Raspberry Pi 3 / Asus Tinker Board Roon Endpoint issues. (need assistance)
May 16, 2017 at 5:51 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 6
theque

theque

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I have configured my Asus Tinker Board and Raspberry Pi 3 as Roon Endpoints.

The reason I bought both is to see if the Asus Tinker Board with external WiFi antenna would be a better choice for a wireless endpoint.

My first test was hooking it up to my Schiit Modi 2U / Magni 2U. Wow, this sounds like crap at the moment. You know the sound you get when a cell phone is close to speakers when a phone call comes in; that is a constant. So I figured, let me try it on my Leckerton real fast to see if I get the same. Nope, crystal clear music as I was expecting.

I tried 4 different USB cables to the Leckerton (including the PYST USB cable), and they all sound the same. Pretty crappy.

I am going to hook it up via wired ethernet next to see if that is the issue. However, streaming Tidal 16/44.1 to the device is only using ~200k on the wireless and my Asus router is showing a ~50 Mbps wireless connection to the Asus Tinker Board at the moment, so I cannot believe it is a bandwidth issue. I also used WiFi analyzer and I am on a clear channel (no other carriers under or near it). Also, it works fine with the Leckerton.

Maybe I need a better shielded USB cable for the Modi 2U. Will update with my hardwire ethernet findings.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

-Ray
 
Last edited:
May 19, 2017 at 4:34 AM Post #4 of 6
Ok,

I have been racking my brains for 3 days trying to get the USB audio to my Schiit DAC's to work properly with the Tinker Board. I was literally just moments away from throwing this thing through the wall when I came across a thread about Volumio.

I have tried every other OS you can think of with the Tinker Board. The ASUS distribution, Armbian, DietPi, MoodeAudio, etc... Every single one has problems with connecting to my Schiit DAC's via USB (Modi 2 Uber, Modi 2 Multibit, and Bifrost Multibit). Basically it sounded like computer speakers when you had an old cell phone next to them and a phone call would come in. Just wobbly and like data was missing.

I tried adjusting the PulseAudio Fragments, I tried several combinations of dwc_otg configurations including:

dwc_otg.fiq.lpm_enable=0
dwc_otg.fiq_enable=1
dwc_otg.fiq_fsm_enable=1
dwc_otg.fiq_fsm_mask=0x3
dwc_otg.fiq_split_enable=0
dwc_otg.sped=1

I even purchase a Female RCA Bulkhead connection so that I could solder up the S/PDIF pin on the board to get audio. The most frusterating thing was that it always worked perfectly on my Leckerton UHA-6S MKII and my Oppo HA-2SE, but never with my Schiit DAC's. I tried different USB cables, ferrite chokes, and even one of those AudioQuest JitterBugs. I have spent far more time, effort, and money over the last 4 days trying to get this to work...

I came across the thread while researching the dwc_otg.fiq_split_enable=0 functionality some more. Not sure exactly how I got there. It is pretty late at night and I thought, what the hell, I'll try this last build and if it does not work I may stomp on this stupid board.

Well, it works PERFECTLY! Exactly as it should without any modifications needed. It does not matter what cable I use, ferrite choke or not, JitterBug or not; it just works properly with all of my DAC's.

My only complaint, I wish they had the option to have Roon Endpoint installed from the awesome web interface. I did not find it hard to manually install through the console. It would just be nice.

Raymond Tayse
 
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