Raspberry pie, anybody?

[Jim R.]

John,

Interesting (still).  Maybe I'll get a couple more and see if I can find the same thing.

My BeagleBone arrived a day ahead of time yesterday and it looks possibly even more compact than the Rpi  I'll have to compare them side to side to really know, but this one is quite nice too.  Only one usb host port, but the power port can double as a client port.

Going to see if I can find a micro HDMI cable.

It will be interesting to see which of these fares better in audio performance.  This does have a faster processor (1ghz vs 700 mhz for the Rpi) but for audio both are easily plenty.  Once the main system is done and running, I'm really going to dive into both of these tiny boards, as well as the two kinds of alix boards I have (2D2 and 6F2) and really see how far each can be pushed.  The Beagle Bone may just have enough horsepower to do on the fly SRC, and that would be really cool.  Porting the core algorithms from SOX won't be trivial, but I'll be up for a challenge by then.

[Tubejack]

My Beaglebone Black also arrived yesterday, jumped to try it against my RPi's for XBMC, personal file server, and web server apps I have already running on RPi's - only to discover as well I need a micro HDMI cable, not in my cable arsenal.  Amazon Prime - a lifesaver .......

I have a couple of powered multiport USB 2.0 hubs that work fine with the RPi ....

Here's a concise comparison between the 2 boards ...  http://www.cnx-software.com/2013/04/25/beaglebone-black-vs-raspberry-pi-features-and-price-comparison/

[Doc B.]

Monoprice is a great source for video and computer cables for not much money.

[Jim R.]

Good stuff!  In the comments I saw a clue as to why there may be connectivity and speed issues with some dacs and hi-res files -- the ethernet port on the RPi is implemented such that it is basically a usb dongle and therefore has to usse the same i/o channels to the processor as the usb host ports.  Depending on how the ethernet is implemented on the BBB, it may turn out to be the preferred platform for a streamer.

Time to go order a micro hdmi cable :-)

BTW, I checked today and it does not look like the HRT HDMIStreamer dac is out yet (which may also be a way around the usb issue on the RPI).

Thanks for the link!

-- Jim

[John EH]

Okay I finally got my Raspberry Pi going with my HiFiMeDIY Sabre USB DAC.  Squeezelite sets it up when you install squeezeplug and the Squeezelite Music Player.

However, HOWEVER it sounds like crap.  Pops, static, etc.  So I found this guys web site.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=31241&p=270802

Copy his code into your /etc/asound.conf file and reboot and it works PERFECTLY.  Sounds awesome pumping through my Bottlehead Paramour and Foreplay system with SEXy speakers.

One other gotcha.  The squeezelite installation creates some files that launch it at boot.  My Raspberry Pi would boot but Squeezelite would not.

I went to the file /etc/default/squeezelite

and it was trying to call the program as:

-n Squeezelite -o [soundcard selected by the installation]

I know enough about linux that that launch would never fly so I altered it to:

squeezelite -o [soundcard selected by the installation]

Squeezelite now boots up with the RPi and is found by every Logitech Media Server in my home including iPeng on my iPhone and iPad.

I'm blown away with the sound.

Anyway buy the DAC, alter those two files like I said and it works like a champ.  If I get a chance I'll throw up a little web page.

John

[Jim R.]

John,

You're really cooking with gas there!  I should give this a try as my synology NAS has LMS on it, or I can install it easy enough if it's not there already.  I think that will enable DLNA access as well and therefore may be able to serve streams to the new Oppo bdp-130 in the media room system.

That could make all this way to easy :-).

I haven't looked at the raspyfi site in a couple of weeks and will go take another look -- not sure if this is a new development or not, or maybe just something I missed.

Best,

Jim

[John EH]

Jim,

I'd be interested in your LMS server on your Synology NAS.  Which one do you have?  I think Netgear also has LMS support on some but I have to find one I can put DD-WRT or Tomato Firmware on.

Just to round things out here's a photo of my RPi and DAC.  Has worked for about 24 hours now without crashing so I think it's golden now.

And as you can see I'm running it headless with just a USB wifi dongle ($10) and the HiFiMeDIY DAC.  The power source is a 1.5 amp cell charger I picked up in the exchange here.

Everything is administered via web interface or from the iPhone / iPad.  Would be cool to have LMS on the NAS Server though.

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hagensieker.com%2Fdownloads%2Ffiles%2Fusbdac4.jpg&hash=b8709821bcf92cd9632e9a4b37c1cd9a6c2f0593)

[vrgard]

That looks very cool John EH.  You mentioned possibly putting up a web page about your setup.  I for one would love to see that as I'm thinking more and more about setting up a media server.

Thanks,
Randy

[John EH]

I started working on it yesterday and got derailed.  But I am working on one. 

Mostly it boils down to this:

Buy a raspberry pi, a cell phone charger and an optional wifi dongle and of course the DAC.  Wifi dongle not needed if you use ethernet.

Download squeezeplug, install the ISO image on an SD card.  Put in the raspberry pi and boot. 

Expand root file system at boot up, set up your wifi or ethernet reboot.

Install the media server in Squeezeplug and then install the media player. 

Then the fun begins with the DAC.  That's mostly what I'll focus on in my web page.  Everything else is well documented on the Squeeplug home page.  The keeper of that place has an awesome step by step video of installing squeezeplug but it assumes your intenet on your Pi is working. 

I had to boot into X (starts) to set my WiFi dongle up with a program called WPA_GUI because it just wouldn't install on the setup screens.

John

[Jim R.]

John,

Thanks for the pic, but I do need to tell you that I'm blind so I can't see it.  The NAS is the Synology DS 212+ with a couple of 3tb enterprise grade hitachi drives in it and the LMS is actually an installable package from Synology.  I don't know much more about it than that at this point as I just haven't been able to muck about with it very much.

As you're doing with your posts and upcoming web site, I hope we can put together a set of recipes for different boards, players and configurations that will allow non-linux folks to be able to setup a system likke this for their own use.  The mac mini is great but with the prices of decent dacs now coming way down, the mac solution won't make all that much sense for somebody with a less expensive dac and system.

You've got me a bit concerned about the wireless dongle -- I'm assuming its the little ETI (spelling?) device that's a bit larger than a nickel and supports up to the dual band wirelesss N for up to 150 mbps data rates?  When I first felt that thing I thought it was an cable adaptor of some kind.  Hopefully there will be a way to configure it from the console.

-- Jim

[John EH]

Jim,

It is a Logitech wifi dongle.  Bought it locally here in Japan for about $10.  It is a 150 N. 

It flashes all night and is kind of annoying to me and my gf so I bought a bit white 300 N which I believe is an Elecom.  Little did I know it has a bigger and more blue flashing light inside.

My goal at the end of this will be to make some dummy proof instructions for non linux folks as you stated but they'd have to be very specific to my exact setup.

I also managed to set the Samba Server up and put a hard drive on my USB port on my router and copied my personal music folder there.  My RPi Squeezeplug sees my music library across the network and it shows up on my Logitech Media Server front end programs.   Mostly I stream from Pandora or MOG though.

I have one last lingering "problem"  It seems to disconnect and the squeezelite server shuts down.  I think it has to do with the Autodiscovery settings I selected during installation of the Squeezelite player.  I'll toy around with some other settings and I haven't ruled out that the program iPeng on my phone may be crashing it.

A reboot fixes the problem easily but I want it to be a set and forget appliance.  I don't want to EVER reboot it.

John

[John EH]

Here's a down and dirty webpage just to get started.  I literally threw it together in 30 minutes.  It's lacking and I know it.  I'll go through later and add some screencaptures to make it more understandable later.  Just wanted something out there.

But if you install squeezeplug and then edit those two files you'll have a functioning device.

John

http://www.hagensieker.com/styled-9/index.html

[BNAL]

John,

Thanks for the webpage. I can't wait to give it a try now that you have the step by step setup. Also, I can't wait to see how the beaglebone turns out.

Brad

[Natural Sound]

Hey guys, I have some 20+ years experience with Unix/Linux. Let me know if I can help.

.

[galyons]

Thanks John,
Think I'll give this a try. Off to order the RPi!!

Cheers,
Geary