Durio Dual Mono

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walterwhite
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Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by walterwhite »

I thought I'd start this as a new post relating specifically to the RaspberryPi with Durio Sound DACs rather than hijack Fretless's 'Life of Pi' thread.

As mentioned in the above thread I ordered the rather grandly titled 'Durio Sound Dual Mono All the Way - Assembled' - http://www.gravitech.us/dusoulsoqufo.html from Gravitech in the USA about three weeks ago, and it arrived on Friday along with a demand for a further £32 for import duty including an £8 handling charge from the Post Office. Hmmmmmm... nice :angry-screaming: Like charging me for delivering it wasn't enough already :naughty:

The main point of the exercise for me was to see if I could set up a file based digital music system that could sound as good as, if not better than, the ageing optical disc system that's been a part of most of our hifi lives now since the early nineties. If that was possible then I could actually do away with my CD player, and sell on my ridiculously expensive Classe CDP before everyone catches on that it's a dying medium, and use the funds towards a TT upgrade later this year. The only systems I'd heard thus far, mostly very expensive systems from major players in the industry, had failed to impress. To my logical brain though, it made a lot of sense that a simple system using a hard drive rather than optical disks, into decent DACs ought to be better, on the less is more principle.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about setting up a headless RaspberryPi system as I have little knowledge of Linux, other than knowing you need a handbook of commands similar to running an old DOS system. Being headless, there's no GUI when you boot up, and it runs though a networked computer or tablet using a browser based interface.

Fifteen years ago I would have described myself as an IT professional as I owned a web design company that went tits up in the dot com crash, and there was very little that I either didn't know, or couldn't work out, regarding Windows based systems and their associated hardware. Since then I've fallen out of love with computers, and my knowledge of current stuff has fallen away. In short, I'm now an IT dinosaur :lol:

The first hurdle was to work out what would be a suitable power supply, as the documentation for the device is practically non-existant. For anyone interested in trying one I can now definitively announce that the optimal power supply is 9v DC, 2 amp with a positive centre pin on a 1.4 mm jack. A wall wart was the 'get it going' option, but a later project would possibly be looking into better, more hifi oriented, torroidal jobbies that may or may not be an improvement.

Out of the box it's a very twee looking object, nicely put together, with the Pi B+ board at the bottom encased in perspex with the Durio Basic Dac mounted on top of that, and topped off with the Durio Pro Dac that incorporates the 5v switching power supply. It can also run off an AC supply, for which there are two pins provided that would allow for hard wiring.

On to the set up. To my relief this was surprisingly simple, although the installed player left a lot to be desired in the user friendliness department. It wasn't long before I'd had enough of it and I downloaded the Volumio image file which I installed on a spare micro SD card. That's part of the beauty of the Pi approach as far as I can see, as it allows you try out all the available options for OS tweaks and players whilst always having the safety net of the original to fall back on if it fucks up in any way. All you need is two micro SD cards and you can fill your boots and experiment away without consequences.

At the moment Volumio ticks all the boxes for me. Keeping it simple I'm using a 1 TB hard disk plugged directly into the Pi. No networking or NAS drives for me, I'll leave that to the more edjicated :geek: I copied all of my flacs to the drive, and after a short wait Volumio had populated the library and was up and running and connected to my Android tablet. The Durio comes with a wireless dongle, but doesn't seem to be able to wirelessly connect to my router, so a network cable is required. Maybe there's something I'm missing here, as it would be nice to not need that... anybody?

The Durio is connected to my P90 sa with a spare pair of SC's I had lying around.

Now the important thing - the sound. Quite simply, I love it. I haven't actually AB'd it up against my CDP yet, but I seriously doubt that it'll be staying. It does the most important thing that any bit of equipment can possibly do - it communicates with me emotionally. Couple that with the ease of use (tablet interface) no telly, whirring computers with their noisy fans or other distractions, this is feeling like I've truly found a solution to digital playback. Only downside I can see at the moment is the tedious process of turning all of my CD collection into flacs via Exact Audio Copy. It'd also be nice to have a player that displays album art, but that's a bit nitpicky of me.

In conclusion, I can't say whether the Durio is better/worse than any other DAC/digital playback option. What I can honestly say that if this is the worst on offer, the rest must be stellar.
Bi-amped A80's, P90sa, LS6, AP10h, Phono2/2 PSU's, BMU, SSC, SSP2, Raspberry pi/Durio Sound Dacs, Rega RP6/Dynavector 10x5, Royd RR2.

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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by terrybooth »

walterwhite wrote:The Durio comes with a wireless dongle, but doesn't seem to be able to wirelessly connect to my router, so a network cable is required. Maybe there's something I'm missing here, as it would be nice to not need that... anybody?
I'm assuming that you've set up your wireless router to require a PSK (Password). I'm also assuming the wireless dongle is working.

I don't think there's a way (if there is I haven't found it and I can't think what it would be) to set a Pi up on a wireless network straight away. So, this is what I've done:

Connect the Pi running Volumio to a wired network. Connect to is using the web interface (Volumio.local) - I presume this is what you are doing at the moment.

In the Network configuration menu, you will see three settings for the wireless network:SSID, security and password. There obviously need to be set up the same as you've set up your router.

Save, restart and pull the network cable. You should now be able to connect via the wireless network.

Have you tried the Sound@Home app for Android? - that will display the album art (assuming that you have a file called 'cover.jpg' in the album directory.)

I've set up some fixed DHCP reservations for my Pi s so that I know where to go for each of them (Sound@Home will support up to 5 instance of Volumio). Happy to try to guide you through that, although I'll have some translation problems because your router is almost definitely not the same as mine (you will need to find DHCP settings for your router).
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walterwhite
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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by walterwhite »

Wow, nice help. Give me 5 and I'll let you know if it works - thanks.
Bi-amped A80's, P90sa, LS6, AP10h, Phono2/2 PSU's, BMU, SSC, SSP2, Raspberry pi/Durio Sound Dacs, Rega RP6/Dynavector 10x5, Royd RR2.

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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by walterwhite »

Yay, no more network cable :guiness; Thank you.

I'll look into the android app later.
Bi-amped A80's, P90sa, LS6, AP10h, Phono2/2 PSU's, BMU, SSC, SSP2, Raspberry pi/Durio Sound Dacs, Rega RP6/Dynavector 10x5, Royd RR2.

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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by terrybooth »

The music is the important bit! Enjoy.
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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by Fretless »

Brilliant! I'm sure the Durio sounds great, a few tweaks later on when you're used to it and maybe it'll get even better.

Album art: you could try Rune instead of Volumio, which does show artwork - see if that works for you. What I normally do is find a jpg on Google pictures in the range 400 dpi to max 800 dpi and save that in the map as 'folder.jpg' . Certainly Sonos likes this. Images of more than 1000x1000 dpi I have discovered can be badly displayed.

You could also try looking for MPD apps in Android. They hook up into the volumio OS of the Pi and run as alternative remote control options. 'MPD Control' looks nice.

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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by terrybooth »

And, for the uninitated, MPD means 'Music Player Daemon'.

No, doesn't make it any clearer, does it. :grin:

(It's the bit of software which controls playing music on the Pi.)
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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by terrybooth »

Have you tried playing it with only the Pi Power supply connected?

As far as I know that should work. (You can put multiple power supplies on the Pi.) However, with the USB disk and the wifi dongle, you may need the extra that other supply is giving.
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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by walterwhite »

terrybooth wrote:Have you tried playing it with only the Pi Power supply connected?

As far as I know that should work. (You can put multiple power supplies on the Pi.) However, with the USB disk and the wifi dongle, you may need the extra that other supply is giving.
According to the manufacturer it should work with the RPi USB only, but with my power supply set at 6v 2A it wouldn't run the HDD. 9v 1.75A is what I'm using at the moment which does the job. I've also read somewhere that 9v 3A is optimal, but my wall wart wont do that.
Bi-amped A80's, P90sa, LS6, AP10h, Phono2/2 PSU's, BMU, SSC, SSP2, Raspberry pi/Durio Sound Dacs, Rega RP6/Dynavector 10x5, Royd RR2.

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Re: Durio Dual Mono

Unread post by walterwhite »

As a PS to the previous post, they say DO NOT use usb and power to the Durio Pro power rail at the same time. Aparrently fire will be the result...
Bi-amped A80's, P90sa, LS6, AP10h, Phono2/2 PSU's, BMU, SSC, SSP2, Raspberry pi/Durio Sound Dacs, Rega RP6/Dynavector 10x5, Royd RR2.

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