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Burned Pecan Pi

Ok , based on positive reviews I bought a Pecan Pi streamer from Orchard Audio. Let me start by stating that I am probably the least tech savvy person on earth, I want to say that upfront. Took a few days to figure out, but got it working with my Tidal account and the Volumio software loaded onto the unit by Orchard. Worked fine for about a month. Then one day my girlfriend went to listen to a song, and,nothing… no sound. No indication on the Volumio app on my iPhone that anything was wrong. It appeared to be playing as usual. First I went through all of the Settings in the Volumio app and found nothing amiss.  We had not changed or altered anything. I sent an email to Volumio and got a response telling me to read their FAQ page. ?? Of course there was nothing relevant to my situation to be found there. After a few more attempts to get help from Volumio it became clear they did not give a s**t and I was on my own. Frustrated, I closed my Volumio account (paid yearly, $40). We opened a new Volumio account and it fired right up! Played for about six weeks just fine. Then one night went to listen, and… nothing. Repeat above nonsense with Volumio CS and finally shut down my account again. Opened a new account (another $40 ), and again it fired right up, no problem. Take a wild guess what happened about a month later?! This time I Got Leo ( the owner) from Orchard on the phone and he had no answers. Sent a fervent email to Davide at Volumio literally begging for any help. He responded saying that they could not offer ANY help because,he stated “If you are using Orchard product we cannot support relative bugs and issues. Orchard uses unofficially Volumio OS and could not be full support on the latest version. They have their own motherboard and dac, so please refer to them for any incompatibility. Just to be more clear- Orchard uses the Volumio software without any kind of test and approval by our side. It’s not officially supported, it’s 3rd parties, and we cannot take care of something misused, you know” I literally could not believe this response, so I forwarded it to Leo at Orchard. His response to Davide at Volumio : “I do not understand your stance with my customer. I do not do anything special with Vol and I do not customize it. It is the standard image directly from your website running on a Rpi3B or 3B+ ; I don’t see a reason you are not able to support the customer. My DAC uses your fully supported 12S RPI-DAC overlay. Your comments to my customer about me not using fully supported hardware is not true”

Absolutely no response from Davide at  Volumio. I sent one last email to Vol stating that as a paying customer this was completely unacceptable and demanding to hear from someone other than Davide. Shockingly, crickets. Don’t know what to do at this point. Haven’t asked but I highly doubt Leo at Orchard will take the unit back for a refund. Wanted everyone on this forum to know what a joke Orchard Audio and Volumio are, and to relay my experience. Please let me know if you have any advice; I am open to suggestions. I refuse to shut down my Vol account yet again and continue with this game.

fishdoctor
erik_squires
16,056 posts
 

So, um, I use Roon on a pi 4 (with separate server) and no issues.

danager's avatar
danager
948 posts
 

The volumio support forum was of no help?  Since it's happening on a regular bases it might have to do with a billing cycle.  If you payed by the month instead of annually does the same issue occur?

You have an account that should follow you every time you reload you're software.  Will Orchard sell you a new microSD card or show you how to load it on a new card?  It may be a corrupt OS that Volumio can't automatically confirm and kills the account at their end.

The Orchard is a good streamer but it's complicated especially for the non technical.

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,598 posts
 

miniDSP and Pro-Ject both ship with customized Volumio versions that play Tidal and Qobuz for free. I’ve never given Volumio a dime. You can play both subscription services over the free version using BubbleUPnP first. Try piCore player if you have access to the card.

It’s Orchard’s device and they shouldn’t be expecting universal software to troubleshoot their designs. Good luck. I hope you have the volume set to fixed.

 

fishdoctor OP
1 posts
 

Wow, thanks to those who have taken the time to respond. Makes me feel less stranded on an island. Didn’t know there was a Volumio support forum and will definitely look into it right now. Definitely going to look for something much easier to use. Does anyone know of a product that has the following features:

1. Very high quality streaming via Ethernet 

2. ability to store streamed music

3. Excellent DAC

4. ability to rip and store CDs

5. compatible with Tidal and Qobuz and also Roon ready

6. under $ 3K

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. New would be great but will consider something used.
Thank you

ovinewar1
91 posts
 

While I have not used Orchard- even though I was tempted- I ran Volumio on a RPI 4 W/HIFIBERRY with great success streaming Tidal. In the year or so I used it I don’t believe I ever had a problem. With the touch screen I found it to be a very functional and cool Streamer. Startup was tough as I wasn’t that savvy. Hope you find success. 

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