Raspberry Pi HiFi

What software and hardware would you recommend to turn a Raspberry Pi into a decent-quality music source?

I'll want:

  • line output into an amplifier
  • playback of an iTunes library dumped on/exported to an SD card
  • playback of Internet radio sources
  • touch (via the 7" touchscreen) and/or physical controls
  • display
  • optionally, a dedicate remote control would be nice
  • optionally, playback of USB-connected CDs

Suggestions and especially actual experiences welcomed!

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida
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I love the IQaudiO Pi-DAC Zero with added headphone amplifier on my desk, but it has no touch controls:

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The Pi plays music using mpd so it can be controlled on the network with mpc or other mpd clients but I also installed a web server which calls a local script to control it from any browser. In the living room I hooked a Pi up to an a/v amplifier directly via hdmi cable, without any audio boards, and I control mpc/mpd via a Pimoroni Displayotron HAT which has touch controls and a small LCD screen.

Reply to
A. Dumas

I don't know whether a pi suffers in the same way as laptops and PCs do, but I found the audio-out tended to pick up all manner of onboard chirps/clicks/pops which become more annoying when you turn it up beyond normal PC listening levels ...

I get excellent results using this cheap USB DAC

Reply to
Andy Burns

I have runeaudio on my Pi 3b, headless, and can control the music by the app which I have on my phone. The Pi3 is connected to a Marshall speaker by an audio lead, and I select the music from anywhere in the house. Also with runeaudio you can stop, skip, shuffle or play 1 track over again .

I also have musicbox on a Pi Zero W, but it doesn't have the same features.

Reply to
RobH

Yeah the built-in headphone plug is not good for serious audio. The Pi doesn't have an audio chip, the sound is software generated by controlling PWM (pulse width modulation) output pins. So definitely use either hdmi (full resolution digital audio output), an audio board with digital output connectors (RCA or optical), a DAC board with analog output, or a USB DAC.

Reply to
A. Dumas

I was assuming I'd need a dedicated DAC board.

One thing puzzles me: how do the various supposed "hifi" boards such as manage when they're running off the same crummy USB PSUs as the Pi?

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida

For the player side I'd be more tempted to get a cheap Android tablet and run SB Player on it controlled via one of the other Squeezebox apps on it or another device. Then use the Raspberry as a "Logitech Media Server" "Slim Server" "Squeezebox Server" or (what ever it's been called this month...).

Tablet for the player over Raspberry Pi? No faffing about with seperate DACs or screens, finding a suitable and nice enclosure, making it all work etc. Not as rewarding of course.

And having a squeeze server means that you can have multiple players connected each playing what they want (or synced).

--
Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

The fi from a tablet is not exactly going to be very hi, is it? That's the whole point of a DAC.

It's important to have line out to an amplifier, and controls on the device (I definitely don't want any kind of network control).

Daniele

Reply to
D.M. Procida

Il giorno domenica 12 novembre 2017 13:07:26 UTC+1, D.M. Procida ha scritto:

I have this:

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works well. For touchscreen, distro to install etc. google is your friend.

Bye Jack

Reply to
jack4747

tablet

It's better than native Pi but that's not difficult. B-) The headphone out on my tablet or phone is perfectly acceptable, or you could possibly Bluetooth it to a digital amp and not "drop" to the analogue domain until you get to speaker driving. Or maybe connect a USB DAC to the tablet.

Just options.

players

Headphone out is as near as damn it line level and will be controlled by the tablets volume up/down buttons. SB Player is the bit that takes the stream and instructions (volume etc) from the Squeezebox server, it has no stream selection interface. You then have choice of apps to control what the server sends to any given "Squeezebox". This app can be running on the same device as SB Player.

Just options.

--
Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Even if you got aptX support over A2DP (probably not on a pi?) isn't that still sub-CD audio quality?

Reply to
Andy Burns

From experience with PC platforms I would suggest either an add-on DAC or an external USB DAC.

The audio quality is far superior with a reasonable HiFi system.

I'm not a great fan of mini headphone jacks for high quality audio nor of DACs built into PCs (including sound cards) or mobile devices.

Cheers

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64
Reply to
David

Additional regulation and filtering.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II:  http://michaeljmahon.com
Reply to
Michael J. Mahon

I'll believe it when I see the specifications.

Reply to
A. Dumas

Unless the iTunes library has content stored in a loss less @ 44.1kHz or greater format I doubt that is an issue.

--
Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I didn't claim any particular DAC did it, but I did describe how one gets clean power from noisy power.

In one case, I double-regulated a noisy +12v bus down to 5v and filtered at both steps--and got clean, quiet 5v.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II:  http://michaeljmahon.com
Reply to
Michael J. Mahon

I know. I also meant, and perhaps I should have specified: "for any particular DAC." But yes, I implied that most probably don't have it.

Reply to
A. Dumas

Wanna play with vacuum tubes? They all said that they sounded better. :)

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Reply to
Mr. Man-wai Chang

BTW, a recent issue of Everyday Practical Electronics did talk about making an amplifier using vacuum tubes and Raspberry Pi. I think it's October issue.

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Reply to
Mr. Man-wai Chang

mpg123, Fast MP3 Player for Linux and UNIX systems

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Reply to
Mr. Man-wai Chang

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