Bottlehead Forum
Other Gear => Digital => Topic started by: Natural Sound on January 03, 2014, 07:14:35 AM
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I stumbled upon a neat little I2s DAC for the Raspberry Pi. It incorporates a PCM5102A Burr-Brown chip operating up to 24bit/192kHz. The DAC board connects to the on-board sound connector P5 (you have to solder an 8-pin header to the Raspberry Pi).
http://www.hifiberry.com/dac (http://www.hifiberry.com/dac)
You can even enable a software filter if you are so inclined.
http://www.crazy-audio.com/2013/10/changing-the-output-filter-characteristics-of-the-hifiberry-mini-dac/ (http://www.crazy-audio.com/2013/10/changing-the-output-filter-characteristics-of-the-hifiberry-mini-dac/)
And if you'd prefer to use your external non-USB DAC instead the same company is working on a S/PDIF output board for the Raspberry Pi. The digi board uses the same P5 connector mentioned above.
http://www.hifiberry.com/hbdigi (http://www.hifiberry.com/hbdigi)
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Great find. I will order one and try it out.
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Got the Hifiberry yesterday, soldered and installed it as directed on their web page. No issues there. Then I put volumio (beta 1, 1.1 does not work) (http://volumio.org/) on a spare SD card, booted the Pi and was instantly in business 8)
The thing just sounds awesome! No harshness or brightness, just a good sound quality way above its price point. A lot better than my Airport express. volumio has an easy to use browser interface and even supports Airplay. Definitely recommended as a price worthy alternative and a keeper for me.
Best
Michael
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I was just looking at that Dac this morning. I have a Pi and want to give it a try. Thanks for the information.
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Got the Hifiberry yesterday, soldered and installed it as directed on their web page. No issues there. Then I put volumio (beta 1, 1.1 does not work) (http://volumio.org/) on a spare SD card, booted the Pi and was instantly in business 8)
The thing just sounds awesome! No harshness or brightness, just a good sound quality way above its price point. A lot better than my Airport express. volumio has an easy to use browser interface and even supports Airplay. Definitely recommended as a price worthy alternative and a keeper for me.
Best
Michael
Good to hear Michael. Mine has not arrived yet. But I'm in the U.S. so I expect it will take a little longer.
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This looks really interesting, I know my brother has a Raspberry Pi which is gathering dust for a while perhaps I can talk him into loaning it to me for a while. 90% of my listening is done via pc or ipad with Airplay.
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Great find. I saw that a while back and contemplated it for a bit but decided I have too many Pi's and DAC's around here now as it is.
The RPi works great with USB DAC's now however it didn't so much in the beginning. They seem to have the bugs worked out of the USB bus now with the latest kernel updates. Easy enough to run an external DAC if you first do
sudo apt-get update
then
sudo apt-get upgrade
then
sudo rpi-update
then
sudo shutdown -r now
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Great find. I saw that a while back and contemplated it for a bit but decided I have too many Pi's and DAC's around here now as it is.
The RPi works great with USB DAC's now however it didn't so much in the beginning. They seem to have the bugs worked out of the USB bus now with the latest kernel updates. Easy enough to run an external DAC if you first do
sudo apt-get update
then
sudo apt-get upgrade
then
sudo rpi-update
then
sudo shutdown -r now
Yes, the new firmware update does seem settle things down a bit. The "click and pop" problems seem to have been taken care of anyway. I'm running a VA labs USB DAC and a Raspberry Pi out in my shop. I mainly use MPD to connect to my networked file shares and radio streams. In addition I occasionally use pianobar which is a lightweight command line program for Pandora. It sounds pretty damn good but knowing what I know about the shared USB implementation on the Pi I think the firmware is a band-aid. The HiFiBerry DAC connects directly to the PCM/I2S bus on the Pi's BCM2835 chip. Eliminating the shared USB port from the audio stream could potentially translate into higher quality sound. At least thats how I understand it anyway.
Understand that I am not affiliated with the folks at HiFiBerry. I'm just intrigued with their product.
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Hmmm,
Really interesting. I've been wanted an excuse to mess with RPI for a bit, sounds like this is it. Just picked up a Model B with the Hifiberry kit. Planning on grabbing good external RCA connectors. I'll report back with some results.
Just out of curiousity, how is Airplay in terms of audio quality? Just haven't done any research on the topic.
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Just out of curiousity, how is Airplay in terms of audio quality? Just haven't done any research on the topic.
I have been very happy with the quality of Airplay, music streamed with it is certainly much better than any of my other sources in the house. My CD player or dvd player come nowhere close to retrieving the same amount of detail.
I use Airplay for streaming cd's (ripped to lossless) to a Marantz NA7004 (which acts as my dac) feeding into my Bottlehead Crack. Controlled via pc or ipad, fwiw I prefer the sound via Airplay to that of the same music fed via usb connection.
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Re Airplay: I have not done any blind test with the RPI / Hifiberry, but to my ears there is no difference streaming the same file from the NAS vs. sending it via Airplay.
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Got the Hifiberry yesterday, soldered and installed it as directed on their web page. No issues there. Then I put volumio (beta 1, 1.1 does not work) (http://volumio.org/) on a spare SD card, booted the Pi and was instantly in business 8)
The thing just sounds awesome! No harshness or brightness, just a good sound quality way above its price point. A lot better than my Airport express. volumio has an easy to use browser interface and even supports Airplay. Definitely recommended as a price worthy alternative and a keeper for me.
Best
Michael
Did you have to do anything to asound.conf or any other config file to get it to work?
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Volumio did not read the m4a files off the NAS at first. Found the solution in the volumio forum. I had to change the mpd.conf. There is an entry for the decoder "ffmpeg", which must read enabled "yes". The default was no and there is nowhere in the GUI to change it.
Here is the forum entry: http://volumio.org/forum/m4a-support-t14.html
Michael
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Volumio did not read the m4a files off the NAS at first. Found the solution in the volumio forum. I had to change the mpd.conf. There is an entry for the decoder "ffmpeg", which must read enabled "yes". The default was no and there is nowhere in the GUI to change it.
Here is the forum entry: http://volumio.org/forum/m4a-support-t14.html
Michael
Looks like no issue then with hardware, just with software. I generally stream music from Logitech Media Server (squeeze plug) so I don't see an issue. May order one and play with it. Thanks.
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Anyone using OS X with RPi Model B to to create the SD for Volumio? I can't get it to work for the life of me, but the same card, using NOOBS works fine :(
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OOOOK, so I got it to work by using a Windows 7 PC. Seems like its an issue with OS X I guess? Oh well
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PI filler did it for me on Maverick: http://ivanx.com/raspberrypi/
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Thanks Zimmer, I'll check that out next time there's an update.
Volumio uses shairport, which I've heard adds a decent bit of distortion. I don't have my music in a NAS setup just yet, but will likely have to do that soon.
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Just an update, Pi Filler worked well with Mountain Lion. I'll have to check out the source and see what its doing differently than the listed instructions at some point. Thanks Zimmer :)
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Just an update, Pi Filler worked well with Mountain Lion. I'll have to check out the source and see what its doing differently than the listed instructions at some point. Thanks Zimmer :)
I never had luck with Pi Filler or Pi Copier. I just use dd commands in Mac. Granted a little slower but never fails.
if you use
dd if=/path/to/image.img of=/dev/rdiskx bs=1m
it will work like a champ. In Mac you can type
dd if=
and then drag and drop your file in the terminal and it will complete the path.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.confand paste the following in
# Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=1 rtw_ips_mode=1Then reboot with sudo reboot
orignal link: http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure
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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 (https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home)
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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.confand paste the following in
# Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=1 rtw_ips_mode=1Then 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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fconnecteddigitalworld.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F08%2FCDW-Review-of-the-TP-Link-AV500-Powerline-kit-23_thumb.jpg&hash=3cee31b99de48454c82df4b484b67f1f9af7f556)
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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.
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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/ (http://volumio.org/)
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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.
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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 (https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home)
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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.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.head-fi.org%2F3%2F34%2F900x900px-LL-3466213a_007.jpeg&hash=050dda748f7929d1bb7c05883c27656b0829aba3)
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.head-fi.org%2Fa%2Faf%2F900x900px-LL-af6c61f2_005.jpeg&hash=42b17db1b85fb52fbcf826024b04faba72a3189d)
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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.
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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.
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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.
I'm using a crack amp with Senn 600's. I wired my Crack for a 6SN7 driver tube in lieu of the 12AU7. I have tried both in the amp with the help of an adapter socket and found the 12AU7 to be "bright" as you describe. The 6SN7 up front is the tube for me. YMMV.
If you just put the HiFiBerry into service you might want to give it 50 hours or so of run time before you do any critical listening. I noticed a vast improvement after running it in, nonstop for a week.
And yes, one really needs to take into consideration that this is a $40 DAC. But its one that sounds real good for the price AND it will decode 24bit 192kHz files. That was important to me.
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Its definitely not the Crack or 12au7s that are bright, it sounds like its more the dac's top end signature as the low and high mids are better. The T1's can be quiet picky when it comes to the top. I tried a number of different tube combinations to see if it could be toned down without any not luck. The brightness might be something to do with running on Volumio.
Also the Hifi-berry has been running in for a few weeks now in my brothers office, who is really pleased with it via his active speakers.
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Ok well today I had time to connect up and try out the Pi Hifi Berry in the speaker system I have in my lounge. I was surprised at just how easy it was this time to set up. Simply connected up the rca and Ethernet Cables switched the power on then selected volumio via the airplay icon and bingo access to media from pc's ipads etc.
The Pi had taken it bit of messing around with rebooting configuring etc to work independently with the fitted usb wireless dongle previously upstairs.
This pairing has seen much better results and is quiet easy to listen to via the speakers. It also means I get to keep my Marantz dac upstairs for a dedicated headphone rig in the bedroom.
So it looks like it might be a good solution to try for a while and the nice thing is the Pi can easily be tucked away out of sight.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.head-fi.org%2Fe%2Fe0%2F900x900px-LL-e003c3d0_002.jpeg&hash=95d11c6a28312362d689f9e2a86a28c415e9ca1c)
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As I wait for my HIFIBerry DAC to arrive I wanted to ask if anyone had any additional comments on the sound of this setup.
While I wait I have been playing around with squeezeplug and piCorePlayer. I like the the fact that they just connect to my LMS, so I have immediate accress to all my music. The only issue I have had is keeping the connection up using the WiPi dongle and could not find a solution, so I ordered the Edimax EW-7811Un. From what I have read this dongle is rock solid.
Brad
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As I wait for my HIFIBerry DAC to arrive I wanted to ask if anyone had any additional comments on the sound of this setup.
While I wait I have been playing around with squeezeplug and piCorePlayer. I like the the fact that they just connect to my LMS, so I have immediate accress to all my music. The only issue I have had is keeping the connection up using the WiPi dongle and could not find a solution, so I ordered the Edimax EW-7811Un. From what I have read this dongle is rock solid.
Brad
I'm not sure if this will work with your dongle but it may give you a tip on what you need to do. WiFi dropouts are typically caused by power management settings. Follow this link for a simple fix.
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure (http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure)
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Follow this link for a simple fix.
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure (http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-3-network-setup/test-and-configure)
I just received the new dongle and if I still have dropout issues I will give that fix a try. Also, recceived the HIFIBerry and can't wait to get it up and running.
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Let us know how it goes! I had the wifi dropout issue as well, as mentioned, it was the power management settings.
I've read that the ethernet bus is shared by the USB bus, so there's a chance of noise introduction, but i haven't noticed any audible difference between wifi and wired.
Good luck!
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I have been using the Edimax EW-7811Un wifi with no problem. There has been no need to change the config on the Pi.
The HIFIBerry DAC is a nice DAC and is very easy to setup and use with PiCorePlayer. I have had no dropout or buffering issues. It sound niice, especially for the price. I just swapped out the Samsung phone charger with a linear power supply I built last night,but have not had a chance to sitdown and give it a listen to see if it improve the sound.