[big45-70]

Over the last few weeks I'd been playing with my Raspi 3 and Volumio and man it is a great little source. Every USB DAC I had plugged in has worked perfectly and being able to edit your playlist with any device you happen to have in front of you is a really nice convenience factor. The setup I have decided to stick with is an old 256GB SSD with my flac collection, and a dragonfly black plugged in to a liquid spark. Its small, sounds great is low power and I really like the Volumio user face. I connected it to my local server, and this little setup has access to every music file I own.

I was slow to move to a small server for listening and did most of my listening on my PC or DAP, but since moving over to streaming locally I can't see going back.

 

[richie60]

Agreed. I’ve got a rpi/Audiophonics dac hat that still sounds great. Upgraded with a linear power supply. Currently use a Pioneer N50 streamer mainly and when it’s time to change it, will probably build an Allo DigiOne Signature into a Dac of my choice.

 

[gibby]

I have a pi3b running Volumio with a HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro coax to Topping D90 with my music on a NAS. It sounds great.

 

[mcgo]

Just a heads up. USB on Pi3 is borked at the hardware level... with Pi3 use coax or spdif hat. USB sorta works at 44.1...

Pi4 USB is very good, no issues with high rate DSD, etc. I use a hifime usb2 isolator with my Pi4 and RME DAC - trick with it was to disable kernel usb power sleep, which is needed even on windows... Like putting it to sleep will save the planet.

EDIT: I looked at my pi4 config, and the setting for no usb sleep is..

add to /boot/cmdline.txt:
usbcore.autosuspend=-1

Rock solid since Nov 2019.

 

[pinkfloyd4ever]

YES. I use an Allo DigiOne player (RPi 3B+ based) for my streamer on my 2 channel system. I run Volumio and I have it feeding S/PDIF to my Modius now and it sounds amazing. It was a huge step up in sound quality from the Chromecast Audio I was using before.

 

[big45-70]

Just a heads up. USB on Pi3 is borked at the hardware level... with Pi3 use coax or spdif hat. USB sorta works at 44.1...

Pi4 USB is very good, no issues with high rate DSD, etc. I use a hifime usb2 isolator with my Pi4 and RME DAC - trick with it was to disable kernel usb power sleep, which is needed even on windows... Like putting it to sleep will save the planet.

I can honestly say I have had no issue, I mainly use my dragonfly black with my pi so I'm using 24/96.

 

[depthgrammar]

Hi, these are probably some obvious questions, but I want to be sure before I purchase a few things. I'm looking to set up a small, basic bedside system. Would like something to access my flac collection and send to a dac/amp (r2r11) via usb, maybe adding an s/pdif hat at a later date. I don't use streaming services, so the sole purpose of this is to play files. I'm thinking about a Pi4 with (thumb drive? hard drive? or - even just a larger capacity micro sd card if that would work? I'm reading conflicting info on this - some say 32gb is max for Pi, some say otherwise... and I have well under 1tb of music). And then I'd like to control with a phone or ipad. Would Volumio be best for this, considering I'm not streaming? Or can I use something even more basic?
Anything i'm missing here? Anything I ought to look out for in addition to, or instead of, the above? Much obliged for any wisdom

 

[markel]

I have several different Roon Endpoints (Ethernet and Wifi) in my house connected to DAC’s in different locations, including microrendu, raspberry pi4 (usb), Mac mini, and a Chuwi Herobox. The raspberry pi4 works great, but for a bit more money, I’ve found that used Mac Mini or baby windows computer (like the Chuwi Herobox) works better than the pi and it is easier to control. I use Chrome Remote Desktop and I can put drivers on Mac or Windows if I need to. I still like the pi4, and it is better to use if you want to add a DAC hat, but there are other good alternatives for streamers.

 

[kvik]

@depthgrammar

It can be done, but I am not sure how USB-in (stick/hdd) and USB-out (dac) will sound. You can shot down individual USB-ports, but the in and out will still share bus. Instead you could load the files via WiFi, and output them via USB, each has a separate bus.

Using piCorePlayer to stream, and LMS to serve, the iPeng app will let you control playback from an iPhone. You will need WiFi (or ethernet) for the two (LMS and iPeng) to converse.

I wanted to build a setup like the one you are proposing. In my case the DAC's coax input was superior, so I went with Allo Digione Player (which at the time only came with rpi 3b+). I tried various distros, and eventually ended up with the above mentioned pCP/LMS/iPeng constellation. In order to be able to use iPeng, rather than turning on WiFi, I connected the pie to my home network via ethernet (using home plugs, the modem/router is on a different floor).

This streamer/server setup worked, with one or two caveats. The intial hard drive I used required more power than a single rpi usb-port could provide, so at first I used a double usb-chord, but then ended up using a separate external usb power supply. This was with rpi 3b+, with rpi4 things might be different, I don't know.

Second caveat is the fact that LMS works as a server, and needs to be shut down properly (using the web gui), rather than just pulling the plug. Otherwise it might not find the connected hard drive, and you will need to remove and reinstall LMS, and mount the drive again. An annoying and time consuming process.

Late 2020 I stumbled across the thread below, and decided to make a change to the setup above. I got the RPI4, found an enclosure (Flirc) with sufficient (passive) cooling, and split up streamer and server. Today Digione (rpi3b+) runs piCorePlayer in player mode only, the new unit (rpi4) also runs piCorePlayer, but with player turned off, and with LMS installed and running. Both now use WiFi to communicate. In additon I did some of the tweaks suggested in the thread below.

An informative thread on rpi4 as streamer/server..
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/60691-how-is-the-pi-4/

 

[depthgrammar]

Thanks - good info there. Didn't realize using both usb ports would compromise sq. I came across some people storing music files directly on the Pi's micro sd card (which storage-wise would probably suffice for me), but i guess that can affect system operation? Also not ideal. This is essentially what I currently do elsewhere with my laptop's SSD, where I store all of my music, but not sure how that differs from the Pi/micro sd. But this Pi would have only one purpose, which is to send music to my dac, so I wonder if it would still work.
And if i'm serving the files via wifi, I'm essentially streaming, no? Which is what I was hoping to avoid. I can and should probably go the PiHat route and use coax instead, but I thought i'd read somewhere that my dac's usb edges out the s/pdif connection. Can't seem to find where i read that now though, so maybe I'm making it up.

 

[sajunky]

I read couple suggestions and two should work the best on your R2R11. It is a fantastic natural sounding DAC, a real steal for the money, but you need to feed it with a quality source. One suggestion I like is to feed it with S/PDIF, not USB. It gives galvanic isolation from ground loops, USB is not isolated. When you hear around that coax sounds better, it is because a DAC is sensitive to ground loops on the USB connection. I disregard at the moment USB problems specific to RPi3.

If you decide to use USB connection, I like a suggestion given by @kvik to split up functions of server and player. It means of using WiFi or LAN cable on RPi, not a local USB storage for avoiding USB limitations. Your laptop can serve music files, just make some folders available on the LAN.

 

[depthgrammar]

Thanks - I've been using the dac with a cd transport via coax with great results, only problem is said transport is sometimes too noisy in operation for bedside use, hence my looking at RPi4. I did run it off a system in another room early on where I could compare usb and coax, and thought usb sounded a little better, but there were too many variables to chalk the difference up to connection alone, and the unit was not properly burned in. In any case when I set up a Pi I'll likely get an S/PDIF hat & usb hard drive. Sadly my laptop won't fit near this rig.

 

[kvik]

To be honest I am somewhat ambivalent towards the RPI as streamer/server. It was meant to replace my macbook pro running audirvana and feeding the dac via an usb-to-spdif converter. I wanted to just listen to music, and not have the computer in front of me all time while listening. True, both my RPI setups have met that criteria, but it frankly has required an excessive amount of time and effort to get there. Additonally, sound quality has'nt really improved, and neither has userfriendliness. So, to me RPI has represented the quintessence of COMPUTER audio, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a simple plug&play solution. Personally I am now looking at moving to a dedicated device (from Innous/Aurender/Melco/etc), or even back to a mac mini. This isn't meant to discourage you, but to offer a more balanced view.

 

[kvik]

Ok, I checked the RPI4 bus situation. USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connect to each their bus. Of the four USB ports, two are USB 2.0 only, the other two are dedicated to USB 3.0, but handles USB 2.0 as well. The Amanero USB receiver in R2R 11 is USB 2.0, so if you get a USB 3.0 hard drive, you should be able run the two on separate buses. That way sq might not suffer from RPI4 working as both streamer and server. Also, with the USB receiver being Amanero, I think it might well be worth going with USB, rather than Coax. If you go the above route, and need help with pCP/LMS/iPeng along the wasy, feel free to PM me.

 

[depthgrammar]

Much obliged - that's super helpful! Thinking now that if i can use RPi4 via usb, I can keep using the cd transport over coax as well, which is a definite plus.