treated/managed the same by the pre (NAD Monitor 1700)?

(Not sure the rules on linking outside of the site, otherwise I would have posted a link to the Youtube review I was referencing above)
 
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A couple of random thoughts from my casual research into RPi streamers. The bad news is that support for streaming services generally sucks to various degrees on RPI. Not so good usability, reliability, or both. Then you won't be able to play MQA tracks at their full potential on the Boss 2 by itself, an external MQA-capable DAC will be required to do it properly, if you care. With that you may want to consider Qobuz over Tidal to avoid the MQA business altogether. Volumio supports Qobuz but iirc you need to subscribe to their paid platform in addition to your Qobuz subscription. Have a look at the Bubble UPnP app, it can open additional ways to integrate streaming services with an RPi streamer using their native apps on mobile devices.
 
gvl said:
A couple of random thoughts from my casual research into RPi streamers. The bad news is that support for streaming services generally sucks to various degrees on RPI. Not so good usability, reliability, or both. Then you won't be able to play MQA tracks at their full potential on the Boss 2 by itself, an external MQA-capable DAC will be required to do it properly, if you care. With that you may want to consider Qobuz over Tidal to avoid the MQA business altogether. Volumio supports Qobuz but iirc you need to subscribe to their paid platform in addition to your Qobuz subscription. Have a look at the Bubble UPnP app, it can open additional ways to integrate streaming services with an RPi streamer using their native apps on mobile devices.
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Interesting. I'll have to look into that. With any Pi application it usually just requires a bit of Linux knowledge and a desire to input a minor fix so I'm not super concerned yet. It gets here Friday. Audio Science Review said it was in the top 25-30 of all DACs he's ever tested as far as SINAD which pushed me to go ahead and grab it. Not that I know much about that other than a Google search but he seemed super impressed with it. I can't recall if he outright said it but it was implied it was the only Pi DAC he has recommended.
 
The hardware is solid. The software is not necessary so. If you want to play your local files or use it as a Roon endpoint it's all good. Accessing streaming services directly from an RPi media player means relying on unofficial third party hacks that can talk to the backend servers. Being hacks they can lack certain features that are found in the official apps and should be expected to be less reliable. MQA support is mainly a licensing issue, and perhaps a hardware issue as well as you need enough processing power to decode it, so it's unlikely to work on this streamer in the future. Qobuz OTOH offers hi-res without MQA, which is better anyway as MQA is just a lossy hi-res codec.
 
gvl said:
The hardware is solid. The software is not necessary so. If you want to play your local files or use it as a Roon endpoint it's all good. Accessing streaming services directly from an RPi media player means relying on unofficial third party hacks that can talk to the backend servers. Being hacks they can lack certain features that are found in the official apps and should be expected to be less reliable. MQA support is mainly a licensing issue, and perhaps a hardware issue as well as you need enough processing power to decode it, so it's unlikely to work on this streamer in the future. Qobuz OTOH offers hi-res without MQA, which is better anyway as MQA is just a lossy hi-res codec.
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Thanks for your help on this. Great input. I really only intended on using it as an endpoint DAC solely but given your recommendation perhaps I'll try Qobuz directly from the Pi. I don't have a local library so I will be using it with streaming content exclusively regardless.
 
I think the easiest would be to start with My Volumio free 15 day trial while you're researching other free and not options. I've seen some positive reports using piCorePlayer/LMS/Material Skin for Qobuz. Google it. The Roon way is of course the best but not cheap.
 
zackthedog said:
Moode Audio will let you do Tidal, and it's free, unlike My Volumio.
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Only via UPnP as a renderer, so you need an additional component that can forward Tidal stream to it, e.g. Bubble UPnP. Not that it is a negative, but just for completeness.
 
gvl said:
Only via UPnP as a renderer, so you need an additional component that can forward Tidal stream to it, e.g. Bubble UPnP. Not that it is a negative, but just for completeness.
Click to expand...

You're right, thanks for the correction.
 
I use Free Volumio on a Allo Digi One. No need for pay service.
Listen to web radio.
Spotify.
Pandora, etc. through it.
Have not taken time though to set-up my LMS.
 
Volumio paid now supports Tidal Connect, which in theory allows to use the Tidal native app and play on the RPi which is nice. But yeah, Spotify support is free and Spotify Connect should work as RPi players usually do it with librespot.
 
Update to the start of this thread. I received my Boss2 (a day late). Formatted a card, installed Moode and then used the bubbleupnp and Qobuz and everything is working great. It also sounds pretty great. Just thought I'd followup. Thanks for all your help.
 
Not sure about moode but some Pi streamers support convolution filters for room/speaker correction via BruteFIR, something you may want to explore..
 
I bought the Allo Boss2 and was so pleased I ordered a second one for my office. I use Qobuz so don't have to mess with MQA. I ordered my Boss2 with MoOde and it installed roon bridge to use as a roon endpoint following the instructions on the roon forum. I just googled it and had no issues. Love the Allo Boss2.
 
refacq:

Does the Boss 2 have gapless playback? I have a few more questions but the most important issue for me is the gapless question. Thank you.
 
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