Pi 2 Design - How do I get started?

Lacking any response and @Michael Kelly's opinion there should be no audible difference I went ahead with the Pi4. I think another local has one with a 3B+, and if so we will get together and do a comparison. 1GB should be fine (same as 3B+).

 

I have a 3b and 4 in use as streamers, and the digital audio hat does the heavy lifting. 3b+ made no difference at all.

The real advantage of the 4 is the revised USB architecture, which eliminates the audio dropouts of the old series if you're using USB. Wifi is also improved, which might matter if you're using NAS.

Definitely pick up the latest EEPROM updates, which make IME about a 10C difference in running temperatures. You'll need Raspbian Buster for that. Heatsinks can make another 2-3C difference, but there's no need for a fan of you just stream audio.

 

For work, I have a non-network setup that just uses an external hard drive and touch screen for controls, and it has a HiFiBerry Digi+ for digital coax out. It's very similar to what's described here: http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/03/howto-building-and-installing-raspberry.html

So, it's a Raspberry Pi 3b + power supply + official 7" touchscreen + HiFiBerry Digi+ + SmartiPi Touch case

Software-wise, I use RuneAudio since that's what seemed to be recommended by the random comments I read however many years ago I built mine. It gets the job done; though, the UI isn't optimized for touch controls. I've been meaning to try out others but have never gotten around to it.

If I was to build a new system today, I'd probably do the following:
- Buy the latest & greatest version of Raspberry Pi
- Consider a better power supply
- Probably still buy the official 7" touchscreen
- Consider PI2AES Pro Audio Shield or Allo DIgione (instead of HiFiBerry Digi+)
- maybe get the new SmartiPi 2 Touch case

 

John Darko Posted a solid beginners guide video today.

 

Just want to share something that I learnt from a friend recently. Apparently 4GB RAM version of the Pi4B, allows you to install OS like AudioLinux directly onto the RAM**, which apparently results in a slightly improved sound quality.

@purr1n , if you did get the Pi4 4GB version, this may be something you could try someday, when you are bored.

** - I am not familiar how big the other OS are, and if the procedure to install the OS on the RAM is different from installing it on the mSD card.

 

Now this is interesting. Running audio streaming purely from RAM presents good opportunities for noise isolation.

I've replaced my old 3b streamer with a new 2Gig 4b version, still Digi+ Pro in their steel case, using USB to a Bifrost 5G 4490, coax to OG Gungnir MB, and optical to Modi MB. Rune w/MageDok touchscreen. Works.

So, have now repurposed my 4Gig 4b for development, with rootfs on an M.2 NVMe.

Currently, a testing 64-bit Raspbian kernel w/32-bit userland and systemd-nspawn 64-bit userland container. Getting familiar with containerized deployments, IOW. Props to Sakaki for making this so easy.

Containerized audiophile environments seem like an opportunity waiting to happen.

 

This is great news. While my music server PC is small, low power and low noise, I've been wanting to reclaim space on my rack. I tried the HiFi Berry digi+ with a Pi 3 with Volumio damn near 4 years ago with the same idea but I wasn't too impressed with it. However, at the time I was comparing it to a Rednet AES16r and my Digigram pci-express card -both of which were AES into the Yggdrasil as opposed to coax. But I also thought the Singxer XMOS F-1 outperformed the Hifi Berry so I abandoned the idea of using a Pi for years and eventually gave it to a friend.

Is the HifiBerry is just poo compared to Allo and Pi2AES?

 

Hifiberry Digi is, IMO, competently executed and perfectly capable if part of a carefully implemented solution. Until I actually require AES/EBU, someday, it works perfectly well for my needs, and is both cheap and easy. The steel case is nice, though.

Clean power matters, and I had been using an iPower wart, which I liked. Everything now sits behind a Furman, so that matters less, and all my Pi's use conventional Canakits, and A/B I can't tell much difference.

I do now have a nice 30A Daiwa PS, and a West Mountain Radio Epic PWRgate, and will for unrelated reasons in due course be running nearly everything from a 30 Ah LiFePO4 cell, including a pure sine inverter for that which requires it.

I do wonder whether the low-latency arch linux kernel used by Runeaudio makes a real difference, but even having worked for many years with realtime and low-latency implementations, often purpose tuned for audio transport, I don't know that it's a deal breaker, one way or the other, from an audiophile perspective.

Running audio from an isolated, purely memory based, environment, that does sound interesting, though. Every little bit helps.

 

I'd like to give a virtual thumbs up to Pi2AES with moOde as a free option to Volumio.

I just finished a box for my office to stream Tidal/Qobuz. It and am using moOde with Bubbleupnp on an old docked galaxy nexus phone as the controller... all running off of wifi. Very painless install, sounds great.


edit for piss-poor spelling

 

Expanding on my OS selection.

At home I run Roon... Ropiee is by far the easiest/free/no-brainer way to create a roon endpoint, so just stop reading if you're running Roon.

At work my endgoal is to stream Qobuz/Tidal (currently holding my own streaming service thunderdome). Hardware is a Pi 3B+ & Pi2AES.

• I tried RuneAudio first, but I never got it to boot. After joining their forums, I found that the version in the download section (v0.3 Beta) is over 5 yrs old and won't work on the 3B+. You have to DL 0.5beta from a forum link for 3B+ support. That version didn't boot for me either and I gave up when it was suggested to download RuneAudio+R e2 (the improved version of RuneAudio) from a link in the forums.
• Volumio next, but when I saw that they wanted $30+/yr for the version that would stream Tidal/Qobuz, I went looking for a cheaper option. I figured I could always come back if I couldn't get anything else to work.
• Max2Play next, but it wasn't clear to me that this could easily stream Tidal/Qobuz. And, my (possibly false) impression was that the ability to do movies/home automation was going to introduce a level of complexity to the software that I just didn't want to deal with.
• moOde was next and was dead simple to install, worked immediately using the Digi+Pro HAT selection. It uses BubbleUpnp ($4.99 license) to stream Tidal/Qobuz and if I want to add my own tunes, that appears simple to do with a USB stick. It's also free/donationware... assuming I'm still using it in month I'll push some $$ their way.

Of course, different hardware/end goals may point to different OS solutions, so YMMV


edit to add links & hardware

 

So if I'm understanding correctly, in order to stream Tidal/Qobuz "natively," Volumio and/or MoOde require a license/subscription. Using the free versions, those streaming services are "cast" via uPnP.. which (correct me if I'm wrong) isn't truly lossless (i.e. there's a transcoding process that occurs before the Pi gets the audio) ?

 

It's a little frustrating, yes?

I'm running the latest e2 variant of Rune, and actually like it a lot, but I initially found it fairly frustrating, since I had no experience with earlier versions, and nothing at all was intuitively obvious, even pacman.

Geek culture, you only learn by doing. Mpd wrappers.

 

Volumio's website indicates native support Tidal/Qobuz... I took that to mean that their app is all you need and no uPnP is required. RuneAudio and moOde require uPnP.

As for whether the signal remains lossless, I don't know. Someone that knows the inner workings of uPnP, the OS, Linux ALSA, etc will have to step in. About the only extra thing I can offer is that I disabled volume control in moOde, so that should have eliminated one possible point of lossyness.

Edit--------------------

FWIW, BubbleUpnp is telling me that it is playing a 24bit FLAC file. Reading the description of "Hifi uPnP" here leads me to believe that uPnP is purely a controller and that it steps out of the equation when play begins. I can't say whether moOde is transcoding something as the renderer... that would take more research than I'm willing to do right now (but imagine my nervosa will take over before the weekend is over and that I'll try to track it down)

 

what is this with a PI2AES or something else?

Michael

 

It’s been a while since I’ve used Tidal but the mechanism (for moode anyway) is more like you use the app, which can be any app that does upnp but bubble is a safe choice on android) to choose what music to queue from Tidal and then the Pi handles all the actual streaming, etc. The downside is that the interface to the music is much more rudimentary than the actual app but when I tried it (a few years now I guess so ymmv) the only way to use the Tidal app, on iOS anyway, was airplay.

 

I'm using the Pi2AES at the office (you can see it in the background of the photo in the previous post). I'll update the OS post to make it clearer

 

Yes. The free version of Volumio will not natively stream Tidal or Qobuz, you have to use something like Stream What You Hear to re-route an incoming stream via UPnP server software to Volumio (or whatever renderer). This (Stream What You Hear) that adds a transcoding step.

Not quite. AFAIK @dasman66 is correct in post #57 above: the UPnP server takes the audio stream but sidesteps whatever OS the computer is using and passes it directly to the renderer. In which case, the cheapest way to get an unmolested Tidal/Qobuz stream to a Pi+HAT would be to use Bubble as a UPnP server (and a Bubble Android or iOS control-point app if you're using a phone as a remote) and moOde or Volumio Free as the renderer.