DAC recommendations for RaspberryPI

[Thad E Ginathom]

Great update!

Your wifi results indicate that the Pi isn't the Squeezebox replacement base that I thought it might be. If I do ever do that project (probably when my squeezebox dies) then I guess it will be a wandboard and the Community Squeeze project.

 

[indialogue]

Great update!

Your wifi results indicate that the Pi isn't the Squeezebox replacement base that I thought it might be. If I do ever do that project (probably when my squeezebox dies) then I guess it will be a wandboard and the Community Squeeze project.

Nope, far from it unfortunately. This experiment just drives home what good value an old Squeezebox Classic (and with VFD display!) still is. I think in a year or two, most of these pico-computers will move towards integrated WiFi and atleast ARM v7 if not v8 processors. Then things should be better

 

[gcpraveen]

How abt USB HDD connected to raspi +ODAC? The combination is not worth as small music PC?

 

[sam9s]

Hi guys, am looking to get a DAC for a dedicated RaspberryPI that will act as a WiFi enabled receiver for music streaming from my PogoPlug NAS. My total budget is 10K and I'm open to considering used Ebay/HFV listings as well from reputable sellers. A key requirement is that it should support 88.2 upsampling. Any recommendations for me?

If your PogoNAS can run LMS, another option is to have SqueezePlug running on RaspPi to stream music on any device on wifi or 3g. OR use it with you choice of DAC connected to your spks.

I run RaspPi with SqueezePlus and LMS on my Synology NAS to access music from my Nexus 7 when I am in office or on the move.

 

[sam9s]

WiFi is very flakey - because of the low power on the system, don't expect a good connection if you are more than 10-20 feet away from your router (and with walls in between). You will see outrageous 100+ ms ping times (on a local network!), dropped packets and audio at times. You have to carry the Pi around like a divining rod to find a good location - thankfully I was able to find one pretty close to my amp and speaker setup.

RaspPi is said to be very choosy when it comes to what dongle you use. When I experimented the wifi capability of RaspPi even I first connected it with a run-of-the-mill wifi dongle and not only did I have a hard time configuring and making the wifi work, the signal were weak and dropping packets. I then purchased another adapter Netgrar Wifi adapter which seemed to work well, even though the configuring part was again a pain.

However for consistent performance I still preferred the LAN route and since then have not faced any issue.

 

[indialogue]

How abt USB HDD connected to raspi +ODAC? The combination is not worth as small music PC?

Definitely a better option as WiFi latency is removed out of the equation. I would recommend that you look at the Beaglebone Black instead, as it has more power (2A) and separate power rails for USB, which should make it better

If your PogoNAS can run LMS, another option is to have SqueezePlug running on RaspPi to stream music on any device on wifi or 3g. OR use it with you choice of DAC connected to your spks.

I run RaspPi with SqueezePlus and LMS on my Synology NAS to access music from my Nexus 7 when I am in office or on the move.

I did look at this option. My unique situation is that I have over 300 torrents seeding 24/7 on my PogoPlug and transmission daemon taking up 20-30% CPU pretty constantly. Running LMS alongside this spikes it upto 80-90% easily. My next weekend project is to transition all these torrents to rTorrent and see if the CPU is freed up significantly enough to allow me to try LMS once more

Oh and one more issue is that Airport (through shairport) streaming is iffy as well - it really needs good line of sight to work properly. So reiterating that the RPi as a wifi streamer is still not there 100%. Cheers!

RaspPi is said to be very choosy when it comes to what dongle you use. When I experimented the wifi capability of RaspPi even I first connected it with a run-of-the-mill wifi dongle and not only did I have a hard time configuring and making the wifi work, the signal were weak and dropping packets. I then purchased another adapter Netgrar Wifi adapter which seemed to work well, even though the configuring part was again a pain.

However for consistent performance I still preferred the LAN route and since then have not faced any issue.

Yeah, my dongle is a no-name one - the cheapest on Ebay. I wanted to experiment so a throwaway piece was more important. I'd look at getting a better dongle - preferably one with a 3-5db gain antenna and trying again. Another weekend project probably

However I'm also considering whether I should experiment with Powerline - the starting costs are a little too steep and risky, if the house wiring is not conducive (rented accommodation too so I dont know the wire layouts). The reason is that I want a wireless (or close to it) solution

Also, for all my cribbing, I should also clarify that when things work properly (which is 80-90% of the time), this solution sounds really good to my tin ears!! YMMV

 

[sam9s]

I did look at this option. My unique situation is that I have over 300 torrents seeding 24/7 on my PogoPlug and transmission daemon taking up 20-30% CPU pretty constantly. Running LMS alongside this spikes it upto 80-90% easily. My next weekend project is to transition all these torrents to rTorrent and see if the CPU is freed up significantly enough to allow me to try LMS once more

I forgot to mention SqueezePlus also acts as a full blown Logitech Media Server in itself as well, so if you do not want it to run on your Pogo NAS (coz cpu load 80-90%), just configure SqueezePlus on RaspPi to run as indepndent LMS, with your NAS acting just as a media source. You still land up using RaspPi as you streaming device.

Infact quite a lot of time I prefer this option, and switch off LMS on synology and use Squeezeplug only.

 

[gcpraveen]

@Sam9s can you post link for raspi with squeezeplus config??
I am getting raspi to play 720p videos n to play music. I too have squeezebox touch, but irritating thing is it wont read my 500gb hdd.

 

[mowgli80]

@indialogue - What wifi chipset is your adapter made of (# lspci)? Not all chipsets may be well supported on ARM . If your rtorrent experiment does not work, you can try compiling transmission with "--enable-lightweight" flag and see if it makes a difference. I am facing pressure on memory front for transmission running on my router and came across this flag last night researching on it (haven't tried it myself yet).

 

[indialogue]

@indialogue - What wifi chipset is your adapter made of (# lspci)? Not all chipsets may be well supported on ARM . If your rtorrent experiment does not work, you can try compiling transmission with "--enable-lightweight" flag and see if it makes a difference. I am facing pressure on memory front for transmission running on my router and came across this flag last night researching on it (haven't tried it myself yet).

Its a Realtex rtl8188cus chipset, supposed to work out of the box on the Raspberry - which in fairness it did, its just that the dongle doesnt get good enough signal. Thanks for the suggestions on rtorrent and the lightweight flag!

 

[sam9s]

@Sam9s can you post link for raspi with squeezeplus config??
I am getting raspi to play 720p videos n to play music. I too have squeezebox touch, but irritating thing is it wont read my 500gb hdd.

I already shared he link ..... here again ...

SqueezePlug

You will have both the download link and videos to configure the entire thing .....

 

[dheerajjotwani]

Its a Realtex rtl8188cus chipset, supposed to work out of the box on the Raspberry - which in fairness it did, its just that the dongle doesnt get good enough signal. Thanks for the suggestions on rtorrent and the lightweight flag!

Try an asus usb n10 wifi adapter. Works well and has a good range... been using with the rpi across rasbian, raspbmc, xbian, openelec

tapped on Note II cdma

 

[indialogue]

Try an asus usb n10 wifi adapter. Works well and has a good range... been using with the rpi across rasbian, raspbmc, xbian, openelec

tapped on Note II cdma

Thanks dheeraj, I am also looking at tp-link options. This puts me in the penny wise pound foolish category, having bought a cheap wifi adapter

 

[mowgli80]

Just a thought ... Since RPi is very portable, can't you place it next to your router and use ethernet?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

But if that puts it out of cable's reach of the hifi?

 

[mowgli80]

I meant use wifi with pogoplug (if possible) and ethernet with RPi. My friend wants to sell his 500 Mbps powerline ethernet adapter. Let me know if you are interested. I had the same seal packed adapter that I sold to FM Mathan from chennai and he was able to stream full HD movies to his smart TV. My friend's is the same model and we bought it together off amazon.de.

 

[indialogue]

I meant use wifi with pogoplug (if possible) and ethernet with RPi. My friend wants to sell his 500 Mbps powerline ethernet adapter. Let me know if you are interested. I had the same seal packed adapter that I sold to FM Mathan from chennai and he was able to stream full HD movies to his smart TV. My friend's is the same model and we bought it together off amazon.de.

Thanks but am in a rented accomodation so no idea of internal wiring in the house - dont know if powerline will work for me. I might just pick up a cheap router and set it up as a repeater to create 2 wifi zones in the apartment.

On the pogoplug, I did not want to switch it with the RPI (which I could have and is a very commonsense solution) as it was big and boxy and I wanted something small and discreet to place next to my DAC and amplifiers.

 

[dheerajjotwani]

Thanks dheeraj, I am also looking at tp-link options. This puts me in the penny wise pound foolish category, having bought a cheap wifi adapter

Dont try tp link wn725... didnt work ! Asus n10 seems to work with almost everything I have thrown at it...

tapped on Note II cdma

 

[sam9s]

Asus n10 seems to work with almost everything I have thrown at it..

same goes with the Netgear one ....

 

[indialogue]

Because I cant just let things be, I decided to try out the Squeezeplug distro to see how that fared. Surprisingly, there were stark differences.

Firstly, the network issues that I had with RaspyFi went away - WiFI suddenly became rock-solid, ping times improved etc. Was very surprised because under the hood, it seems like both were using the same Realtek firmware. Did not have the skills to go check if there were other differences

Secondly, sound quality dropped drastically. There were pops and hisses (despite my using USB output) and the sound was muffled. After a firmware and system upgrade (which was technically not necessary), the USB DAC stopped being recognized.

So now I've hurriedly gone back to the RaspyFi distro and am going to let things lie as they are, and get a better WiFi dongle instead.

Surpsisingly, I was reading up about this online, and there are several reviews of RaspyFi (in comparison to other distros), where claims of better audio, soundstage etc are made. Based on my limited testing, it does seem to be so