Allo DigiOne Pi HAT set to rival top-end hi-fi streaming devices like Sonos

Indian firm Allo is making a name for itself with a series of high-end audio HATs for Raspberry Pi. Following the £55 Boss and £35 MiniBoss DAC HATs is its latest audio upgrade, the DigiOne.

At £95 from thepihut.com, the Allo DigiOne costs almost the same as three Pi 3s, but that’s not quite the point, as Allo’s CMO Andre Strul explains: “We believe the Raspberry Pi has the potential to become the new audio platform for the streaming generation.”

Allo DigiOne: Sonos-style streaming with Raspberry Pi

Allo is gunning for the likes of Sonos, in a market where prices of £500 for a single speaker unit are common. That makes a £35 Pi with a £95 audio HAT look like a great deal!

The DigiOne is a ‘transport’, aiming to circumvent the Pi’s audio hardware entirely. Andre explained that the Pi could only produce frequencies of 44.138 kHz or 44.0366 kHz, both of which would cause jitter in 44.1 kHz audio.

Instead, the DigiOne generates its own clock, and combines that ability with heaps of filtering, noise reduction, and signal realignment to output audio at up to 192 kHz/24-bit, with jitter as low as 0.6 picoseconds and noise of 50 µV.

Allo says reaction to the DigiOne has been “tremendous. We see interest not only from EU and USA, but from countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, and Brazil.”