A $70 Audio Player?

[silvrr]

There are a ton of other boards out there, I went with the Pi as I already had one from another project.

The only downside to some of the other boards is you need a bit more experience on the software side of things as the support community is not as developed yet.

 

[GrouchoMarx1933]

Silvrr, thank you for the comprehensive and detailed write up. This thread, along with an article on Computer Audiophile, pushed me to give a Raspberry Pi 2 setup a try, although I went with a Hifiberry Digi+ board to get SPDIF out. I initially went with Volumio, but it wouldn't recognize my hard drive, so I went to Rune and used your tip on keeping the wifi dongle from sleeping. The sound is fantastic and I love how much smaller the footprint of my rig got as well. For anyone interested, I recommend giving it a try. The Pi is an inexpensive way to get a very high quality playback source.

 

[Jaab]

Thanks for this thread, I had the idea to build with a p1 an audio center but I hadn't any idea how to do it.
Digging a little bit I found this link ( can be useful)
http://www.runeaudio.com/forum/why-odroid-over-raspberry-pi-t3141.html

 

[silvrr]

  Silvrr, thank you for the comprehensive and detailed write up. This thread, along with an article on Computer Audiophile, pushed me to give a Raspberry Pi 2 setup a try, although I went with a Hifiberry Digi+ board to get SPDIF out. I initially went with Volumio, but it wouldn't recognize my hard drive, so I went to Rune and used your tip on keeping the wifi dongle from sleeping. The sound is fantastic and I love how much smaller the footprint of my rig got as well. For anyone interested, I recommend giving it a try. The Pi is an inexpensive way to get a very high quality playback source.

Great, glad it helped.  
 

Thanks for this thread, I had the idea to build with a p1 an audio center but I hadn't any idea how to do it.
Digging a little bit I found this link ( can be useful)
http://www.runeaudio.com/forum/why-odroid-over-raspberry-pi-t3141.html

Interesting reads, from what I gathered from that link and the link within is that the Pi isn't good at generating clocks at for the I2s interface and a USB DAC wouldn't have the issues?  I wish there was some more objective measurements done showing the output vs. a standard laptop/desktop.  

 

[REXNFX]

Just got interested in this type of Roon solution (need Tidal). Has anyone tried pi/DAC from this company?
 
 http://www.iqaudio.co.uk/

 

[silvrr]

Just got interested in this type of Roon solution (need Tidal). Has anyone tried pi/DAC from this company

 http://www.iqaudio.co.uk/

Researched it a bit before I got my Hifiberry DAC. Seems to have positive reviews and some nice features. Only went with the Hifiberry because it was a bit cheaper as I am in the US.

One thing I noticed with the hifi berry dac is the volume level is a bit lower. My Modi puts out 1.5v so I'm guessing the Hifiberry puts out less than that, if only by a little. If you have an amp that you are using a lot of the volume range for already you may want to check the output spec of the iq audio DAC.

 

[deckeda]

Thanks for this write-up. I'll be interested to learn how the Pi 3 changes any of this.

 

[lukeap69]

 
Thanks for this write-up. I'll be interested to learn how the Pi 3 changes any of this.

+1. 
 
Is there a benefit in adding the Hifiberry Digi+ if I am using a DI-U8 USB converter?

 

[silvrr]

 
Thanks for this write-up. I'll be interested to learn how the Pi 3 changes any of this.

Key changes that I read on the new Pi are Bluetooth and Wifi are integrated, and a new 1.2 GHz 64 bit chip.  The bluetooth and wifi on board are welcome additions IMO as you no longer need a Wifi dongle, this also will free up a USB port.  The extra power of the chip wasn't really needed but could be nice if you use your Pi for other tasks as well.  As for the 64 bit chip I know the makers of RuneAudio have one on order to see how it runs on the new chip.  Time will tell.  
 
From what I have read so far the USB and Ethernet port still share the same bus.  The new wifi and bluetooth seem to also be on that shared bus.  
 
Hifiberry have stated that their boards designed for the Pi2 will work with the 3 so other add on boards should also work I would assume. 
 
[Edit: see post #28 below, looks like there are a few issues with the Pi3 at release until they make some software updates]

 

[REXNFX]

Researched it a bit before I got my Hifiberry DAC. Seems to have positive reviews and some nice features. Only went with the Hifiberry because it was a bit cheaper as I am in the US.

One thing I noticed with the hifi berry dac is the volume level is a bit lower. My Modi puts out 1.5v so I'm guessing the Hifiberry puts out less than that, if only by a little. If you have an amp that you are using a lot of the volume range for already you may want to check the output spec of the iq audio DAC.

Thanks, the IQA DAC outputs 2v, it seems like great value, will have to try it I guess.

 

[landroni]

   
Interesting reads, from what I gathered from that link and the link within is that the Pi isn't good at generating clocks at for the I2s interface and a USB DAC wouldn't have the issues?

Yes, this is an interesting read:
https://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/raspberry-pi-b-digital-audio/
 
Do we know anything about the clocks in the Digi+? Are they impacted by the RPI limitations?

 

[lukeap69]

Just ordered Raspberry Pi 3. Will try it without the Digi+ and decide whether I need the coax output.

 

[silvrr]

Just ordered Raspberry Pi 3. Will try it without the Digi+ and decide whether I need the coax output.

Looks like there are some issues with the Pi 3 and hifi berry products.  I guess to some extent its to be expected as the Pi 3 was just released.
 

  Hi Everyone,
As you no doubt are aware the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Raspberry Pi 3 at the beginning of this week. Thrilled as we all are to get our hands on the new RPi3, for all our fun projects, it does mean there are some teething issues.
At present we have seen a number of kernel driver issues with the RPi3 and the DAC-Pro and Digi+ products. In short, the playback on the DAC-Pro and Digi+ is not working properly and I am currently working on the kernel to resolve each of these specific issues.
Once fixed we'll coordinate with the various Linux distributions and update our installer accordingly so that we are able to offer complete support for the new Raspberry Pi 3.
In the meantime thank you for your patience.
All the best,
Stuart

https://support.hifiberry.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/206519239-RPi3-and-Digi-Linux-not-working-Working-on-a-fix-

 

[lukeap69]

Thanks for that. Good thing I haven't ordered the Digi+ yet.

 

[landroni]

Thanks for that. Good thing I haven't ordered the Digi+ yet.

It looks like the problems are software. From Hifiberry's announcements, they don't seem to plan any hardware changes. So existing Digi+ is expected to work once software is fixed on distros...