For many, the audio on the Raspberry Pi’s HDMI port – or even the stereo analogue audio, accessible on the multifunction 3.5 mm jack – is good enough. For others, ‘good enough’ is never good enough – and it’s for these people that the Allo DigiOne Player (£148/$169) has been designed.

Based around the DigiOne S/PDIF HAT (available separately, £86/$99), the DigiOne Player is designed to provide a peak-quality digital audio signal. While many will argue that digital audio is digital audio, being made up of zeros and ones which either arrive at the other end perfectly or don’t arrive at all, audiophiles claim otherwise – and in particular, point to ‘jitter,’ the deviation of a period signal from its ideal timings, as a source of audible distortion.

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DigiOne Player review: peak-quality audio for Raspberry Pi

The DigiOne, Allo claims, solves that problem. Using two on-board clocks as stable timing sources, as well as galvanic signal and power isolation and a variety of other engineering tricks, Allo claims to have reduced the jitter of the digital audio signal to 0.6 picoseconds – as close to perfect as practically possible.

That signal is available on either of the DigiOne’s two outputs: an RCA jack and a BNC connector. In practice, there’s no difference between the two, bar the BNC connector being more resistant to accidental disconnection. What you won’t find is an optical output, a deliberate design choice by Allo to avoid what it claims is unacceptable 4 nanosecond (4000 picosecond) built-in jitter.

DigiOne HAT bundle with Raspberry Pi

Purchased as the Player bundle, the DigiOne HAT comes with a Raspberry Pi 3; 8GB SD card with a choice of DietPi, Volumio, or Max2Play audiophile-centric distributions pre-installed; a 5 V 3 A power supply; and an attractive acrylic case.

Using the DigiOne Player is as simple as connecting a power supply and linking the HAT to your digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), with the tested Volumio software providing a browser-based interface for control as well as acting as a streaming transport device for third-party software. When running, the audio quality from the DigiOne Player is undeniably high – but it is more obvious to scientific instruments than the fallible human ear.

DigiOne Player: Last Word

The DigiOne Player is a clever piece of engineering, but the problem it solves is arguably not worth the purchase price.

3/5