Raspberry Pi I2S to SPDIF Hat

I did not, and won't, as piCorePlayer worked flawlessly for several months non stop. (and still works with the 'equivalent' hat by HiFiBerry).
Please note that I didn't do any sw update prior to the problem, it happened during a night, while the player was on pause.
Next morning, no way to connect anymore (using Squeezer) then I saw that Squeezelite was down on the pCP web interface.

As soon as I choose Digi + Pro as an output with your board on, Squeezebox gets down. But not with the HiFiBerry hat.
Seeing as there's no software on your board, it should be that some hardware gave up, but I can't see which and surely don't know why... the whole thing has been static and out of reach behind a piece of furniture from the beginning, it even was on its side so no (highly improbable) temperature buildup could occur...

 

The 502DAC works with the Hifiberry Dac+ or Dac+ Pro driver (I forget which, maybe both), not the Digi one.

 

He has the pro which does use the digital driver.

Cheers,
Michael

We are working to get more in stock. Send an email to [email protected] so we can get you a replacement unit.

Cheers,
Michael

 

Thank you Michael, I'll send you my unit for further investigation if you'd like.

Also, full disclosure to appease the newest followers here, I bought my 502 from the first commercial batch (first post prototype / C-sample like batch), I'm sure the actual product line in serial form is completely debugged. (and like the hats, customer service is top notch anyway! )

 

I have the 502DAC Pro. I was willing to use it with a RPi 3 or Odroid C2 + Iancanada isolator and as player Audirvana ->upnp to Volumio or Moode. With Odroid C2 not successful. With Rpi3 was working for a period with Volumio installed but now do not work anymore. In Volumio 2.348 an ALSA error message appear: Failed to open ALSA device "hw:1,0".
With Moode is working (without IanCanada isolator) but Moode is not discovered by Audirvana as UPNP renderer.
Does anybody experienced similar problems with the latest Volumio 2.348?

Also any advice on using with IanCanada isolator will be appreciated.

 

Not sure about the isolator, but we put the Pi in slave mode so maybe the isolator is assuming master mode?

Also the Odroid C2 can not work because it puts the I2S signals on a separate 7-pin connector. not the 40-Pin GPIO connector.

Cheers,
Michael

 

I also have 502DAC Pro and am using it with Moode beta 12 on RPI3. It is discovered as a UPNP renderer straight away by Bubbleupnp (not tried Audirvana, sorry).

Are you sure that you have enabled UPNP in Moode?

 

Hi Michael,
Yes, the IsolatorPi is set in master mode (as @linh0983 confirmed) and it was working until a certain moment. It s true that I was not so systematic in my trials. The IsolatorPi from IanCanada (on DIYAudio forum) has both I2S connecting possibility (for RPi and Odroid C2) so you can use Rpi hats on Odroid C2. This is one of the reasons that I get the IsolatorPi.
Anyhow now I've start to test ,in a more systematic way, different configurations of HW and SW.
1. First steps are with Rpi3 + 502DAC pro. Up to know this is working with Moode beta 12 independently and is seen also by Audirvana+ ( @Naimsayer : Yes the UPNP was enabled from the beginning but it took some time until appeared in A+ list of Devices).
2. Same HW configuration with a fresh Volumio 2.348 image. I've done the settings following the initial wizard steps. With the I2S DAC set as 502DAC Pro I have the same ALSA error message: Failed to open ALSA device "hw:1,0" (actually several of them). The mixer was set to none. This is strange as I recall that was working with Volumio. Maybe I will try a older image just to be sure. Somebody encountered same problems with latest Volumio image?

Next I will try the RPI3 + IsolatorPi + 502DAC Pro with Moode beta12 and Volumio.

 

Short update from the previous post: RPi3 ->502DAC Pro is working with Volumio 2.348 but not with DIGI+ Pro driver selected and not 503DAC Pro (this still give Failed to open ALSA device "hw:1,0" error message). It works through Volumio web interface as well as UPNP renderer for Audirvana+. It plays PCM and DSD x64 (DoP).

 

Have you tried to enable upsampling? The first time I installed the 502 I had the alsa mixer error pop-up too. I then enabled upsampling, restarted and it played. When I turned upsampling off again it still played. It was a little weird burt it worked.
The second install I used the volumio wizard and this worked right away. If you don`t use the digi+ or 502 driver, which other one works?

 

Hi Michael @Michael Kelly

Are there still plans for a metal case for the 502DAC ? If so, do you have a rough guesstimate of when?

Cheers!

 

Sorry, my mistake. With DIGI+ drivers is working. With 502DAC Pro is not working properly.
Didn’t have time to test again with Ian’s IsolatorPI. I’m off for 10days but when return I will give again a try as I am sure that in the past was working for a while. I will try also your advice with enablin upsampling. Thank you.

 

Hi!

I also got Ian's Isolator (should be jumpered properly as far as I know) and have the same issue with the 502dac.

I used to run Dietpi with Spotify Connect and everything was working great until one day it didn't The music stopped playing and the hat wasn't being discovered anymore.
I didn't have the time to debug the issue then so I left the RPI audio stack alone for a while until today I installed the latest DietPi and got music playing again easily.

I then decided to also try Volumio (2.348) and put that on a new SD card, ran through basic setup (selecting the 502DAC preset) and everything was working smooth.

I listened to music for an hour or two then paused for lunch. When I got back I couldn't play anything anymore and got the ALSA error. I've never really been using the 502 without the Isolator so maybe I'll try to run things without the isolator and see if it changes anything.

I'm pretty sure it's not the fault of any single piece of hardware but maybe this specific combo is not working together without some magic tricks. Maybe I'll try running the 502 without the Isolator and see if that helps.

 

So this morning I powered on the RPI + Ian's Isolator + 502 stack and magically it worked again.

I listened to music for about an hour after which it again suddenly gave up and started giving me the ALSA errors. Basically the card suddenly disappears from the ALSA hardware list entirely for some reason (you can check this by ssh:ing to Volumio or DietPi and running aplay -l from the command line).

I powered down the stack and let it cool for about 30 mins to see if maybe something is overheating, then started it again. I still got the errors right away. I then took out the Isolator from between the RPI and the 502 and the stack started working.

I've been playing music for few hours now, switching sources, normal and hires files with different rates and things are working fine.

So the only conclusion for me right now is that the Isolator is messing things up somehow.

That's a shame since for me the Isolator is the piece that elevates the RPI Frankenstein stack above my old Mac Mini -> USB Regen -> Vcutter snake setup in sound quality.

Of course that's good news for the 502 since there seems to be nothing wrong with it and naturally it's still an awesome hat

I'll return to the subject later after I've rechecked the jumper setup on the Isolator AND if I get it to work stable.

I know the Isolator + 502 is probably not a crazy popular combo, so sorry if I've been derailing the thread!

 

Hi ! I confirm ...
After 3 months Pi2 + IsolatorPi (Ian) + 502DAC Pro is still running smoothly no problem .

 

That's encouraging to hear What software are you running on the Pi?

I'm powering the 502 from the Isolator 5V so that at least is different in our setups.

The 5V feeding the Isolator is just a hacked USB cable but the charger at the wall should be beefy enough to provide enough juice. Of course it's not the most elegant solution so I could try a bit more robust power cable and supply when I have the time – just to eliminate the possibility that the USB cable is not up to the task somehow.

The Isolator is always powered on first, then the Rpi.

I rechecked my jumpers and they're set according to Ian's guide when using a master mode dac/hat.



I also had the system up and running initially (got the Isolator from the first group buy) for a good while without any isseus. There were a few updates to DietPi which I ran before the stack stopped working so maybe there was some change that might've influenced this. Although it seems weird since the Isolator should work transparently and should not be influenced by any software changes.

 

Hi !
I play MoOde 4.0 Release .
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HZHYI2ACqCcsMZm_iqOqZJzmrf7Opfev
http://moodeaudio.org/docs/SOURCES.html



Setup isolator Pi for 502DAC Pro :
Yellow circle J12 set master mode .
Red circle pin31 GPIO remove the resistor .
Power supply 5v for Pi through mini usb port and 5v for 502DAC Pro DC plug .

 

Hi linh0983 and thanks for the info!
I have the Isolator setup the same except for the resistor. I still have it intact I don't see it mentioned in the IsolatorPi manual. What is that and why is it removed?

 

It seems to be connected to pin 31. That is the GPIO used to select the clock for 48Mhz based files. It is possible this pullup is interfering with the clock selection. I believe the driver sets both clock enables to weak pulldowns, then drives the desired one high as needed. If this pullup really is the issue then it could be enabling the 48Mhzk clock all the time. Have you tried playing only some 48Khz (or 96Khz or 192Khz) files?

Cheers,
Michael

 

Hi !
After remove the resistor 41.1 Khz , 48Khz , 96Khz or 192Khz files play good .
Play file 41.1 Khz led red light .
Play file 48Khz , 96Khz or 192Khz led yellow light .