Non USB DAC for Raspberry Pi

[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?
 
(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)

[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. 

(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)

[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.

 

[Natural Sound]

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.

[JamieMcC]

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. 

[JamieMcC]

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)
   

[BNAL]

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

[Natural Sound]

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