Modi Multibit: Multibit for the masses.

Sorry, I meant that in general, see what you mean now -- they do have forums etc...

 

I am in the same boat brutha...
I really want bigger, better, faster but my wife and kids gotta eat too
I don't think Psalm means anything negative, he is just squarely focused on audio.
Maybe we middle-aged dudes with kids and mortgages and stuff should start our own thread to bitch and complain.
After reading multiple threads, I get what Torq and Psalm are saying to us ModiB owners...instead of throwing more money at this great little DAC, just save up and move up to a more resolving DAC in whatever flavor you desire. The only way to get up the audiophile mountain is with moar money not more tweaks.

 

All three of the popular full-fat Pi audio distros do that, it's not peculiar to Moode.

That's MPD, the headless Music Player Daemon, which predates those minidistros. It's not peculiar to those distros, nor do you have to use it- though personally, I like it, having run it on x86 boxes in the past.

Actually, after the initial scan, which is heavy, I don't find it slow at all. It's very responsive for me. Certainly faster than my Sony WM1A to react to input

Yeah, have run all three of the "full fat" distros on a Pi 3 to test, I found Moode's web UI far slower and more clunky, for some reason (as well as a bit ugly, which I could live with). That said, native MPD clients are much nicer anyway.

(I stopped using Moode as the UI wasn't able to configure the onboard Wifi to join SSIDs reliably, but also wasn't keen on me configuring the supplicant stuff myself. It was a bit messy and frustrating. I don't mind manual config, but I wasn't up for a fight.)

It's OK, I held my nose and installed the official LMS for Synology - has anyone ported an open source one to popular NAS platforms, do you know? I haven't found a remote that I really like yet. The Picoreplayer is lovely and simple, and boots nice and fast, though- it feels like an actual appliance. Stack it on the Modi Multibit and forget.

 

Sadly, Moode's not a good option for the onboard Wifi on the Pi 3. There are a few places where the UI is a bit crude too- as well as oddly sluggish. I tried some informal taste tests with the three, and generally found it harder to get people using Moode, sadly.

(That said, I'd only use the UI for config, and then run MPDroid or something).

Rune's fine, it's way slicker than Moode, though all three are flawed- but then so is everything. The kernel update to get the Digi+ Pro working is a bit of a pain, but it's just pasting about three commands to upgrade it, once you know what to do. A crib sheet makes it trivial.

Why Rune and Volumio are taking so long to push out an update, however, is anyone's guess. Honestly, I'd have stuck with Moode, warts and all, for purposes of getting people up and running just because it's the only one with a new enough kernel to support the Digi+ Pro out of the box. If only it wasn't such an asspain about the onboard Wifi- works fine with a dongle, but that rather spoils the joy of the form factor.

Anyway- sorry, ninja-replying like that is annoying

All that aside, do you know of any good open source LMS ports to popular NAS platforms? It's hard to suggest that route to people while they have to register with Logitech to get their stuff running.

 

Off-topic, but grab the 1.10 firmware update ... makes the WM1A a lot faster than it was.

 

The UK site is only listing 1.02, and that 1.10 link is giving me a 404. I wonder if they withdrew it?

 

Oh, sure. I get it.

And really, I'm content with what I've got. @Torq 's advice to just stay put is dead on. Ditching USB just sounds like a fun thing to play around with more than anything, and MAYBE worth it with a Bifrost Multibit/Jot/HD650 chain moreso than the Modi Multibit/Vali 2 at work.

 

I hear you on MOODE/RUNE/VOLUMIO -- guess I recommend moode for the fast dev, I don't use the UI anyway, the adv kernel option, and squeezelite

But meant to get across the squeezelite/lms/controller layout and way of doing things as a good way to go. MooDe if LMS not an option. And I'm spoiled because use LMS on a nice fast svr2016 box.

There are nightly builds of LMS... not sure on the current NAS's

http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.9

Don't let the name logitech still being there scare you away (it's not abandoned)... they gracefully handed this off to open source, it's just always been called that

you can run LMS on a pi... piCorePlayer has it (but of course run that not near the music endpoint pi )

 

USB to SPDIF converter is between your SPDIF capable DAC, and your computer that cannot do anything but USB out. With Digi + Pro you do not need a converter. You can just read your music from a drive, NAS or locally attached through USB, and send it to your DAC using a Toslink or coax cable from Digi +. Oh and you need a software on RPi that supports music player like RuneAudio.

 

When listening to the my setup, the noise is only noticeable when I am not playing music and when the volume pot of my jotunheim is turned up closer to the right. With the Modi Multibit, I was able to identify the high frequency buzzing to occur when my mouse hovered over a hyperlink as an example, I assumed mouse and CPU noise? Possibly the implementation of Dac chip and analogue stage is the reason why I heard more noise over Modi Multibit than Bunny. I am not critically listening whilst doing daily web browsing/Overwatch. Could always disconnect mouse if that was an issue.

I am aware that if I had a cleaner setup, I will probably get a lower noisefloor, better separation, detailing and louder treble energy compared to what I had for the Modi Multibit/Bifrost Multibit comparison. I assume 5-10% difference and not a day/night difference.

It appears that my impression has shocked you into writing that colourful post and you did not find it useful for you. I acknowledge your opinion on the limitations of my listening setup. I addressed this previously in thread.

I guess my impression has sparked topic on clean digital signal. I assume the batch of recent posts are TL;DR:
- USB into Modi Multibit is not ideal but not the end of the world.
- SPDIF PCIE cards are available for use with Modi Multibit but the price is not value for money. Likewise USB-to-SPDIF converter.
- Pi3+digi is the value for money option for coaxial source/network streamer and could be the next source upgrade step. It would complement the Modi Multibit. Knowledge gets dropped. Technical jargon ensues.

Now to unwatch thread until the signal is back on the Modi Multibit.

 

Yeah, got caught editing inline again went longer than I thought.

 

I had the same issue with mouse and various pc noises when using powered monitors. Apparently they were poorly shielded and picked up all kinds of junk from the pc. When I got passive speakers with a separate power amp that all went away.

 

I have an EMU 0404 USB that I just tried as a USB -> SPDIF converter for fun. It sounds better than direct USB into my Bifrost Multibit, but I wouldn't recommend this particular unit as a USB -> SPDIF converter unless you already have it lying around.

As a USB -> SPDIF converter, it is ONLY usable in Windows in ASIO mode due to its external SPDIF using channels 3 and 4 which Windows can't see normally, and the drivers are temperamental and not supported anymore. I had a tough time getting it set up with Windows 7 and Foobar. It's also a bit dry and clinical sounding compared to the SPDIF optical out from my motherboard. Not terrible, just not as good. I'm sure there are better options, even for the low price.

 

Thank you for jumping in. Well, I understand that you can use it either way (either through the USB in or by directly accessible filesystem). My concern is that the Pi USB in might be super noisy and sound like crudola. In other words, I really do want it to work as a converter, for now I'd rather use my PC as the music store. Does it work well (sound good) in this configuration?

 

I read that the problem with USB on RPi is that the networking is implemented over USB bus and that makes USB not very useful as a DAC connection. I do not use USB in my setup. I use NAS over wireless and Digi + coax to Modi Multibit. Works great. I also works well with Toslink.
I have no idea how to use it as USB/SPDIF converter, it would at least have to support USB input but it does not.

 

How do you mean? Moode and Volumio both provide a wifi hotspot for setup and while Volumio's wifi configuration was slicker (showed you available networks), typing in the ssid you want it to join isn't that much of a hardship. I haven't had any issues with it running on a Pi3 on my network.

The one area where Volumio stood out was the web interface, neither are what I'd call enjoyable but Volumio is definitely better.

 

I wholeheartedly agree, I already went down the RPi/Digi+ road and got sidetracked into SPDIF reclocking. Torq wisely warns against spending a lot of money to "fix" a cheap transport and a relatively inexpensive DAC.
Marv is always with the helpful car analogies...can't take a Honda Civic and tweak it to beat a Porsche, etc.

On Marv's advice, I ended up going to the Denon CDP coax to ModiB and I am happy. I got into music in the early 90's and have a decent size CD collection and it is fun to listen to whole albums again.

 

We went through that board already few pages back, not transformer coupled.

 

What i'm most curious about is Modi Multibit using good SPDIF vs Bifrost Multibit using USB. We already know most of the improvements in Bifrost Multibit vs Modi Multibit are on the analog side like power and output, both using the same dsp and DAC chip. If we can improve the signal going into Modi Multibit to the point where it can b*tch slap its bigger bro, well gain more understanding into what is bottlenecking the performance of the DAC more, digital or analog, like how Marv thinks Gungnir Multibit with tube output is better than Yggdrasil, despite Yggdrasil having a slightly better digital section (not applicable for most, but good info nevertheless). All about finding what changes are worth the most for me. So yes, if a polished spdif solution can get me past curent Bifrost Multibit's perf, I would say getting that first is more important than jumping to Bifrost Multibit, and jumping to Gungnir Multibit to upgrade both the analog and digital side is a bit silly without owning speakers+amp+preamp+quiet listening space first as Psal said.
Btw, what upgrades could Bifrost Multibit get down the line? Has a new chip come out from AD? Better analog parts? USB gen 3? So many questions....
Still enjoying the hell out of Modi Multibit/Vali 2 through USB though, regardless of all this questioning. Multibit fed shitty reclocked USB is still Multibit.