Non USB DAC for Raspberry Pi

[SammyJ]

FYI, finally got my Hifiberry in the mail.  Soldering to the RPI was dead simple.  Doing an a/b test using airplay results in a NIGHT and DAY difference.  Sound is clear, crisp, beautiful.  VERY detailed.  I'm so incredibly impressed by a <$100 setup.

I'll post pictures of the setup soon, right now, the RCA jacks are e-taped to the line-out.  Need to do a bit more soldering and plastic drilling for the final product.

 

[SammyJ]

OK, here are the pics.  I didn't have to drill, i co-opted one of the existing ports in the case.  Soldered the Red, Green, Black wires to the lineout on the board, then just twisted them onto the solder points/grounds on the RCA plugs.  Just using some cheap gold plated RCA plugs from Radio Shack, but seems good enough.  Everything fits into the case quite nicely. 

Seriously, this thing sounds fantastic.  Great weekend project.

 

[Natural Sound]

SammyJ are you using Volumio and if so did you have to edit /etc/modules ?
# snd_soc_rpi_pcm5102a
snd_soc_hifiberry_dac

I had to on mine. I received my kit last week but was unable to work on it until today. I have mine connected to my NAS (Also RaspberryPi powered.) I'm streaming some 24 bit, 192 kHz hires through it right now. It sounded great right out of the box but seems to be going through a break-in period. I like what I hear so far. This is going to be feeding my Crack headphone amp after I break it in a bit.

 

[SammyJ]

NS,
I did have to edit /etc/modules.  After that, it worked like a charm on Volumio Beta 1.1.  In case anyone is having trouble, here's my config:

root@volumio:~# more /etc/modules
snd_soc_bcm2708
snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s
bcm2708_dmaengine
snd_soc_pcm5102a
snd_soc_rpi_pcm5102a
snd_soc_hifiberry_dac
snd_soc_rpi_dac

I think mine is going through a bit of a break-in as well, but really does sound great out-of-box.

 

[BNAL]

This information sounds great. I have a Pi and have been thinking about getting the HiFiBerry Digital SPIDI/F device and wanted to know how well this combination handles high resolution music? I have heard that there are issues with the Pi and USB output, even with firmware updates on high resolution files, and the HiFiBerry looks like it could be the trick and allow the Pi to be used as a dedicated source for digital music. 

 

[Natural Sound]

This information sounds great. I have a Pi and have been thinking about getting the HiFiBerry Digital SPIDI/F device and wanted to know how well this combination handles high resolution music? I have heard that there are issues with the Pi and USB output, even with firmware updates on high resolution files, and the HiFiBerry looks like it could be the trick and allow the Pi to be used as a dedicated source for digital music.

Yes, the Raspberry Pi is a great little $35 computer. But to keeps costs down the USB and LAN share resources. That puts some limits when using the USB for high speed data streams. The HeFiBerry takes care of that by bypassing the USB and connecting directly to the I2S bus on the Broadcom chip. It works extremely well. IMHO you cant go wrong for

 

[SammyJ]

Couldn't agree more with NS.  RPi is a really neat little device with applications well beyond just being a phenomenal music player. 

FYI, if anyone is interested in the build, I used this board and case: http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Basic-Starter-Wireless-Adapter/dp/B00D2CN730/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1391369229&sr=1-5&keywords=raspberry+pi

I got the basic kit because I had plenty of USB power supplies lying around, but you may opt for the deluxe.  I can say though, that the wifi adapter include seems pretty crappy.  I'll likely replace with the one from Adafruit.  This one is dropping connection constantly if I don't play anything for a while.  Almost like it goes to sleep or something.

The case and board are all top notch quality.  The board itself was made in the UK. 

 

[SammyJ]

Just FYI, I did some more research and I seem to have fixed the wifi issue.  Seems like there's a default power-saving mode that needs to be disabled.  I cross posted the fix on the Volumio forum, but seems like it might be useful to anyone here using an RPi based system, so here it is:

So I was experiencing dropped Wifi connectivity every so often after inactivity.  At first, I thought it was my wifi adapter but seems like I found the software fix.  From the Adafruit learning system:

Fixing WiFI Dropout Issues
If you find your module 'drops out' from time to time, you can fix it fairly easily with a command line fix (thanks perseus286!)

Create and edit a new file in /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

 sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

and paste the following in

 # Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=1 rtw_ips_mode=1

Then reboot with

sudo reboot

orignal link: http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure

 

[Natural Sound]

For those of you that use Squeezebox there is a Raspberry Pi client that supports I2S right out of the box.
https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home

 

[John EH]

Just FYI, I did some more research and I seem to have fixed the wifi issue.  Seems like there's a default power-saving mode that needs to be disabled.  I cross posted the fix on the Volumio forum, but seems like it might be useful to anyone here using an RPi based system, so here it is:

So I was experiencing dropped Wifi connectivity every so often after inactivity.  At first, I thought it was my wifi adapter but seems like I found the software fix.  From the Adafruit learning system:

Fixing WiFI Dropout Issues
If you find your module 'drops out' from time to time, you can fix it fairly easily with a command line fix (thanks perseus286!)

Create and edit a new file in /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

 sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

and paste the following in

 # Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=1 rtw_ips_mode=1

Then reboot with

sudo reboot

orignal link: http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure

I used to have to do that but haven't noticed that issue for a while.  There is a new Wheezy and a new kernel to boot.  Also there is now a version 7 of Squeezeplug, which is the music software I run.  So easy to set up and no hardware issues I'm aware of.  Running it on 2 Pi's at home.

 

[JamieMcC]

A few weeks ago after reading about the hifiberry here I was at my brothers taking a look at his Raspberry Pi which he had set up as a media server. We got talking about the hifi berry dac etc. Well today he calls and I found out he has brought one and now has it in his office feeding some newly purchased active speakers lossless via airplay with his iphone.  He was very impressed with its performance in comparison to his cd player. Anyhow I am looking forward to seeing how it sounds feeding my Bottlehead Crack later in the week.

 

[Natural Sound]

A few weeks ago after reading about the hifiberry here I was at my brothers taking a look at his Raspberry Pi which he had set up as a media server. We got talking about the hifi berry dac etc. Well today he calls and I found out he has brought one and now has it in his office feeding some newly purchased active speakers lossless via airplay with his iphone.  He was very impressed with its performance in comparison to his cd player. Anyhow I am looking forward to seeing how it sounds feeding my Bottlehead Crack later in the week.

I'm using this setup like this with a Bottlehead Crack and it sounds really good. Listening to it right now in fact. I'm not using airplay though. I'm simply using a NAS drive and Volumio. It's a neat little low budget setup that sounds wonderful IMHO.

 

[JamieMcC]

A few weeks ago after reading about the hifiberry here I was at my brothers taking a look at his Raspberry Pi which he had set up as a media server. We got talking about the hifi berry dac etc. Well today he calls and I found out he has brought one and now has it in his office feeding some newly purchased active speakers lossless via airplay with his iphone.  He was very impressed with its performance in comparison to his cd player. Anyhow I am looking forward to seeing how it sounds feeding my Bottlehead Crack later in the week.

I'm using this setup like this with a Bottlehead Crack and it sounds really good. Listening to it right now in fact. I'm not using airplay though. I'm simply using a NAS drive and Volumio. It's a neat little low budget setup that sounds wonderful IMHO.

Great thanks. My server/network player has no wifi I have it hard wired in to a 500 Mbps Powerline Adapter and on
occasion I get a slight low level fluttering background noise which seams to be consistent with the flickering led light on the unit the noise is only present on streamed music and then only sometimes so hoping to get round this with the Pi one way or another.

Thinking about it I have had some problems with my central heating and hot water (gas boiler) and have been using some electric oil filled radiators which trip in and out on a thermostat these I know effect the signal what I had also forgot was I have been using the electric immersion heater for the hot water as well which will also be tripping in and out. I wonder?

 

[BNAL]

I decided to pull the trigger and buy the HiFiBerry DAC. I can't see how I could go wrong unless I can't configure the Pi to play music through the DAC. Can't wait to get it and give it a try.

 

[Natural Sound]

I decided to pull the trigger and buy the HiFiBerry DAC. I can't see how I could go wrong unless I can't configure the Pi to play music through the DAC. Can't wait to get it and give it a try.

Volumio is pretty easy to configure. The only problem I had was file permissions. The logs clearly pointed to the problem and reading the forum provided the fix.

http://volumio.org/

 

[BNAL]

I have Logitech Media Server setup to run my SB Touch so I'm thinking I will used squeezelite. I have used squeezeplug and it has an option to use HiFiBerry as the output device plus you can load queezelite.

If this works well HiFiBerry is coming out with a SPID/F option that I could use with the BH DAC when it comes out.

I hope that it does not take to long to get the HiFiBerry DAC. 

 

[Natural Sound]

I have Logitech Media Server setup to run my SB Touch so I'm thinking I will used squeezelite. I have used squeezeplug and it has an option to use HiFiBerry as the output device plus you can load queezelite.

If this works well HiFiBerry is coming out with a SPID/F option that I could use with the BH DAC when it comes out.

I hope that it does not take to long to get the HiFiBerry DAC.

Brad, Keep this in mind for your squeezebox player. Its super small (only 25 MB) and supports the HiFiBerry DAC.
https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home

 

[JamieMcC]

I borrowed my  my brothers Raspberry Pi with Hifi Berry, running volumio to try out with my Crack. I have been thinking of getting one and mounting it onto the back of the Crack. Still. Currently running iTunes and streaming via Airplay both wired and wifi from pc, iphone, ipad. 

 

[Natural Sound]

I borrowed my  my brothers Raspberry Pi with Hifi Berry, running volumio to try out with my Crack. I have been thinking of getting one and mounting it onto the back of the Crack. Still. Currently running iTunes and streaming via Airplay both wired and wifi from pc, iphone, ipad. 

Very cool. How do you like the sound?

BTW, I prefer wired networking whenever possible. Wifi can be susceptible to packet loss. 

 

[JamieMcC]

Very cool. How do you like the sound?

BTW, I prefer wired networking whenever possible. Wifi can be susceptible to packet loss.

I think for its price the hifi berry is good value and a neat solution especially if you already have a Pi. Sound wise I felt it was to bright for me with the T1's not so bad with the Senn 650's.  Sound quality wise it is a fair way behind the performance of the dac in my network player but then that was 10 times the price so I am quiet pleased its not the other way round.

It is not going to be the substitute I was hoping it would be for the Crack upstairs. I was hoping to free up my network player from the Crack (my bedroom rig) so the network player could then be used with my speaker system downstairs. This would then open up the digital iTunes library to my main system enabling freeing up of all the draws currently filled with cds.

However thinking about it the Pi might be better suited to the speaker system which might be a bit more forgiving than the headphone set up, so my next step is to connect it up with that and see how it sounds with that.

I am hard wired with the pc, however laptops ipads etc all connect and stream via airplay.