Sometimes dreams come true.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Primo.
Primo in Italian means First. And guess what, we named it like so not only because its our actual first take of a complete Volumio Music Player directly manufactured under our specifications, but also because it has been designed to be YOUR favorite music player. The first of your personal list.
It has been a long time since we started dreaming of manufacturing a complete Volumio product. As Volumio team we always had a clear idea of what we wanted, and we started looking for partners to help us realize our vision.
We found such partner in a well established Hi-Fi manufacturer with which we work since many years with our OEM program: they proved us they could build something to match our expectations. The result of which we are really proud to present to you, our beloved community today.
The primo is a simple, uncomplicated yet powerful streamer.
PRIMO’S DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
The first cornerstone of its design philosophy is of course sound quality.
Personally, I have a very strong orientation on a balanced sound signature, detailed but not hyper-analytical. I want to enjoy music and for that, the ability to convey rhythm and pace is a must.
I wanted nothing but such acoustic signature for our player. And boy, this is exactly what I heard when I received the first sample of Primo.
Since I am not the best judge of Primo’s acoustic qualities (someone said bias?) I took care of handing another sample to Jens Neugebauer which hosts Soundcheck, a blind test comparison between DACs on a regular basis. Primo, guess what, came out first against all competitors. Read the full report here:
https://volumio.org/forum/volumio-soundcheck-invitation-for-hamburg-germany-t5918-50.html#p50701
For the silicon fetishists among you: Primo’s DAC is the excellent ES9028Q2M, supported by a more than excellent implementation.
Second principle: universality. Primo not only should be able to play every format, every music media (and it does that thanks to Volumio, ça va sans dire) but it’s should also be flexible in terms of output. That’s why we equipped it with Analog Out (as you would expect from a music player) USB (no surprise here as well, as it comes with ANY single board computer) but also S\PDIF. So you’ll be able to use its DAC or any external DAC via USB or SPDIF to your liking.
Third, but not least. It must be practical. So we have the best connectivity options onboard: Gigabit LAN and Wireless N with external antenna for optimal range.
For those who like to have the UI on their display we also made sure to have HDMI video output.
All those great connectivity features are inherited by the Tinkerboard S: which we believe is the best all-rounder embedded hardware on the market for Audio applications: it’s powerful, built with quality and stability in mind and its USB and I2S implementation are better than everything else we’ve tried.
Last (but your wife will put it first): Primo is beautiful. It’s enclosed in a full metal matte black soft touch enclosure. It’s elegant and simple and compact.
So, now that you know Primo and you want it, here’s the best part. We’ve put in production the first batch of 20 pieces, available for pre-order now as “Founders edition”.
This is a special offer for our community of early adopters:
- Special launch price of 349 euros (instead of 399)
- Free Shipping (available only for European Customers)
- MyVolumio Superstar Subscription for 1 Year Included (worth 67 euros)
- Shipping in late December
- Only 20 pieces available. Next batch will be manufactured after all Founders Edition orders are shipped (with regular 399 euros price)
If you love Volumio, you’ll adore Primo. We put all our love and thought into it and we’re so proud to offer it to our beloved community.
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