New project - DIY DAC+Rasberry Pi

[sudhirbhosale]

Hi all
First let me say Big Thanks to the Forum for always giving fantastic information and guidance.

I was thinking to buy DAC and came across DIY DAC project done with Allo Boss DAC. Some FM mentioned that the sound quality is comparable with Arcam DAC. By inspiring that I decided to start new project.
I came across BOSS DAC review https://community.roonlabs.com/t/allo-boss-dac-review/20575. They compared with Audio phonics DAC as well

I have following questions:
1. Which are other comparable reputed options of DAC board?
2. I need SPDIF input to feed digital signals from CD player. So which are options
3. I searched Cirrus Logic Audio Card, Wolfson DAC board which has SPDIF. Any other similar options? Which would be better among these two?
4. Any drawback of this approach over off-the-shelf products like Dacmagic, Arcam?
5. Are Wolfson and cirrus logic from same company?
6. Found SPDIF>USB converters, which are costly. Is it worth investing in those? Any compromise to SQ. I prefer : minimum components & minimum processing
7. Any website where I can get instruction guide for this project. I saw configuration is complex task.
8. When I connect my mobile to DAC then only mp3 file playback would be benefited not FM listening from mobile..... Am I correct?
9. Cirrus Logic Audio Card, comes with amp in. Also unique feature which enable recording LPs .... any opinion?

Would keep updated for next progress

Thanks again !!

 

[manniraj]

I have the Pi3 + Piano 2.1 DAC combo and not being used. I wanted to try the Pi flavour compared to my dedicated PC and used the Volumio OS both in 2.0 as well as 2.1 output and its very good.

Let me know if it interests you.

 

[sudhirbhosale]

I have the Pi3 + Piano 2.1 DAC combo and not being used. I wanted to try the Pi flavour compared to my dedicated PC and used the Volumio OS both in 2.0 as well as 2.1 output and its very good.

Let me know if it interests you.

Thanks !
I am looking for stereo 2,0 setup. And my CDP and amp both don't have optical sources

 

[manniraj]

Thanks !
I am looking for stereo 2,0 setup. And my CDP and amp both don't have optical sources

I think if you are looking at hat based DACs for Pi then I am not sure if there are any DACs. All the hat DACs take the Pi's i2s output and convert them into analog which can be either connected to a preamp or a power directly. Most of these popular ones like the Piano, BOSS, hifiberry etc., are all fall in this category.

 

[SanjeevM]

For more or less the same reason, I'm looking at the OL-DAC from JDS labs, it'll be going in my preamp housing, I'm also considering the allo boss dac, the OL-DAC has optical input, though my OPPO DVD player has a fairly decent DAC it's around 11 years old, however I plan on ripping the remaining CD's of mine, so really will not need the optical in.

Which CDs are you planning to rip?

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

 

[omishra]

I think if you are looking at hat based DACs for Pi then I am not sure if there are any DACs. All the hat DACs take the Pi's i2s output and convert them into analog which can be either connected to a preamp or a power directly. Most of these popular ones like the Piano, BOSS, hifiberry etc., are all fall in this category.

There are digi+ and digi+ pro DAC from hifiberry which deliver digital outputs. You get optical or coaxial digital output as well as in some cases input too.
I bought digi+ pro for my Schiit Bifrost DAC.

Also if you have any USB DAC then you can connect Pi USB output to that DAC and stream ouput to it. But for this you must have Pi3 because all Pi versions have USB, Ethernet and Wi-Fi buffers/clocks are shared. Hence it works better with Pi3. For Pi2 or Pi mod B, you have to overclock it to 1GHz.

So HAT type DAC doesn't have that buffer/clocks issue like USB port. Hence it works better without any overclock. I am writing this because I experimented all this with all 3 Pi versions are with me.

 

[brillianics]

We have Raspberry PI Expansion Board for sale.You can also check it out

Brillianics Technologies
www.brillianics.com

 

[sudhirbhosale]

We have Raspberry PI Expansion Board for sale.You can also check it out

Brillianics Technologies
www.brillianics.com

Thanks, would check it out