Allo made sure their manual is clear and detailed, but surely I would not recommend to a novice of the Raspberry PI world to start with it (I will instead recommend getting the full player, we’ll see later why). Long Story short: the Katana is not an easy plug and play DAC, it’s not for beginners and it’s not something you want to wire up the wrong way. So, in fear of making a mess, I immediately started to read Katana’s manual, immediately feeling like this thing needed a proper and cautious setup.

The Allo Katana DAC is definitely a learning experience: you have 3 boards stacked one on top of another (from the bottom: DAC, Output Stage, Microcontroller), and you immediately notice it’s full of Power Supply sockets, jumpers, selectors, wires… I got therefore the chance to live the “customer experience on both products”, and I would like to start with that, since for this product it’s especially important. Allo sent me the full, ready to play Allo Katana Player and a Allo Katana DAC stack (DAC only). So after 7 months after their announcement, I finally got the Katana delivered to my doorstep. Given the reputation they’ve established with their past products (Kali, BOSS and Digione, just to name a few), no wonder that this DAC has been awaited by many so badly, me included. But sure they managed to get quite some attention when they announced their bold intention to create “The best implementation of ESS9038 DAC”. I won’t be boring you saying how much Allo is innovative, clever, etc. The Allo Katana DAC is surely the most anticipated and waited I2S DAC this year.

So you’re curious to know how the Allo Katana DAC sounds, aren’t you?

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