Raspberry Pi for audio

[MikeyFresh]

After several hours of error free playback with the Windows based Audirvana to the Pi 4 endpoint, it is sitting nicely at 35 C in the Argon 1 case. This is a sweet little case, I'm glad I bought it.

The case instructions include commands to install fan control; you can specify when the fan kicks on and at what intensity. In my case it set to run at 25% when it hits 55 C, and higher rates if the temp still climbs. Running nicely at 35 C, I'm nowhere close to having the fan start. Any concerns I had for temps with the Pi 4 are gone now, smooth sailing ahead.

I never actually setup the fan script, and didn't even connect it's power lead. Though the ambient temps are still low and will rise somewhat as we head into late spring and summer, that will only result in Moode running at about 39-40℃, but right now it is well below that:



That particular instance runs a random/shuffle playlist from my local server's entire library 24/7, at the moment that screenshot was taken a 24/192kHz track was playing, which is a relatively high stress test.

The only downside to not running the script is that the power button will only turn the unit ON, but not OFF, no big deal for me as I leave the unit up and running. So in the case of the Moode distro, with it's very light CPU burden and low RAM usage, the fan is not required at all. I doubt you will ever hear it kick on with your settings unless the summertime ambient temps are relatively high.

My culprit that caused all the grief above ? It's looking like the Mac Mini. The MRT (Malware Removal Tool) service is crashing multiple times a day and based on some reading this might be it. Off to the sick bay for the Mac Mini.

I hope thats all that was causing those problems, my own local server is a JRiver instance running on a different Raspberry Pi, and I typically only use the Audirvana server for cloud server Qobuz action where I think it just sounds ever so slightly better than BubbleUPnP or mconnect. That said, I have not had those same issues you described, so that leans in the direction of the MRT crashes in fact being the culprit.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I bought a plastic-cased RPi 4B-based streamer DAC, against my better judgement:



To my surprise, she isn't boiling over. In fact it's barely warm to the touch, suggesting the numerous top, side, and bottom vents are well placed and succeeding in even heat transfer, in conjunction with stick-on heat sinks applied to the RPi 4B's CPU, RAM, Ethernet controller, and voltage regulator.

 

[BabbRust]

Hi...any PSU that is adequately brilliant to disapprove of a v1.1 Pi4B costs more than the Pi does. 4GB Pi4Bs ought to be v1.2 at this point and have the right resistor arrangements. I wouldn't be as sure that all the 2GB v1.1 Pi4Bs have flushed through the circulation channels yet. One would need to get one and check. The Pi4B 8GB is v1.4 and has both the resistor fix and a change to the force frameworks to give additional capacity to the bigger DRAM module.
Get the authority RPF PSU and you will not have any force issues, paying little mind to which variation of Pi4B you get.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Hi...any PSU that is adequately brilliant to disapprove of a v1.1 Pi4B costs more than the Pi does. 4GB Pi4Bs ought to be v1.2 at this point and have the right resistor arrangements. I wouldn't be as sure that all the 2GB v1.1 Pi4Bs have flushed through the circulation channels yet. One would need to get one and check. The Pi4B 8GB is v1.4 and has both the resistor fix and a change to the force frameworks to give additional capacity to the bigger DRAM module.

Get the authority RPF PSU and you will not have any force issues, paying little mind to which variation of Pi4B you get.

In my experience, any 5V 3A "dumb" PSU has worked just fine with any version of the 4B, and I have them all. Only the so-called "smart chargers" should be avoided.

Ditto the USB connecting cord (if it isn't fixed/integral to the PSU), simply avoid any "E-Mark" cables and just use a regular old Type C cable or adapter and there will be no issues at all.

 

[NSBulk]

Raspberry Pi announces first-ever price increase due to component shortages

Raspberry Pi is bringing back the 2GB Pi 4's $45 pricing.

www.engadget.com

 

[MikeyFresh]

Raspberry Pi announces first-ever price increase due to component shortages

Raspberry Pi is bringing back the 2GB Pi 4's $45 pricing.

www.engadget.com

Refreshing to see how transparent the RPi Foundation is about the whole subject.

Many resellers never lowered the price of the 2GB board to $35 at the time the 1GB model was discontinued, which wasn't very nice given the primary audience for these single board computers is school children, and underprivileged or impoverished folks.

Also worth noting (again) that for audio streamer/endpoint purposes, there is nothing wrong with using the 1GB version, that's still far more RAM than is required for an endpoint, in fact even the .5GB boards (Pi Zero and 3A+) will also work just fine as an endpoint.

 

[Thermionics]

Refreshing to see how transparent the RPi Foundation is about the whole subject.

Many resellers never lowered the price of the 2GB board to $35 at the time the 1GB model was discontinued, which wasn't very nice given the primary audience for these single board computers is school children, and underprivileged or impoverished folks.

Also worth noting (again) that for audio streamer/endpoint purposes, there is nothing wrong with using the 1GB version, that's still far more RAM than is required for an endpoint, in fact even the .5GB boards (Pi Zero and 3A+) will also work just fine as an endpoint.

Hmm, I wonder if my backorder with PiShop will be honored at its original price...

 

[MikeyFresh]

Hmm, I wonder if my backorder with PiShop will be honored at its original price...

I bet they will, they are very good people in my experience.

I imagine the only way they wouldn't honor it is if they simply receive no stock of the 2GB board for the foreseeable future, they might be forced to offer the back orders the 1GB board as the only option.

 

[Thermionics]

I bet they will, they are very good people in my experience.

I imagine the only way they wouldn't honor it is if they simply receive no stock of the 2GB board for the foreseeable future, they might be forced to offer the back orders the 1GB board as the only option.

Whoops, I meant CanaKit, not PiShop.

 

[avguytx]

@MikeyFresh But for the sake of knowing, lets say I did cancel AMHD and switch to Tidal and do something with a Pi. Of course, I admit AMHD access via desktop sucks bad. My ultimate "goal", if possible, would be to have a streaming service where I can control it from either my Android phone, or a tablet, and maybe desktop (potentially). My main positives for AMHD and Spotify being on the desktop and video output to a 55" TV is that it's nice to see everything plus I do browse the internet while listening to music. Maybe that's where the desktop has an advantage....but only IF it's allowing for 192kHz output to the DAC.

But I would be game for a Pi if I could have some control through a phone, etc. I'll always have a Spotify account because I can play music throughout my house using various Google devices. My wife likes playing music through the rest of the house in a basic manner as I don't have audio gear in the living room or anywhere else; it's just upstairs. So, the Google Nest Mini's and Hubs are scattered about along with other Smart Home devices.

I currently can't get a new Node from the rep firm as they are hardly available anyway due to all the supply/shipping BS.

 

[MikeyFresh]

But for the sake of knowing, lets say I did cancel AMHD and switch to Tidal and do something with a Pi. Of course, I admit AMHD access via desktop sucks bad. My ultimate "goal", if possible, would be to have a streaming service where I can control it from either my Android phone, or a tablet, and maybe desktop (potentially).

I'd skip TIDAL and their MQA bullshit at $20/mo. and go with Qobuz and real hi-res at $13/mo. instead, but thats just my opinion.

You can control either Qobuz or TIDAL from an Android app, and direct the stream to a Raspberry Pi distro such as Moode or Volumio.

Either BubbleUPnP, or mconnect HD allow for that, both work quite well with Qobuz but I can't comment directly on TIDAL because I'm not and have never been a subscriber.

For Spotify, you need a Spotify Premium account, and then yes you can stream Spotify directly to a Raspberry Pi running Moode or Volumio via Spotify Connect, but only with a Premium account.

 

[avguytx]

I'd skip TIDAL and their MQA bullshit at $20/mo. and go with Qobuz and real hi-res at $13/mo. instead, but thats just my opinion.

You can control either Qobuz or TIDAL from an Android app, and direct the stream to a Raspberry Pi distro such as Moode or Volumio.

Either BubbleUPnP, or mconnect HD allow for that, both work quite well with Qobuz but I can't comment directly on TIDAL because I'm not and have never been a subscriber.

For Spotify, you need a Spotify Premium account, and then yes you can stream Spotify directly to a Raspberry Pi running Moode or Volumio via Spotify Connect, but only with a Premium account.

I do agree with you on the MQA part. I really don't care to pay for that so Qobuz would be fine with me. I do have a Spotify Premium account, too.

I think mainly it's going to be a matter of what it takes for it to work with the Raspberry Pi stuff; that's where I'll be a little out in left field but definitely don't mind going at it. For instance, if a person, like you per chance, could say, "ok, here are the things you need to buy to make this work", then I could be on it. lol

 

[MikeyFresh]

I think mainly it's going to be a matter of what it takes for it to work with the Raspberry Pi stuff; that's where I'll be a little out in left field but definitely don't mind going at it. For instance, if a person, like you per chance, could say, "ok, here are the things you need to buy to make this work", then I could be on it. lol

Thats no problem at all, and I'm not the only one here who uses Raspberry Pi in this way.

One other question though regards whether or not you have any local storage library or not. So far you've only mentioned using the streaming services, but some people also have a hard drive full of local storage library tracks they wish to access.

The difference is while these Raspberry Pi units make great little endpoint/streamers, they don't do as well as a local storage server, specifically not with a zillion tracks to index and catalog, along with thumb nailing the album cover art.

You can still use a Raspberry Pi as a local server, but it is highly recommended to split that job out and use a 2nd RPi for that specific job, it is merely a library/repository that indexes your hard drive, and then serves those tracks to other endpoints on the network, but it doesn't actually physically connect to any stereo itself, only the endpoints do.

To put that in Bluesound-speak, the local server would be a Vault, while the endpoints would be Nodes.

But before we get into all of that description, a simple question is do you have a local storage library of tracks you've ripped from CD for example, and if so, how many tracks?

If you don't have any local storage library to be concerned with and only really use the subscription streaming services, that very much simplifies things.

 

[avguytx]

One other question though regards whether or not you have any local storage library or not. So far you've only mentioned using the streaming services, but some people also have a hard drive full off local storage library tracks they wish to access.

I guess I did fail to mention that. I do have a Synology NAS that stores about 1100 CD's (360gb or so) that I access using JRiver, which has become more rare, but don't want to give that up just yet. All of those CD's are still packed in 2 boxes since we moved into the house we finished building 5/19. I just sold a 25 pound Onkyo Reference CD play that I thought I might use...but never did.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I guess I did fail to mention that. I do have a Synology NAS that stores about 1100 CD's (360gb or so) that I access using JRiver, which has become more rare, but don't want to give that up just yet. All of those CD's are still packed in 2 boxes since we moved into the house we finished building 5/19. I just sold a 25 pound Onkyo Reference CD play that I thought I might use...but never did.

OK that can stay a JRiver instance, you'd simply enable JRiver's Media Server setting and those local tracks could also then be served to the Raspberry Pi endpoint/player/streamer via the same DLNA/UPnP network protocol used for the cloud streaming.

The last question is do you have hard wired Ethernet connection available near the stereo, or must this be a WiFi connection?

 

[avguytx]

OK that can stay a JRiver instance, you'd simply enable JRiver's Media Server setting and those local tracks could also then be served to the Raspberry Pi endpoint/player/streamer via the same DLNA/UPnP network protocol used for the cloud streaming.

The last question is do you have hard wired Ethernet connection available near the stereo, or must this be a WiFi connection?

I use hard wired connection whenever I can and we wired whole house for those devices that could. Wifi wise, I have Ubiquiti AP's.

 

[avguytx]

@mikey FYI... Last night, I was having issues with the new Topping D10S and it showing the right "stuff" Amazon Music HD was playing. So, I decided to just sign up for Qobuz and give it a whirl. Wow is all I can say. It worked right, sounded SO much better, and the DAC would show when songs changed their sampling rate.

Amazon Music dropped and signed up with Qobuz. Problem solved.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I use hard wired connection whenever I can and we wired whole house for those devices that could. Wifi wise, I have Ubiquiti AP's.

OK Ethernet is preferred when using a metal enclosure on the RPi, however the onboard WiFi often still works in that scenario, depending on signal strength and distance to the router.

@mikey FYI... Last night, I was having issues with the new Topping D10S and it showing the right "stuff" Amazon Music HD was playing. So, I decided to just sign up for Qobuz and give it a whirl. Wow is all I can say. It worked right, sounded SO much better, and the DAC would show when songs changed their sampling rate.

Amazon Music dropped and signed up with Qubuz. Problem solved.

Sounds good, if you want to lose the connection of the main computer to the stereo, you can substitute a tiny Raspberry Pi as the actual "endpoint/streamer" or player that connects to the DAC, and stream to it using your Android phone or tablet as the Control Point.

Qobuz, Spotify, and your local JRiver server are all viable sources for the above, using either Moode or Volumio as the endpoint player's software.

 

[avguytx]

OK Ethernet is preferred when using a metal enclosure on the RPi, however the onboard WiFi often still works in that scenario, depending on signal strength and distance to the router.


Sounds good, if you want to lose the connection of the main computer to the stereo, you can substitute a tiny Raspberry Pi as the actual "endpoint/streamer" or player that connects to the DAC, and stream to it using your Android phone or tablet as the Control Point.

Qobuz, Spotify, and your local JRiver server are all viable sources for the above, using either Moode or Volumio as the endpoint player's software.

Ok, so what do I need to order?

 

[MikeyFresh]

Ok, so what do I need to order?

You need a Raspberry Pi 4B, however with the chip shortages they are in extremely short supply and it will probably stay that way until late January or early February.

For streamer duty the $35 1GB, or $45 2GB of RAM models are both completely sufficient, however the only in stock version I've seen in quite a while is the $55 4GB board, and those are vanishing fast.

I typically get those from PiShop.us, Chicago Electronic Distributors, CanaKit, or Vilros.

The enclosure is up to you, but various nice metal heat sink cases are available on Amazon. I'd get something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZVJDRF3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z6FYHCH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For the microSD card I've had great results with name brand in retail packaging cards like SanDisk, Transcend, and Kingston, and recommend you get one of those. If your computer doesn't have an SD card slot, then you will also need a USB SD reader/writer in order to flash the RPi software to the card.

For a starter power supply, a decent U.L. listed SMPS unit like the CanaKit , or PWR+ will get the job done nicely, and you may not ever feel the need to explore upgrade options.

Use wired Ethernet as your network connection if you can, and order an appropriate length cable for that if you don't already have one. If your existing Ethernet cables are ancient/banged up/seen their better day, get a good quality Cat.6 cable such as this Belden.