Raspberry Pi 4 DAC Setup for Experimental Basis

[samyboy_jssp]

Folks,

I have a spare Raspberry Pi 4 8GB RAM available and want to use it as a Streamer / DAC purely for experimental basis.

While Allo Boss Player / USBridge / DigiOne Signature etc are currently unavailable at the moment - What are the options of leveraging my existing raspberry pi to achieve this ?

1) Do I need to buy a seperate DAC HAT for this ? If so which is the best DAC HAT for this purpose ?
2) Are there any other alternative options that I need to consider ?
3) Which Linux OS distro should I be looking to install on the Pi which is optimized for this purpose? (There are too many)
4) Which S/W is best suited for streaming music ? (There are too many)

Sorry I am a newbie at this. Would be great if experienced members could point me in the right direction regarding this.

I already have BTA30Pro and Topping E30 II DAC's in my existing chain and am looking to experiment with Raspberry Pi based options.

Thanks in advance,

Regards
Sam

 

[Sandip Das]

Use rpi 4 its own usb to ur topping e30 dac and sound quit good. I am using the same e30 dac.
using volume / modde both are good for music
also using apple music through airplay on rpi4

 

[rajivaryan1984]

Hi Sam,

You can use any DAC (External or Internal) with the Rpi 4. I can provide you with the tutorial also for installing Volumio with Peppymeter.

 

[samyboy_jssp]

Hi Sam,

You can use any DAC (External or Internal) with the Rpi 4. I can provide you with the tutorial also for installing Volumio with Peppymeter.

Thanks Sandeep and rajivaryan1984.

Kindly do send the tutorial regarding the same ?

I will try out the external DAC Option first. Post that will look at the internal option

Quick Q - I have the Allo Shanti LPSU with me, ie both Power supply outputs can power both the DAC as well as the raspberry PI. I assume this should not be an issue.

So the USB 3.0 port from the raspberry Pi 4 must be connected with the USB Input of the DAC. Do I need to look at something like AudioQuest Jitterbug as a bridge or will that purely be an overkill. I am assuming that the DAC should already take care of noise eliminations via the USB Input.

Regards
Sam

 

[mbhangui]

Folks,

I have a spare Raspberry Pi 4 8GB RAM available and want to use it as a Streamer / DAC purely for experimental basis.

While Allo Boss Player / USBridge / DigiOne Signature etc are currently unavailable at the moment - What are the options of leveraging my existing raspberry pi to achieve this ?

1) Do I need to buy a seperate DAC HAT for this ? If so which is the best DAC HAT for this purpose

No. Since you already have USB dac, you can connect them to the USB ports on the RPI4. The RPI4 has a fairly well implemented USB. If you power your RPI4 using a LPS like Shanti, you will be quite ok

SOLVED: Is USB audio quality resolved with the Raspberry Pi 4? i.e. No need for SPDIF Output HAT's

I would go the Shanti. … from website: The transformer has a dual output (galvanically isolated) 5.2V 3A and 5.2V at 1.2A so you can power multiple devices (RPI 4, 3 + DAC, Katana, BOSS, or other) and we used independent (of course since they are isolated) filtering on each rail. First a...

community.roonlabs.com

2) Are there any other alternative options that I need to consider ?

3) Which Linux OS distro should I be looking to install on the Pi which is optimized for this purpose? (There are too many)

There are very few linux OS distros and can be counted with the fingers on your hand

1. The original Raspbian which has a huge developer community support and the hardware is designed around this distro and vice versa. This remains the best distro for the PI as it is the official distro from the Raspberry PI foundation. The rest can only play catch up. This distro is also upto date with the latest Linux kernel and each and every linux software.
2. Ubuntu
3. openSUSE
4. Fedora 38 onwards

Most probably your reference to distros are software packages built using some old image of Raspbian. Packages like moode, volumio, dietpi, picoreplayer. These packages take a particular image at a point of time, build their software (mostly web based UI to configure your audio stuff and manage the RPI). I have found moode to be the one always the closest to the latest Raspbian build. I personally don't use any of these packages and use Raspbian Linux natively and they do the job better than the packages because of lesser software and improved latency. But someone who doesn't know linux can use these packages. You will be good with any of these packages (distros in your lingo). They all give you

1) ability to play local music on hard disk / shared storage using a linux program named mpd
2) Stream music via spotify
3) Stream music via apple airplay by using a linux program named shairport-sync
4) A web based UI to setup your RPI and configure your music playback

Amongst all the above packages, picorePlayer is different. It centers around Logitech Media Player software (LMS). If you have any chromecast devices, a picore setup will allow you to play your music on chromecast devices, android tv, chromecast audio, etc. I think (but i'm not sure) the only thing missing in picoreplayer is airplay. But you can easily install airplay support with just one line command.

4) Which S/W is best suited for streaming music ? (There are too many)

There are just 3-4 ways to stream music - spotify, apple music, amazon music, google music, tidal, qobuz

If you have installed any of the above packages, the RPI will be able to play spotify, tidal and qobuz natively. The rest can be played using the browser. Apple Music can be played via airplay if you have an existing apple device and apple music subscription but the quality will be capped to 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

This is my RPI4 setup using the official Raspbian Linux. The load is a miniscule 0.06. Other distributions like volumio will use much more and the load will easily be > 1.0 and hence result in higher latency for music playback. This RPI4 does everything other than playing apple music natively. For apple music I either use my airport express or a mac mini dedicated to play apple music. My recommendation would be to go for moode/picore if you want the best and lowest latency. If you want eye candy, then you can try volumio. But whatever you install, you will be hard pressed to find any difference in a blind test.

 

[PTP]

Folks,

I have a spare Raspberry Pi 4 8GB RAM available and want to use it as a Streamer / DAC purely for experimental basis.

While Allo Boss Player / USBridge / DigiOne Signature etc are currently unavailable at the moment - What are the options of leveraging my existing raspberry pi to achieve this ?

1) Do I need to buy a seperate DAC HAT for this ? If so which is the best DAC HAT for this purpose ?
2) Are there any other alternative options that I need to consider ?
3) Which Linux OS distro should I be looking to install on the Pi which is optimized for this purpose? (There are too many)
4) Which S/W is best suited for streaming music ? (There are too many)

Sorry I am a newbie at this. Would be great if experienced members could point me in the right direction regarding this.

I already have BTA30Pro and Topping E30 II DAC's in my existing chain and am looking to experiment with Raspberry Pi based options.

Thanks in advance,

Regards
Sam

Since you already have 2 external DACs, just install moode audio on Rpi and buy a Santhi LPS. Santhi LPS has got dual DC output and can power both your rpi and dac(Topping e30). Initially use USB out from rpi to feed your DAC(E30). You may add Digione/signature or JustBoom or pi2aes HAT later based on availability /your requirement.

 

[rajivaryan1984]

Thanks Sandeep and rajivaryan1984.

Kindly do send the tutorial regarding the same ?

I will try out the external DAC Option first. Post that will look at the internal option

Quick Q - I have the Allo Shanti LPSU with me, ie both Power supply outputs can power both the DAC as well as the raspberry PI. I assume this should not be an issue.

So the USB 3.0 port from the raspberry Pi 4 must be connected with the USB Input of the DAC. Do I need to look at something like AudioQuest Jitterbug as a bridge or will that purely be an overkill. I am assuming that the DAC should already take care of noise eliminations via the USB Input.

Regards
Sam

Allo Shanti should be more than enough

 

[ramuk_su]

Thanks Sandeep and rajivaryan1984.

Kindly do send the tutorial regarding the same ?

I will try out the external DAC Option first. Post that will look at the internal option

Quick Q - I have the Allo Shanti LPSU with me, ie both Power supply outputs can power both the DAC as well as the raspberry PI. I assume this should not be an issue.

So the USB 3.0 port from the raspberry Pi 4 must be connected with the USB Input of the DAC. Do I need to look at something like AudioQuest Jitterbug as a bridge or will that purely be an overkill. I am assuming that the DAC should already take care of noise eliminations via the USB Input.

Regards
Sam

The topping e30 would have come with an USB cable which you could use or buy a simple one off Amazon.

Another low cost Dac option to try is the Apple USB-C audio adapter. This has fairly good reviews on its performance. You'll need an USB 3 to USB c connector which is easily available on Amazon.

Enjoy your music!

 

[bobbyndd]

Just install Moode OS on your raspberry, configure output on the OS as USB out/hardware output and then connect to your DAC. Just installed Moode on a new memory card yesterday as I was using Plexamp headless for a long time. https://moodeaudio.org/

Moode can handle, bluetooth, Roon Bridge, airplay renderers as well.

 

[samyboy_jssp]

Just install Moode OS on your raspberry, configure output on the OS as USB out/hardware output and then connect to your DAC. Just installed Moode on a new memory card yesterday as I was using Plexamp headless for a long time. https://moodeaudio.org/

Moode can handle, bluetooth, Roon Bridge, airplay renderers as well.

Thanks a lot folks for all your input.

I will try out these options and let the group know.

Regards
Sam

 

[Vignesh G]

Hi @bobbyndd , I have installed the Mood 8.3.3, In this how can we enable the Bluetooth streaming / the option itself is not visible in the configuration, I have connected the Raspberry pi to the Topping Dac E50.

 

[bobbyndd]

Under configuration, Renderers tab you can setup Bluetooth. You can also enable other renderers like Spotify Connect, DLNA, Airplay etc under the renderers tab

 

[air870]

I am using the RPi as a Roon Endpoints and am constantly trying to find a better DAC ( link in the chain) started out with a Audioquest Red, upgraded to a Cobalt with a jitterbug. In the other room, RPi with a Topping E30, upgraded to a E50 to a Denefrips Ares 12th anniversary ( almost got a Ares II from a member of this community) . My personal experience is that each upgrade has been luckily better sounding than its predecessor.

 

[bobbyndd]

How is E50 with RPi? I switched to RopieeXL which in my experience gives a clean output for Roon. Configured HQplayer for DSD up sample.

 

[air870]

How is E50 with RPi? I switched to RopieeXL which in my experience gives a clean output for Roon. Configured HQplayer for DSD up sample.

IMO, the E50 was an improvement over the E30 ,I didn't use the pre amp mode, just as a DAC. I did have a problem with the auto on/ off feature which was patchy. The output bit rate feature was great. Overall a good switch ( of course no match for the Denefrips)