Audio 359 User manual
Getting
Started
Guide
Sit down & listen!
COLOFON
Version 1 dated April 5, 2015.
Supporting Volumio version 1.5.
Written by Sven Van Caekenberghe.
We reserve the right to change products or"
their features at any time without prior notice.
Consult http://audio359.eu for newer versions.
Copyright © 2015 Audio 359. All Rights Reserved.
Audio 359 is a commercial activity of Wolf 359 BVBA.
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Welcome to the world of Audio 359.
This short Getting Started Guide will help you set up
your Audio 359 Set One. In just a few steps you will
be enjoying high quality music playback.
Sit down & listen
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Table of contents
What’s in the boxes ? Unpacking
Assembling the stands
Connecting & positioning the speakers
Setting up the player/streamer
Accessing the interface
Playing an internet radio stream
Using Airplay
Using UPNP
Storing music on the player/streamer
Ripping CD’s
Acquiring HD audio
Using a NAS
Recommendations & Warning
Limitations
Safety guidelines
Warranty policy
Return policy
Troubleshooting & Support
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What’s in the boxes ?
Unpacking
Carefully unpack everything, taking care not to
damage the packaging. You should have received
one big box containing 3 boxes: one for the
speakers, one for the stands and one for the player/
streamer.
Make sure to double check that you received
everything as advertised. The included data sheet has
detailed listings of the contents of each box.
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Assembling the stands
The stands require assembly. Unpack all parts. There
should be 2 larger bottom plates, 2 smaller top
plates, 2 bigger vertical poles and 2 smaller vertical
poles. Next there are a number of plastic bags
containing screws and assorted items.
Locate the 8 flat top screws and use them to
assemble the top and bottom plates to the poles.
This will be easiest to do with the poles in a horizontal
position. Watch out to use the correct side of the
plates, there should be a provision for the screw to
sink a bit inside the plate. You might need to help
align all elements properly.
The spikes are optional. They help to isolate the
speakers from the floor and stand itself. We
recommend using both the bigger bottom spikes
and smaller top spikes. There are also little circular
pieces to help prevent the spikes from damaging
your floor. The spikes also make it easy to fix any
wobbling due to an uneven floor. !
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Connecting &
positioning
the speakers
Unpack the speakers and put them on the stands.
The heavier speaker is the left one, the lighter speaker
the right one. You will need the long, thick speaker
wire, the 3.5mm mini-jack to mini-jack audio cable
and the power cord, as well as the remote.
Thread the uncovered ends of the speaker wire into
the holes perpendicular to the speaker binding posts
on the back - you should loosen & fasten each screw
on the binding post as appropriate. Make sure the
red & black marked posts on the left & right speaker
correspond - the speaker wire has a lighter & darker
thread to help you with this.
The stands allow you to partially hide the speaker
cable by running it inside the main vertical pole.
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Before connecting the main power cable, double
check that the voltage selector is correct for your
situation. Put the main power switch from the Oto
the Iposition.
When the front light on the left speaker is pulsating,
the system is in sleep mode where it uses very little
energy. Push the big knob to wake the system. You
can control the master volume turning the big knob.
The most convenient way to control your speakers is
by using the remote. Fix the battery of the remote to
get started. There are 4 buttons: volume up & down,
sleep/wake and mute/un-mute.
Test your speakers independent of the player/
streamer by connecting your smartphone or portable
music player using the 3.5mm mini-jack to mini-jack
audio cable.
Your speakers will sound great out of the box and will
get better over time. No need to do anything else
but listen to them, but give them at least 30 to 50
hours break-in time before doing any critical listening.
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You should try to create a perfect listening triangle,
but keep in mind that you have quite a margin to be
flexible.
Leave at least 2 meters between the left and the right
speaker (A). Keep the speakers away from the side (D)
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A
BB
D D
C
C
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and back (B) walls. It is optimal to make them
equidistant. Do not put speaker in corners.
Angle the speakers inward just a bit. Your primary
listening position should be equally far from each
speaker (C). C should be greater than A, although
some people prefer them to be equal for a very wide
stereo field.
With the included speaker stands, you automatically
elevate the speakers to the optimal listening height.
The acoustics of your listening room will influence
sound quality as well. In general, some dampening to
reduce the echo in a hollow room is recommended.
Curtains, carpets, furniture, books or even decorative
objects can be used to this effect.!
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Setting up
the player/streamer
The smallest & lightest box contains the player/
streamer. Inside you will find the fully assembled unit
as well as a power supply and a power cable.
Always be careful when physically manipulating the
unit: the circuit boards are sensitive. Never touch the
electronics. When (un)plugging anything (in), don’t
use too much force. Be gentle, it will work in the end.
Use the 3.5mm mini-jack to mini-jack audio cable to
connect the audio input of the left speaker to the
audio output of the player/streamer. Note that there
are multiple connectors that look similar. You have to
use the 3.5mm mini-jack audio output of the top
circuit board, the HiFiBerry DAC+ (Digital to Analog
Converter).
The power supply is of the standard USB type.
Connect the power cable with the larger USB
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connector to the power supply. The other end of the
power cable has a MicroUSB connector that goes to
the power in MicroUSB connector of the unit (the
leftmost connector, just below the DAC’s audio out
connector).
The unit has no on/off switch. To turn it on, you just
plug it in. To turn it off, it is recommended, though
not strictly necessary, to use the interface to properly
shut down the operating system. Then you can
unplug it.
A home network is required to use the player/
streamer. Most people will use their a 2.4 GHz
compatible wireless network, but that is optional.
If you do not intend to use a wireless network, you do
not have to do any further configuration. Just connect
the standard RJ-45 Ethernet port to your network and
you are done.
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To start using the wireless network, you have to
configure the unit with your wireless network settings.
You do this by first making a temporary wired network
connection. Then you enter the name (SSID) and
WPA/WPA-2 Personal password of your wireless
network and save these settings.
After this you can power down the unit and
disconnect the wired network. The next time you
power up the unit, it should automatically connect to
your wireless network.
How to connect to the player/streamer’s interface is
described in the next section.!
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Accessing
the interface
The software running on the player/streamer is called
Volumio. The main interface to control the player/
streamer is presented through a web application. You
use any PC, tablet or smartphone that is on your local
network to connect to a special address.
http://volumio.local
http://volumio
Use the first address on Apple devices, the second on
Windows, Android and Linux devices.
The web interface is responsive, it adapts to different
screen sizes. The player/streamer is fully autonomous,
it can play back music completely on its own. You can
use the interface to start music using your phone,
check which song is playing half an hour later on your
computer and finally stop the music using your tablet.
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Let’s have a look at the main components of the
Volumio interface.
The playback tab is the default main view. It tells you
which song is playing and at what quality. The left
circular dial show you how far along the song is, the
right dial allows you to control the volume.
Conceptually you are always playing a playlist, which
you can see in the third tab. The first tab allows you to
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browse available music and add it to the playlist. Note
that there is a difference between adding a song to
the playlist and playing a song - playback can be
done from any song in the playlist. This allows you to
dynamically compose and manipulate a playlist.
In the following sections we will briefly discuss how to
use the different capabilities of the unit.
The top right menu contains advanced settings. Most
of them should not be changed. You can easily break
your player/streamer this way.
The last entry of the menu allows you to properly turn
off or reboot your unit. Just like with any computer,
doing a proper shutdown is recommended. Note
that you can safely let your unit run for days or weeks
on end, it consumes about 5 Watt.
We recommend to set the volume to 90% or 95%
and use the speaker’s remote to make further
corrections.
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To use a wireless network, we have to enter its
parameters.
Enter the exact name (SSID) and WPA/WPA-2
Personal password of your wireless network and save
these changes. The status information should confirm
that you are successfully connected to your wireless
network.
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Power down the unit and disconnect the wired
network. The next time you power up the unit, it
should automatically connect to your wireless
network.
Give the unit a couple of minutes to boot completely.
You should also see a little blue led inside the WiFi
dongle in the top USB slot of the unit.
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Playing an
internet radio stream
Probably the easiest thing to do is to use the player/
streamer to play back an internet radio station. A large
number of stations come predefined.
Go to the browse tab and select the web radio
category. A long list of stations will be shown. Note
that not all of them are guaranteed to work.
Try the one called LinnRadio - LinnJazz &
LinnClassical will do fine as well. This stream consists
of high quality audiophile recordings and sounds
quite impressive - especially given the fact that none
of the standard artificial sound manipulations of
popular radio are applied.
An easy way to add a radio stream is by locating its
PLS file and copying that over to the player streamer.
Let’s say we want to add BBC’s Radio 3.
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In the Wikipedia article on BBC Radio 3, https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_3, a number of
different streams are listed. One is called “Worldwide
stream URL (HTTP progressive, 128 Kbps MP3)” and
has an address that ends in .pls. If you click it, your
browser will most probably start playing the radio
stream. You’ll want to save it somewhere and name it
something like “bbc-radio3.pls”.
Next, use your computer’s file browser to look for
network volumes. You should see a Windows (SMB)
volume called volumio. Open it and go to the
WebRadio folder. In it you will see all the predefined
stations. Copy your .pls file in there.
Now you go to the library part of the settings menu
and click the Update Library button. After a while
your new internet radio station should appear in the
list next to the others.
You can also manually copy/edit the contents of a .pls
file to add a raw stream URL. You can read more
about the PLS file format at http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/PLS_(file_format)!
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Table of contents
