Pi2AES/Volumio - keep killing the SD card

I am going to try moode.... question re ropieeexl - I think you can use it as stand alone without Roon. I am new to streaming, only run audio in one place, Roon seemed like a bridge too far and I didn't see what it brought to the party.

 

RopieeeXL does not require Roon, but I've never used it without so I don't know how well it supports the other use cases, except for AirPlay, which I sometimes use to stream podcasts from my iPad.

 

Just a point, the pi software does not see your DAC. It sees the transport mechanism such as our PI2AES. The transport outputs the proper stream to the DAC over the selected physical medium such as RCA, BNC, Opto, etc.

 

RopieeeXL works well with Spotify connect, UPnP/DLNA. I have used it successfully with Audirvana and Roon

 

You can use RoPieeeXL without Roon, but in any case it's still a network player endpoint and not directly a player the way Volumio or Moode are. And in my opinion you lose a lot of its value without Roon.

It supports a number of protocols though, including DLNA, AirPlay, Squeezelite, and Spotify, and I occasionally use AirPlay and Squeezelite.

 

Thx. A lot of this still goes over my head and is a whole new language ... I will try to ask reasonable questions. I really appreciate the input.

First is, I am def using Qobuz. Will moode and ropieeexl support this? Is the interface easy? What do I need to do to do this?

I think I am going to create 3 cards, one for each UI and test them all.

Finally, can someone explain to me what Roon is and does? What is its primary value, benefit?

 

Roon is a really nice (albeit expensive) front end for your music collection. There’s a thread here somewhere.

I was going to suggest picoreplayer as it uses archlinux which loads entirely into memory but couldn’t remember the name. It’s more complicated to set up but as posted earlier there’s a guide someone here made. Moode uses raspbian so can also potentially corrupt the microsd card if power is interrupted without powering down though that’s not common. No comment on Quboz as I’ve never tried it so don’t know what supports it but the trend seems to be towards the lossless streaming services thwarting open source implementations these days so if it works enjoy it while it lasts.

 

So, how does Roon work - does it replace, say, volumio and get loaded into the RPi? Or is it loaded onto external device like surface, and if so, what gets loaded into Rpi? The usual suspects?

 

That's really taking this thread in a different direction. Best to travel to the Roon thread and read up. If you have roon questions, ask them there.

 

Sorry, should have multi-quoted this into the prior post

I use Qobuz and Moode at the office (well, I will use it again whenever I get back to the office)... You have to install bubbleupnp on your android (not sure of equivalent for iOS). Select Moode as the renderer in Bubble, then enter your Qobuz user/password into Bubble. Then stream away.

Bubble is here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft.android.bubbleupnp&hl=en_US

 

If you shut down from the Volumio interface, you need to disconnect the power and reconnect it to re-start the Pi. I think.

Using Moode since around Feb, no problems with SDCards, but I do use the shutdown command from the Moode Web UI, when tinkering with the system.

None of the distros I have studied support Qobuz natively, except maybe Volumio? For all the others, you need to use the Pi as an UPNP end-point as was indicated above. You can stream to it with e.g. BubbleUPNP on Android or similar applications. If the distro includes MPD, then the UPNP app is just a remote control and the MPD running on the Pi authenticates with and talks to the Qobuz servers, I think. (I have used Tidal which I understand to work similarly.)

As an aside, I would suggest using an AES cable to conned the Pi2AES to Yggdrasil. People with good ears, including the designer of the DAC, recommend it... unless you have the Unison USB in Yggdrasil.

 

Thanks, a nice overview for me. This is my first experience with a Pi system and I'm still in my first month.

I'm using Volumio only because I was following @purr1n's Pi2AES setup instructions, which are great for getting started up without previous experience. Volumio is actually working fairly well for me and provides features I want to use: Qobuz* and Tidal* (* with MyVolumio), Spotify Connect, AirPlay, and web radio. Volumio feels like a CS student's senior project — individual features may work on a basic level but everything needs some improvement. My impression (just from reading) is that the other systems are also in that slightly unfinished alpha/beta release quality, but I'm willing to experiment.

Pi2AES has been worth it for the nice improvement in sound quality (previously using USB from a laptop). While listening to music, I experience these sudden moments of “hey, that sounds really good!” that I wasn't getting before.

 

I'm using PiCorePlayer as a stand alone in 4 locations around the house. I started out with a Squeezebox Touch back in the day and still like Squeezelite and LMS as a server. By the way, setup has gotten easier, so its not so bad to get going and has lots of options.

The cool thing about PCP is that it runs in the RPi memory, so you can just pull the plug when you want to shut if off. It doesn't write to the SD card much either which is good for SD card life. I leave 3 of the systems on full time. The 4th system in the garage only gets used when I working on a project out there, so it gets turned on and off.

Early on, I did have problems with SD cards going bad over time. I would get about a year before the standard consumer card wouldn't reformat properly. For the last couple of years, I have been using industrial cards, in particular SLC cards as opposed to MLC consumer cards. They are more expensive, but then with PCP, you don't need a big card. I can put PCP with Squeezelite player and LMS server on a 512 MB card if I expand the file system in PCP. The last SLC card I bought was a 512 MB Advantech from Mouser for about $11.

 

Ok, thanks. I'll do that.

 

Just a twist. So I took one of the cards that I assumed had a problem since I couldn't find the rig on my network with Volumio, and reformatted it, loaded Moode just to see and, sure enough, it works. Beats the heck outta me why the Volumio doesn't work on that card....

 

Installing Volumio has often failed for me. So if it's gotten corrupted because of all the writes and then you've tried reinstalling, the problem could be with the install rather than the card.

Most (every?) times when I've had install problems I've been using a fairly low powered PS. @Clemmaster has reported this as well. While a few watts are sufficient to run it once installed, Volumio seems to like a few more for initial setup.

 

AFAIK the issue is that Linux opens a file for writing, but has not completed the write when the power is lost. This could lead to leaving the open file in a corrupted state.

 

Are those SD card failures irremediable? I can't think of a way this could actually happen (physically, and permanently damaging a SD card, besides electrical stress)?!
Is there really no way to just reformat it (the hard/long way, not just a fast format)?

 

i have moode running, but no idea how to integrate Qobuz into it. There are so many new terms that everyone else seems to understand but that are new to me, I loose the thread/logic. I don't quite know what/where/how upnp is/works/what I need to download where. I want the UI to be on my Surface and I keep seeing android references.

But maybe what I am going to do is look harder at Roon. I looked at the thread referenced above, and probably need to start a new one as I am such a beginner I couldn't follow a lot of it. Thanks all for your input. It definitely helped me move my overall understanding forward.