Inno-maker HiFi DAC Pro HAT - first impressions

[TheOldPresbyope]

Hi Tim,

i just received the board and have to confirm what Kent is saying .
What could be the magic why it is running well with Volumio and not with MoOde?

Best Regards
Josh

What exactly is it you are confirming? Did you read the accompanying thread in the Support subforum? That explained what was happening in moOde 8.3.2 regarding use of the Katana DAC definition on a Pi4B. Tim subsequently adjusted the backend code and with the moOde 8.3.6 player in front of me I can select the named I2S device "Allo Katana DAC" in audio setup and drive on.

Here's the audio playback information I get while playing a radio station via the Inno-maker DAC Pro DAC to a set of earphones

Code:

INPUT / OUTPUT
Source http://subfm.radioca.st/Sub.FM
Encoded at VBR compression
Decoded to 24 bit, 44.1 kHz, Stereo, 192 kbps
Output rate 32 bit, 44.1 kHz, Stereo, 2.822 Mbps
Output mode ALSA Default
Output chain MPD -> plughw -> Device
DSP OPERATIONS
Resample rate Off
Quality Off
Selective Off
CamillaDSP Off
Chip options Apodizing Fast Roll-off Filter, De-emphasis=Bypass, DoP=on
Volume  type Hardware (On-chip)
AUDIO DEVICE
Device Allo Katana DAC
Mixer name Master
Chip ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M
Interface I2S
Formats S16_LE, S32_LE
Platform Pi-4B 1.1 2GB

Things are working pretty well, although the driver is still not reporting any DSD-related formats. [No loss for me; I have no DSD material beyond the few test tracks I've downloaded in the past.] Note that using the named I2S device definition, moOde now reports hardware volume control.

The crux of the matter for moOde was that the Inno-maker crowd was too <lazy? cheap? hardware-oriented? what?> to write their own driver; they piggybacked on the Allo driver. Allo, in turn, hasn't been reliably keeping up support of its own work* let alone a third-party's product.

Regards,
Kent

*At least this has been my impression. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken.