Raspberry Pi Streamer Nervosa Thread

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by squishware, Jan 31, 2020.

  1. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    Pi2AES up and running. It took me about 15-20 minutes to put everything together and power it up. Initial impressions using the optical out are very positive- It definitely sounds better than USB out of the Pi. I’ll offer a more detailed opinion after I have a few hours of active listening logged.
     
  2. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    Opinion on the Pi2AES

    Most of the time, I find the advice and opinions of audiophiles with similar tastes to mine very helpful when trying to improve my musical environment. Not always, of course (I don’t really get the love for HD650s for example), but I have undoubtedly a much better sounding system than I could have managed on my own without spending far more money. The latest example of sound improvement for not a ton of cash is my raspberry pi streamer with an io shield. In this case a Pi4B with a Pi2AES hat running Volumio.


    To explain where I’m coming from: I don’t suffer from audio nervosa. Much. For the last few years I’ve been using either my iPhone or my ipad to plug into the DAC. My sources were Tidal, Spotify, and HD tracks stored on the phone. A few months ago. I started thinking I wanted some way to access my music stored elsewhere and I wanted to lose the cord. I tried an old AirPort Express I had laying around with Plex on my pc for the other sources, but frankly the sound was a significant step back compared to directly off the phone. I also looked at some dedicated streamers, but the ones reputed to sound good were also expensive.


    Enter Rasberry Pi with Pi2AES - A not very expensive streamer that supposedly sounded really good and is way over advertised on SBAF. Impulse driven as I am, I ordered all the necessary parts and waited for stuff to show up. The Pi computer arrived first and not being particularly patient, I immediately hooked it up and used the USB port to feed the DAC. I was quite pleased with the result- the sound was as good as the phone, I had access to all my sources and streamers, no cord, and much better battery life on the phone. I spent the last two weeks with just the Pi4B and have listened to the sound for hours and hours with no complaints.


    Today the Pi2AES arrived. It took me about 15 minutes to peel off all the protective coverings from the case and 5 minutes to put everything together and reconfigure Volumio for the Pi2AES. I Probably spent another 15 minutes figuring out where to put the unit so it wouldn’t get too hot, plugged in the optical cable to the DAC and then I fired it up.


    Right off the bat I noticed a difference. I honestly never really got what people meant by “blackground“ before. Now I think I do: There’s an additive fog of noise that clings to the music, hiding detail, nuance and imaging you don’t know is there until the fog is gone. Blackground describes the absence of fog. The Pi2AES sounds blacker, but in the sense that there’s just less obfuscation of the music. I honestly was surprised a cleaner, less noisy a digital source would make any audible difference at all, let alone a fairly obvious difference, but then I was pretty skeptical a better DAC would matter either. In any case, it just sounds like there’s more to hear.


    Long story short, if you’re using an iPhone or pc as a USB source for your audio equipment, switching to a Pi2AES and some other input is definitely worth the effort if you’re aiming to optimize your sound quality and simplify your music management.
     
  3. famish99

    famish99 Friend

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    You should use the coax (RCA or BNC) output if you can.
     
  4. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    Thats next. I had an optical cable in the house so I used that but I’ll pick up an RCA coax this weekend.
     
  5. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    If it is not much more money, I would recommend a BNC to BNC, 75 ohms. Second best would be RCA to RCA, 75 ohms.

    please note however, that any difference between those choices or using an adapter of some kind may be impossible to hear, and measurements have shown them to be very very close. The biggest difference will be how your DAC behaves with any one particular input.

    Michael
     
  6. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    So my DAC supports RCA 75 Ohm and that’s what I’m using now. There may be a difference between it and the optical input, but if so, I’m not really noticing. I haven’t tried A-B testing so maybe I would if I did, but at this point I’m extremely pleased with the way my system sounds and don’t feel much urge to tweak further with the transport. I may get a high end tube amp and possibly another pair of headphones at some point, but at least for now I’m happy to just enjoy the music.
     

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