DIY Raspberry pi 4 + DAC + Android = Tidal, Spotify & Apple Music

[amrutmhatre90]

Recently I have been toying around and reading about making a network streaming player out of Raspberry Pi 4, there are a lot of FMs who already use Rpi + Allo Dac or Allo Boss Players with Volumio or Moode. Most of them are happy.
But Tidal is paid and with Apple launching lossless, one needs to have his or her phone wired to listen lossless music.

Some geeky thought, why not have Linage Android OS installed on RPI and have a external or internal DAC. Tidal can be accessed and so Apple Music, unfolding can be done by the DACs.

I am even thinking of getting a touch display and make a portable small music streamer. Some people have already done this. Check them out.

My music player project – Quarantine 19 (started during my quarantine…)

Main Hardware: Raspberry Pi 4 3.5 HDD with 2 TByte Music 20X4 LCD display HDMI 320X480 display 2X 12 LEDS Array with I2C driver circuit I2S 192 Sabre es9023 Internal DAC DIY Linear PSU for Pi 2 regular switchable psu for hdmi display and hdd IR control and...

community.volumio.org

The last one is something I am looking forward to.
1) Has anyone tired this or thinking to?
2) Would the HAT DAC be betting vs a External USB DAC.
3) Would this be too much hassle, just get a Allo Boss 2 player.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

Recently I have been toying around and reading about making a network streaming player out of Raspberry Pi 4, there are a lot of FMs who already use Rpi + Allo Dac or Allo Boss Players with Volumio or Moode. Most of them are happy.
But Tidal is paid and with Apple launching lossless, one needs to have his or her phone wired to listen lossless music.

Some geeky thought, why not have Linage Android OS installed on RPI and have a external or internal DAC. Tidal can be accessed and so Apple Music, unfolding can be done by the DACs.

I am even thinking of getting a touch display and make a portable small music streamer. Some people have already done this. Check them out.

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My music player project – Quarantine 19 (started during my quarantine…)

Main Hardware: Raspberry Pi 4 3.5 HDD with 2 TByte Music 20X4 LCD display HDMI 320X480 display 2X 12 LEDS Array with I2C driver circuit I2S 192 Sabre es9023 Internal DAC DIY Linear PSU for Pi 2 regular switchable psu for hdmi display and hdd IR control and...

community.volumio.org

The last one is something I am looking forward to. Has anyone tired this or thinking to?
Would the HAT DAC be betting vs a External USB DAC.

Depends on what's the external dac you have in mind. Dave or qutest - no. Topping e30/d90 etc yes.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Depends on what's the external dac you have in mind. Dave or qutest - no. Topping e30/d90 etc yes.

Something like Shanling - UA2, the external DAC will be housed inside the streamer casing.
Point is to make a streamer at an affordable cost.
Topping will be overboard even though is very capable.

 

[Gecko]

Sounds great, any idea on how the audio quality will be from lineage os compared to volumio or moode ?

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Sounds great, any idea on how the audio quality will be from lineage os compared to volumio or moode ?

Should be as good as Volumio or Moode, can go with the HAT DAC or USB DAC.
Reading a lot on how to get things working fingers crossed.

 

[shyamv]

In my opinion, Android is the weak link here. While there are unofficial Android and Lineage ports on RPi, none of these are as stable as Linux Debian. None of the distributions of Android (AOSP or Lineage or other) are capable of bit-perfect audio and all audio with the default Android USB audio driver gets resampled. Unless a third-party music app (such as UAPP, Hiby or Tidal app), with its own bit-perfect USB audio driver, is used. Apple Music's compatibility on Android OS with an external DAC is also very iffy. Not to mention, support for any external DAC on Android OS.

Linux Debian mpd with ALSA plugin, that is used by Volumio or Moode or other music OS, is bit-perfect. In addition, these OS are scaled-down with bare minimum services required for music playback unlike a full-fledged Android OS. Also USB Audio Class 1 and Class 2 support is seamless in Linux and does not need DAC-specific drivers. Bit-perfect Tidal (incl MQA and any resolution), Apple Music (up to 16/44.1) and Spotify etc is easily possible without subscribing for the paid variants of music OS using the UPnP or Airplay or Spotify plugins.

Folks from Volumio, Moode, Roopiee, Picoreplayer etc have already done the heavy lifting to produce a free, configurable, great-sounding music OS. Even if one solves the Android problems described above, I doubt if it would sound any better (or be any cheaper) than these purpose-built OS. If a display is desired, it's quite simple to configure RPi to add an external touch or non-touch display. In summary, an Android-based RPi player might be an interesting project but not worth the trouble in my opinion. YMMV!

 

[amrutmhatre90]

In summary, an Android-based RPi player might be an interesting project but not worth the trouble in my opinion. YMMV!

Thank you Shyam, the good thing about RPI is it can hold use OS's. I will be trying android first and breaking my head over it, if nothing works will go back to volumio.
I am trying to get hold of firmwares for DAP's or so which are mostly built around android. So many options but time and patience with brainstorming needed.

 

[Black_Hawk]

Those cases look fabulous. Where do you plan to get the cases from?

I actually have a IQaudio DAC Pro HAT with me but I haven't gotten around to ordering a RPI3 for completing the setup because I built a secondary PC instead as my Audio source. Maybe I should get a RPI3 and set up a small Pi-Fi Berry. I do have a RPI4 running but that's for a RPI based 24/7 NAS at home.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Those cases look fabulous. Where do you plan to get the cases from?

I actually have a IQaudio DAC Pro HAT with me but I haven't gotten around to ordering a RPI3 for completing the setup because I built a secondary PC instead as my Audio source. Maybe I should get a RPI3 and set up a small Pi-Fi Berry. I do have a RPI4 running but that's for a RPI based 24/7 NAS at home.

Won't be using such cases, looking for a compact look and I have few acrylic sheets laying around at home.
I have ordered few RPi 4 with 4gb ram + IQaudio DAC Pro HAT with some other tid bits, and 2 screens. One is a LCD display and one a touch screen.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

So got my RPi 4 and IQaudio Dac Pro, yesterday.
Installed Lineage OS 18.1, Google services, fiddled around with the DAC settings. Built a prototype Finally some decent results.

Apple Music plays 24Bits 96khz maximum over DAC. Even Tidal plays highres songs.



Waiting for my touchscreen, till then using my 10yr old sony bravia which had gone kaput(screen turned purple) but started working on its own with some lines on top when I plugged my laptop and pi in.


Does anyone get bitrate above 96khz on RPi + DAC combo?
Any app to show live bitrate.

Few things in pipiline:
Get power button working
Test DAC and tests output
Touch screen implementation
Adding second screen

 

[Gecko]

AFAIK Android resamples audio to 48k before sending it to usb output. Is this the case in your RPI setup ?. Can you check if your dac is receiving 24/96k input from apple music

 

[amitk777]

Few things in pipiline:
Get power button working
Test DAC and tests output
Touch screen implementation
Adding second screen

That looks nice. Lineage OS looks interesting.
Linear power supply would be great to add - it will improve the sound.
Also possibly another Pi doing server duty and display while one is just a player ? It may then be possible to choose the player OS which is more lightweight.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

AFAIK Android resamples audio to 48k before sending it to usb output. Is this the case in your RPI setup ?. Can you check if your dac is receiving 24/96k input from apple music

Yeah, even I want to check this through some commands. Exploring this.
I had tried playing few songs through USB with a DAC earlier, it did play 24/96k. But I know some songs go 194k too, will be trying them.

To be honest, I am happy with 24/96k on Apple music, better than nothing.

That looks nice. Lineage OS looks interesting.
Linear power supply would be great to add - it will improve the sound.
Also possibly another Pi doing server duty and display while one is just a player ? It may then be possible to choose the player OS which is more lightweight.

Yup, this is a slow upgrade. First foremost want to get everything right with parts I have. Have thought about adding a lineae power supply.

There are many lightweight OSs available for RPi all of them can play Tidal or Spotify but none can do Apple music.

The main point of doing this build was to have lossless Apple music and the player should be similar to a router in terms of dimensions.

 

[Yogesh]

The bottleneck with using Android as Music OS is that it resamples all output via USB to 48Khz, this doesn't allow us taking full benefit of Apple music. But, In RPi DAC is connected via different interface. So, As we already have bit perfect tidal app, If AM also works fully, RPi+Android would be no brainer. It would be appreciable if someone with better understanding enlightens a bit.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

The bottleneck with using Android as Music OS is that it resamples all output via USB to 48Khz, this doesn't allow us taking full benefit of Apple music. But, In RPi DAC is connected via different interface. So, As we already have bit perfect tidal app, If AM also works fully, RPi+Android would be no brainer. It would be appreciable if someone with better understanding enlightens a bit.

Does it only do on USB?
Cause everyone uses Tidal and Apple Music on android phones and most of them listen to 3.5mm or usb to 3.5mm, even during this does it resample to 48khz? It shouldn't ideally or whats the point of having so many hi res streaming services on Android Phones.

 

[Yogesh]

Does it only do on USB?
Cause everyone uses Tidal and Apple Music on android phones and most of them listen to 3.5mm or usb to 3.5mm, even during this does it resample to 48khz? It shouldn't ideally r whats the point of having so many hi res streaming services on Android Phones.

3.5 mm is analog.

48 restrictions apply to USB, whether it applies to interface we use to connect DAC to RPi remains to be examined.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

3.5 mm is analog.

48 restrictions apply to USB, whether it applies to interface we use to connect DAC to RPi remains to be examined.

With root access one can stop the resampling.
Will be trying it today.

 

[rrunner]

Is it possible to reuse a 7inch touchscreen from a generic android tablet in Rpi4 as display ,Any kind of adapter is required.

 

[rrunner]

I have recently tried playing Tidal using RopieeXL and Roon combo, it has lower noise floor then my windows10 dell laptop but not sure the sound quality improvement is due to Roon core alone or the Pi4 hardware or both.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

I have one more SD card, will be mounting moode or volumio today. Will do a AB test between Android and Other OS.
Sadly TV again went kaput and turned purple but good thing is I can atleast view it.