Dummies Guide to Pi2AES! Throw away your PC or laptop.

If you install moOde audio on the raspberry pi you can stream music from your iPad via airplay. There has been some debate on the quality of airplay in the past, maybe someone who uses it more could chime in.

 

I'm actually getting dropouts airplaying from a '19 MacBook Pro to Volumio. Maybe it's better with moode/iPad.. (nothing to do with pi2aes obviously)

 

Possibly issues on your network too. I haven't used Airplay in a while but I always found it reliable with various devices (computers, phones, tablets, and streamers).

 

It works fine directly to the receiver, but has hickups when I try to stream to the pi via volumio. Other than that volumio works great (it's all on wifi).

 

AirPlay works fine for me with GentooPlayer. But I don't use it often, because of its limitations and because other streaming protocols offer a better sound quality in my set-up.

 

thanks for the responses, dont think i was clear enough though...

am interested in the comparison of pi2aes board to directly streaming from an ipad into the dac.
other than gaining the i2s connectivity which my dac supports and am curious about i'm wondering if the stream from pi2aes is superior to that of ipad directly to the dac w/OTG adapter cable

 

That really depends on the quality/transparency of your dac and the rest of your chain, as well as your ability to discern differences in digital source gear. Also you’ll be comparing the quality of your DACs usb vs i2s input. We know none of this, so pretty hard to give a straight answer, other than Pi2AES can absolutely sound way better than an IPad, depending on the system and the listener.

 

pi2aes sounds a lot better than streaming from a computer. Its worth it.

 

i have the Denafrips Pontus DAC; https://www.denafrips.com/pontus
when i got it it was a decent enough difference but that's prob because i was using a DeltaSigma before so take that for what you will

 

Pontus sounds great with pi2aes with I2S connection

I own both.

 

I've recently started experiencing my Pi2AES suddenly shutting down. It will work fine for a while, then shut down, and when I reboot it, it will shut down again in a few minutes or seconds. It has been working fine for weeks until recently. I'm running Ropiee, and yesterday I downloaded and installed a fresh OS on a new card, but it just started doing it again after listening for a couple of hours. Is this a Pi2AES issue or a Raspberry Pi issue? Thermal issue? Any suggestions?

 

Maybe your power supply is to weak

 

I’ve got the Pi2 switching PS and a 24v LPS, and it happens with both. MK suggested running the RPi without the hat to diagnose. I’ve also got another RPi I can swap.

 

Have you checked the Pi board temperature on the Information tab of Ropieee's web interface? If it gets to 70C, bad things could happen.

 

The system log would probably be enlightening but you’d need to be comfortable with using ssh to access your pi.

Since you’ve already swapped in a new card with fresh image my guess would be power or heat though the latter would be very unusual. Are you doing the split power thing where you provide power to the Pi and hat separately? If not maybe try it, if so maybe try not doing it.

 

Can everyone please move all software troubleshooting questions and comments and discussion to this thread I created for this purpose? These software issues are not related to the Pi2AES and it's long overdue we move it out of this thread and have a software troubleshooting thread so the blame doesn't to @Michael Kelly or his product.

Please post software troubleshooting, comments and discussion here. I'm trying to create a good resource in this new thread, but still need help fro the community to setup guides.

Then this thread can just be about the actual Pi2AES.

 

I'm running the RPi off the Pi2 supply. Funny thing, tonight it's run for several hours without a hitch, and it idled all day long. The idle board temp was about 57C, and it went up as high as 61C with a load. Go figure. I'll continue to monitor...

 

https://github.com/seniorgod/ifi-tidal-release

For those wanting Tidal connect on all SOs, including Volumio, just need to use ssh.

 

If you still want, I can send you a new unit tomorrow to replace this one. It would be useful if you could try another power supply first just to see if by any chance that’s the issue. But I understand if you’re limited in your ability to diagnose.

 

61C isn’t hot. Keep in mind the Pi will throttle the processor if it reaches a thermal threshold so it’s really unlikely heat would lead to a complete shut down.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on audibility but the reason to limit heat is so power management isn’t needed and so lessens the risk of the processor not being able to immediately handle whatever audio task is pressing (which could theoretically increase jitter). Available processor resources and jitter is also why we like to decrease latency even if it hurts maximum perf a little.