DAC + amp for Raspberry Pi

I've had excellent experiences with several Allo DACs, and also the Pimoroni pHAT DAC.

I now need a very small set-up to drive a pair of small bookshelf speakers. It doesn't need to serve any thing bigger than a small bedroom/office, so I hope that a DAC/amplifier combination will do the trick.

What can you recommend?

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida
Loading thread data ...

Dunno. I use a Rack mount 200 watt a channel studio amp. In fact two, on different setups. Plus the HifiBerry DAC for the PI zero

The DAC is not the problem - decent amps and speakers at a sane price, are.

Possibly you could use a halfway decent PC speaker setup

If you want a full integrated solution the hifiberry power amp/DAC plus a PSU to drive it is not bad but its costly.

--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Op 27-07-2021 om 21:56 schreef D.M. Procida:

Last year Raspberry Pi bought IQaudIO. No new products yet but they still sell some of the old stuff. I don't have this one which seems to be what you're looking for:

formatting link
but I do have two PiDAC Zeros (no longer in the product line up) which have worked flawlessly for years.

Look at the "product brief" pdf with a table that shows which product supports what, most importantly: the DigiAmp+ only has speaker outputs, no line out, no headphones.

Reply to
A. Dumas

A. Dumas wrote on 28-07-2021 at 16:09:

Like this

formatting link

Reply to
A. Dumas

I went with a Prozor 5 way 4K HDMI switch with audio extraction, so which ever device is using the monitor can output sound to external speakers. It has both phono and optical outputs, so you've got a few options for amps and speakers.

I'm using the optical output to drive my old 5.1 Blu-ray home cinema system with the bottom half of the tallboy speakers removed so they sit on the desk and the bookshelf behind me. The centre speaker is on top of the stand behind the monitor, the sub woofer is hidden behind the desk drawers, and the main unit fits nicely in the gap between the drawers and the bottom of the desk.

It's all very discrete, but by god does it deliver some sound in a small home office! I actually prefer it for all round encompassing noise to my new Atmos capable 9.4.1 sound bar, rears and sub in the living room, which may be more aurally accurate, but is too subtle for my failing hearing.

---druck

Reply to
druck

That's indeed one of the options, but I'd be interested to have some feedback based on hands-on experience of it (or the alternatives, such as the equivalent HifiBerry device).

I'm fairly sure that any of the available DAC + amp boards will be fine, including most of the numerous Chinese models, that are probably made by perfectly competent designers and manufacturers but don't offer the reassurance of a recognised brand name.

There's even a high-end (or at least, expensive) made-in-NL Dutch product - .

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida

I bought an IQ Audio DigiAmp+, and a Raspberry Pi 3A to go with it. I was lucky in a second-hand shop and found a pair of Sony CEX1 bookshelf speakers for about ?6.

The combination needs a 12-24V PSU to drive it.

I'm amazed how loud it can get - louder than the speakers want to be driven, and far louder than I need it to be. Switching amplifiers and PSUs really are in a world of their own.

The speakers are really not bad - significantly better than most bookshelf speakers of that size (for ?6, extremely good). They're still the weakest link in the chain though.

It's a bit harder to judge the quality of the DAC/amplifier, as I don't have anything similar to compare it with easily. For less than ?30, I'm perfectly happy with what it has to offer.

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida

D.M. Procida wrote on 06-08-2021 at 23:51:

Nice. Thanks for the update.

Reply to
A. Dumas

I shoud add, I use Volumio as a music player. It's one of many MPD-based options. It's a pretty reasonable one-stop system for turning a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated music player.

There are lots of things about the user interface that I don't like, but it also seems to be the most complete member of the RaspyFi-derived projects (which also include Rune and Moode) and they all share the same annoyances.

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida

e still

30, I'm

Looking at the spec and the price, it seems to be just about the best on the market.

--
W J G
Reply to
Folderol

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.