Life of Pi

A place for DIY project discussions.
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Fretless
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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Fretless »

The luddite, simplified thing is the Sonos - which is really plug & play. And what I have done is only fractionally more complex. Mounting a cartridge on a tonearm is harder than assembling a Pi and if you can use a smartphone or computer you can set one of these up. I am not a computer hobbyist (despite my IT past history) and don't like devices that involve a load of unnecessary frustration.

It really ain't that hard, folks!

To answer Guy's questions - a network disk is hooked up to the router in your home network, and is accessible from any device connected to the same network. I have a Western Digital MyCloud, very user-friendly and easy to set up, with 3TB of storage (enough for several thousand albums as FLAC files).
A USB disk is also a possibility as the Pi B+ has 4 USB ports, although a self-powered drive would be advisable. You can hook that up to a PC to load files and then attach it to the Pi to play them.

The Volumio OS gives access to Spotify and other services, check their website at volumio.org

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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by _D_S_J_R_ »

So you still need an external DAC to process the output?
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way...The time has gone, The song is over, Thought I'd something more to say...

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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Fretless »

_D_S_J_R_ wrote:So you still need an external DAC to process the output?
There are 3 versions of the Hifiberry:

DAC: gives analogue output via RCA
Digi: digital output from Toslink or coax
Amp: directly drives speakers (class D, 25W)

I'm using the Digi+ version into my Musical Fidelity M1DAC which has it's own onboard choke-filtered mains. Terry is doing his power supply project on the Hifiberry DAC version and powering the Pi and analogue output stages separately.

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro, Monolith & AQ

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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by wiicrackpot »

Fretless wrote:
_D_S_J_R_ wrote:So you still need an external DAC to process the output?
There are 3 versions of the Hifiberry:

DAC: gives analogue output via RCA
Digi: digital output from Toslink or coax
Amp: directly drives speakers (class D, 25W)

I'm using the Digi+ version into my Musical Fidelity M1DAC which has it's own onboard choke-filtered mains. Terry is doing his power supply project on the Hifiberry DAC version and powering the Pi and analogue output stages separately.
I am lost already, are these available built up ready to use for luddites like me?, i'd love to get into these streaming things but i don't know what's what. :confusion-shrug: :confusion-shrug:
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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

Join the club :roll: we keep asking them but they are so enjoying their digital gobble-de-gook chat we are just waved off as lesser beings.

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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Daniel Quinn »

What are the costings ?

I suspect this is not a cheap as it sounds -

you need the pi and dac , but then you need the router and the wireless infa structure . You then need a hard drive as well as the physical media either cd's or itunes downloads or a £9.99 a month [for the moment ] subscription to spotify etal .

This must mean that the cheapest way in to digital is a cd player and cd's which are now mostly cheap as chips .

Additionally , are the SQ gains to be made by downloading a cd to hard drive and then playing through the p.i etc ?
Last edited by Daniel Quinn on Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by slinger »

Isn't this sort of getting back to the "roots" of hifi, when so many people were building and modifying their own kit, and not just for the express purpose of selling it? More power to the hobbyists I say.
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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by guydarryl »

Thank goodness that I am not alone in my numptyness :banana-blonde: :banana-dance: :banana-dreads: :banana-dance: :banana-blonde:

So for me - it is cheap, it is easy to do and the results are rather good.

When I get a few spare bob and some time (possibly the summer holidays), I will contact Fretless (if that is ok with you!) and have a go.
It will help me to "get on down and talk tech" with the kids at school (it could make a good STEM project).

Thanks for your help so far Fretless.
Regards. Guy.
LP12, Ittok, DV10X5, Phono2(twin supply), P50SA , Art Audio Quintet, LS5, SSC, Rega Ela mk1
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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Fretless »

The Pi was initially developed to teach secondary school children about simple computers - smartphones, for example, are way more complicated.
wiicrackpot wrote: I am lost already, are these available built up ready to use for luddites like me?, i'd love to get into these streaming things but i don't know what's what. :confusion-shrug: :confusion-shrug:
Where I got mine there is a pre-built/installed version for 80 euro (probably similar things available in the UK). Otherwise there are products like Squeezebox and Sonos that are really easy to use. If you've got internet then you can use streaming audio like Spotify or Qobuz (audiophile quality).
Daniel Quinn wrote:What are the costings ?

I suspect this is not a cheap as it sounds -

you need the pi and dac , but then you need the router and the wireless infa structure . You then need a hard drive as well as the physical media either cd's or itunes downloads or a £9.99 a month [for the moment ] subscription to spotify etal .

This must mean that the cheapest way in to digital is a cd player and cd's which are now mostly cheap as chips .

Additionally , are the SQ gains to be made by downloading a cd to hard drive and then playing through the p.i etc ?
Because I am not a raving techno-freak (or am I becoming one?) I tried to make my description as 'human' as possible. Unfortunately I assumed that people already had things like a home network and disk drives. I've been ripping all my new CD's to computer files for so long it is second nature now.

In my personal experience using Exact Audio Copy (freeware) for ripping CD's this extracts 100% from the data (every section of the CD is double-checked for accuracy). The average CD player does a single-pass over the CD and then tries to correct the data-stream later if it finds mistakes. For accuracy I would chose a properly-ripped FLAC file over the original CD on a good CD player and I have tried this comparison many times.
The Pi/Hifiberry/Volumio system aims to be 'bit-perfect' - every tiny scrap of music information goes into the final sound signal.

FLAC is a lossless system for storing music as computer data - it 'folds' all of the CD's original music information (WAV) into a smaller packet and then 'unfolds' it to play it back. MP3, for instance, throws a large quantity of music information away to make smaller files.

Costs. Well the Pi/Hifiberry is about 1/4 the price of a Sonos - and you will need to invest in exactly the same home network to get that running.

This is not me trying to be a superior know-it-all. I would like to be able share my enthusiasm with all of you and hope that somebody else might discover the same fun things as I am.

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
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Re: Life of Pi

Unread post by Fretless »

guy wrote:Thank goodness that I am not alone in my numptyness :banana-blonde: :banana-dance: :banana-dreads: :banana-dance: :banana-blonde:

So for me - it is cheap, it is easy to do and the results are rather good.

When I get a few spare bob and some time (possibly the summer holidays), I will contact Fretless (if that is ok with you!) and have a go.
It will help me to "get on down and talk tech" with the kids at school (it could make a good STEM project).

Thanks for your help so far Fretless.
Regards. Guy.
No problem, Guy. I think this is fun

But you might want somebody like Terry who is a 'real' technician - I just try to tell what I know in layman's terms.

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro, Monolith & AQ

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