Building a Raspberry Pi-based streamer - a guide for the nervous

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Kattefjaes, Feb 19, 2017.

  1. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I tried this stream,what you hear over UPnP pn my moOde and could not get it working. This is with Windows 10 and Spotify.
     
  2. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Wouldn't work for me as a UPnP stream with Volumio - but http live streaming works fine.

    There's a spotify plugin for Volumio, but it requires a premium account.
     
  3. Scubadude

    Scubadude Almost "Made"

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    Thanks for this incredible resource guys! I took the easy way out and bought a fully assembled Pi3 / Kali / Piano 2.1 bundle. Or so I thought! Seems the assembly is not the tricky part, so I will be scouring this thread to learn how to set up and use the little streamer.

    EDIT: turns out to be super easy even for an IT dunce like me. 45 minutes from startup with Volumio to flashing SD and running piCorePlayer. Very satisfying experience!
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2018
  4. Scott Kramer

    Scott Kramer Friend

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  5. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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  6. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Hey! The Allo Boss DAC is on Massdrop! $10 cheaper then the usual price.
     
  7. Scott Kramer

    Scott Kramer Friend

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    Screen Shot 2018-09-21 at 1.15.57 PM.png

    ref: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendor-s-bazaar/294940-fifo-buffer-rpi-sbcs-post5552272.html

    piCore 4 realtime is slowly becoming amazing...

    and now this hardware -- I don't think there's a single chip, flip-flop, clock fanout, crystal without it's own regulator and parallel'd bypasscap in sight, and the crystals, final flip-flops (i2s latches) getting special attention film (3 diff value) caps on the power pin.

    Also, I like that they don't use a transformer (that overused "galvanized" decoupled term, it ain't zinc!) on the output... it does look weird and distorted on the oscilloscope vs straight --> at least on the hifiberry I tested.

    WOW
     

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    Last edited: Sep 21, 2018
  8. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    I saw that the other day on the Allo site! At $250 it better be the ultimate RPi digital solution. Maybe send it to @Hands to compare to the DigiOne he reviewed.
     
  9. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Attn @gixxerwimp and anybody who's had trouble with Hi-Fi Cast as an Android control point for LMS: the latest Hi-Fi Cast update purports to have "fixed [an] issue when playing albums from Logitech Media Server."

    I don't use LMS myself so can't vouch for it.
     
  10. randytsuch

    randytsuch Friend

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  11. randytsuch

    randytsuch Friend

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  12. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Has anyone tried the ALSA EQ in pCP? I played around with it a bit and it seems to work OK. The default setting for all bands is "66". I've searched and many have asked but nobody answered the questions: "Does 66=0dB? What are the settings equivalent to in dB?"
     
  13. randytsuch

    randytsuch Friend

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    There is a long PcP thread at diyaudio, you could try asking in that thread, the developer checks and answers question.
    https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-...er-picore-linux-raspberry-pi-squeezelite.html

    There are also some guys over at diyaudio that seem to know a lot about Linux audio, so if this is more of a general alsa question, you might consider starting a thread and asking your question.

    Good luck.
     
  14. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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  15. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Thanks, I'd found that post. Someone said they'd emailed the developer and would post if they got a response. Didn't see one so ...

    Apparently they are using alsaequal.
    https://forums.slimdevices.com/show...orePlayer-2-00&p=848077&viewfull=1#post848077
    The link in the post is dead. I found this which may have the answer but I don't speak Linux.
    https://github.com/raedwulf/alsaequal

    Anyway, just wondered if anyone here knew more about it. I'll try it and if I don't hear it adversely affecting sound quality I'll resist all urges to nervosa about it.

    One interesting thing, when I was playing with it initially, I boosted the subbass and it seemed to reduce the amount of boost in real time while playing a track. I'm wondering if it's automatically doing this to prevent clipping. I'll have to double check.
     
  16. GanGreinke

    GanGreinke Friend

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    Has anyone tried using any of the Allo hats or the Pi2design hats with the Tinker Board S? It has some better specs, decouples the USB and ethernet, and is supported by Volumio at the very least (they released their own streamer called the Primo, which uses the Tinker Board S as the base: https://volumio.org/product/volumio-primo/).

    I'd love to be able to use the Allo DigiOne Signature or 502 Pro board with it if possible and have it be the all-in-one media device for my living room since it can also play 4K video over HDMI.
     
  17. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    I own the Allo Signature and a Pi2Design. I would say pick up an Allo Signature or wait for the new Pi2design coming out soon with Aes & i2s output. The Allo Signature sounded better than an Auralic Aries G1 I tried so that sealed the deal for me. The Pi2design hat is really good on par with Project streambox one I tried but not better than Allo. I am running the Allo Sig (Roon and Volumio) with an Audiophonics 5v Lps though, but the iFi 5v power adapter for $50 sounded almost the same. So for about $300 you get a streamer that I think sounds as good or better than Auralic G1.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
  18. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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  19. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I will be getting a digi+ pro tomorrow and I'm wondering what you guys are using for operating systems. It seems that volumio now supports the Digi+ pro, so I might give that a shot. I'm currently running Rasplex, so I'm tempted to see if that works also.
     
  20. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Yep, Volumio does. If there's still stuff on the web saying it's 'experimental', or whatever, that's out of date. Should say I've not tried the pro myself though; using the Digi+ standard.
     

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