[JohnR]

Here is a recent article - http://www.audiostream.com/content/raspberry-pi-half-baked-50-network-player

I wonder how much the USB drivers have advanced in the year since the article was written - ?

[randytsuch]

John
So the latest thing is I2S audio from the Pi.  It can generate an I2S stream. and no USB is required.

I just got a Pi and a BBB to play with.

Randy

[JohnR]

Hi Randy, interesting. What DAC will you be using? I seem to be having USB DACs coming out of my ears so I'll probably go that way for now.

[randytsuch]

I bought one of these
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/quanghao-audio-design/228755-dac-end-r-es9018-full-assembled-board.html

I will use what was intended to be the Amanero USB input.

Do any of your USB dacs have an I2S input?

Here is some background into.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/twisted-pear/250583-building-open-embedded-audio-applicance.html

This is one of those long diyaudio threads, but basically Russ used a Raspberry Pi, which can generate a I2S audio stream.  He fed the I2S directly into his Buffalo Dac, and apparently it sounds very good.

The rPi has some shortcomings, like not generating a perfect clock for 44.1k, but everything is a trade off, and maybe this tradeoff is better than having to generate a USB stream, and then convert from USB to I2S.

For software, there are a couple of solutions now
http://volumio.org/
http://www.runeaudio.com/
If you look around at these sites you’ll find they support some other platforms too, like the Beaglebone black. 

and there are some I2S dacs designed to plug into the rPi
http://www.tjaekel.com/T-DAC/raspi_dual.html
http://www.hifiberry.com/
http://shop.g2labs.org/index.php?id_category=3&controller=category

This still seems to be in early development.  This guy tried it on a different ES9018 board, it worked, but he said he had to recompile runeaudio to get it working right.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/quanghao-audio-design/242700-dac-end-r-es9018-full-assembled-board-version-2-a-78.html#post3950969

[randytsuch]

So I finally started setting up my Pi last night.

I installed a Runeaudio image on a SD card, powered up my Pi, and it made music through the Pi's audio output.

I connected a keyboard and monitor, but I didn't need to.  It just needs power and an Ethernet connection.  Then, you can connect through a browser, and control from the browser.
I have a little Access Point that basically converts Ethernet to Wifi, so the Pi thinks it is just connected by Ethernet, but it is really connected wifi to my home network.  That makes it easier to connect these types of devices, you don't need to try to make it talk wifi.

I even have my music files on a NAS, and it was easy to connect to the NAS and it found the music no problems.

Last thing I tried was to run the Pi off of battery, and that did improve the sound.  I think it would work as a decent source for a garage system or background music running like this.

Hope to try I2S to a real DAC in the next couple days.

Randy

[dwk]

I have one of these arriving today (supposedly).  My intent is to use it with PiCorePlayer as a headless squeezebox player, since I already am fairly heavily invested in the squeezebox way of doing things. My initial setup will try it via USB into an Emotiva XDA-2 - this is largely for whole-house style audio rather than audiophile listening, but I'm still hoping that this will at least match a typical squeezebox via spdif.

[mcgsxr]

I will continue to follow this, as I remain a steadfast user of LMS as my s/w and have a variety of systems I stream music to.

The main system uses a Pogoplug hacked VAMP, but similar to this using the Pi.

[randytsuch]

I have one of these arriving today (supposedly).  My intent is to use it with PiCorePlayer as a headless squeezebox player, since I already am fairly heavily invested in the squeezebox way of doing things. My initial setup will try it via USB into an Emotiva XDA-2 - this is largely for whole-house style audio rather than audiophile listening, but I'm still hoping that this will at least match a typical squeezebox via spdif.

I took a quick look at PiCorePlayer and that looks interesting.  I may give that a shot and see how it works.

It's pretty easy to make an image to try different SW options.

Edit
My USB DAC is also listed as working with PiCorePlayer so I might try that

Randy

[randytsuch]

So I spend the last couple days trying to get LMS (squeezeserver) running on my pogo, but I found that there are problems running LMS with archlinux depending on what version of peal you have, it doesn't like the newer versions.

In the end, I decided it was too complicated and gave up.

So my "PC" system is a
             1.  Pogoplug acting as a NAS
             2.  My silent PC running Daphile, which is running a version of LMS
             3.  Raspberry Pi connected via I2S lines to my DAC.

Note that I could combine 1 and 2, but since I already have the Pogoplug NAS working fine, I like having it.  It allows me to access my music files from other computers.

I hooked up the DAC to the Pi like this
rPi pin 3 BIT_CLOCK to pin 4 DAC
rPi pin 4 WORD_CLOCK to pin 5 DAC
rPi pin 6 DATA_OUT to pin 3 DAC
rPi pin 7 GND to pins 13,14,15 DAC (use short twisted pair wires, interleave 3x gnd wires)

My Dac is meant to have a Amanero usb to i2s convertor, so I removed the Amanero.  The DAC pins above are based on the Amanero header.
I  soldered the 6 short wires (about 2 inches) from the Pi to the headers and plugged in the header.  The soldering took longer than it should have, but it usually does .

I did use picoreplayer, and set it up for i2s output to a es9023 dac.

And to my surprise it works!

And not only does it work, it sounds good, really good.

I've only listened a little at this point, but I think there is a lot of potential here, and for a relatively low price.
You need a Pi, a SD card to load Picoreplayer into, something to power the Pi, some PC running LMS, and a DAC that accepts I2S.

I have heard reports of dropouts and other problems, I listened to a few songs with no problems.

I even listened to 24/192 wav with no problem.  DSD didn't work, but I didn't think it would.  My DAC needs a signal to say its DSD.

I also have this running on a mini network.  The Pogo, Pi and LMS PC are all connected ethernet to the same switch.  The switch connects via a little wifi access point to my main network.  So the large music files get routed locally from the switch, and don't have to go over wifi at all.  I'm going to start a thread about this because I think it's pretty cool.

Randy

edit
One warning about the Pi, they recommend a higher current power supply than normal USB, I think the one I bought puts out 2 amps.
But, I also tried powering the Pi with a battery, and system sounds better that way than with an el cheapo usb power plug, which didn't surprise me.  So I may try playing with power to the Pi a bit, I have a linear I have mostly put together that I can try too.

Randy

[dwk]

Quick update. Getting the Pi playing with PiCorePlayer via the analog out was pretty painless - worked out of the box on a Rev B Pi.  On first listen, the analog out sounds perfectly decent for whole-house style usage.

I also have an Audioquest Dragonfly that I hooked up, and after playing with the output settings a bit it worked OK as well. As a headphone amp, the output is too low to be useful in the stereo setup, but I might have to break out some headphones and see how it sounds.

I have an Emotiva XDA-2 which supposedly works via USB, but I don't have hard-wired network to that system at the moment (I have a spare DirectTv networking unit that should work, though). If I have time tomorrow though, I'll try to get that running since that's the main system in need of a better playback system - the squeezebox Receiver we have in there now goes AWOL over wifi, and I lost the Controller so I don't know how to switch it to hard-wired.

Based on this I'll definitely have to look into either a USB->spdif or else the HiFiBerry I2S->spdif unit (not sure whether there is an off-the-shelf case that'll work with this) to try in my office/desktop system. I have a Touch there now, and it'll be interesting to do a bit of a comparison.

So, tentative big thumbs up on these as cheap and easy squeezebox clients. 

[randytsuch]

DWK,
If you have a USB battery with reasonable capacity, I would recommend trying it to power the Pi.

I think my battery is 2200 Mah, and it seems like it will run the Pi for days if I wanted to.  (maybe not days, but hours at least  )

Randy

[4est]

FWIW, PiCorePlayer works great providing i2s (async only) to ESS9023 DACs for a quick and easy Squeezebox replacement for under $100.

http://hifimediy.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=62_74&product_id=127
or, but you need to provide a clock
http://www.diyinhk.com/shop/audio-kits/26-24bit192khz-es9023-dac-i2s-input-ultra-low-noise-regulator.html

They both fit together in a $3 rat shack (ugly) box.

[charmerci]

Or you can go for the retro-look.

http://makezine.com/2014/08/07/the-ti-pi-a-raspberry-pi-powered-ti-994a/

(I love all those modules picture!  )