Pi2 Design Idiot-Proof Ready-To-Go RPi/AES Streamer

Damn, almost 14' wide. I don't think that'll fit into my rack, unfortunately.

 

Hmm, I guess I meant millimeters.

 

If the new streamer is as good as the existing pi2AES, it'll be worth having a 14' rack for. I'm impressed daily with mine and recommend it to anyone looking.

 

Hello Michael
I had one of the PI's that Marv's son built and I could not get it to work. Im an older guy and not good with computers. Would the Mercury streamer be plug and play? Would love to have one as the sound quality of the Pi is great.
best,
Josh

 

Didn’t I offered to fix that for you? Please send it to me and I will get it all squared away and send it back.

Mercury will be easier because there will already be the software loaded and all you have to do is either plug it into a wired ethernet or connect to the wireless. That is a bit trickier, but Volumio makes it fairly simple to make that initial connection.

Having said that, there is still some complexity to the software itself that does require some studying and reading, at least of the help manuals for the software.

 

Sorry if I missed it, but what is the added functionality aside from not having to build it?

Too bad BNC couldn't fit on there but of all the things to take off, that seems like the best choice.

 

I believe it does have a BNC connection, it's labelled AES COAX.

 

primarily that, plus adding the ssd.

And BNC is there. It’s labeled AES Coax.

 

Latest revision the Mercury pcb’s just arrived. Hopefully we will have all the parts for building them up next week.

 

question - I have a USB only dac incoming (ECP Walnut) - does the Mercury have an "improved" usb out relative to "normal" rPi devices? (I'd rather wait on the Mercury vs something like the Allo USBridge Sig)

and how difficult will it be for the enduser to put Ropiee on the mercury internal ssd?

Thanks

 

The usb is neither isolated nor provided with filtered 5V. Both of which the Allo provided. It is likely quieter than a regular pi due to the routing from the CM4, but I doubt it would be noticeable versus the standard pi 4.

currently the use model for the ssd is as music storage. There are no plans to support boot from ssd. The CM4 model we plan to use is 4GB ram and 16GB eMMC.

 

appreciate the quick/honest reply. If only all manufacturers were so transparent.

Question on the OS on the mercury - I don't see an SD slot, so I thought the OS was on the eMMC. Where does the OS sit on the Mercury (apologize if this was covered previously)

 

The os will be programmed into the eMMC by us prior to shipment.

 

Please think about Roopieee, this is an ideal Roon endpoint (especially I²S output and screen), and I can't wait.

 

we originally considered the idea of two or three different players that the customer could ask for. However, given the limited resources that we are working with it made more sense to stick with one that seemed to have most of the pieces people wanted.

This does not mean that we will not look at others, and it is possible for each user to put in their own image. However, because it is a compute module there is no SD card slot. Programming the image requires a USB cable and a software tool that you run on a PC.

our strategy to begin with is for simplification and broadest coverage, but we will be adapting overtime once we feel comfortable that we won’t get overwhelmed. Specifically we are looking at audio Linux with HQ player as our next offering.

We should have a small number of beta units in mid to late September. Sometime before then we will put out a request for folks to get one of these units in return for a review and/or a software port. Mercury, much like the PI2AES is very much tied to the great folks of this forum.

 

Mercury with first pass enclosure design cut from acrylic. Came out pretty good. Just a few tweaks before we commit to metal.

 

Looking good!

 

Needs more ports

 

The acrylic version looks really cool!

But I guess metal is better for EMF shielding.

 

I finally dug out my Audio Precision to do the jitter testing. Probably should have done this awhile ago!

Results are very good though. AES Coax, AES Balanced (XLR), SPDIF (RCA) are all essentially the same as the PI2AES. The real surprise was opto, which improved significantly.

For comparison the PI2AES plots are here:
https://www.pi2design.com/uploads/4/8/5/3/48531975/pi2aes_plots.zip

BNC:


XLR:


RCA:


OPTO: