Computer Audio. Wish There Was a Bullet Proof Blue Print

[Lurcher300b]

How is it any different than any other stand alone computer solution?

In one sense its not, but the important differebce are

1. Its a low power solution, so you only need a simple power supply, it doesn;t need switching supplies or boost controllers to give the ATX voltage levels.

2. Its cut down to the basics, and you only need to add the bits you want. No local disk needed if its getting data from the network, no wifi needed if you use ethernet. No display if you use it headless

3. There are good quality add on boards that do the dedicated HiFi bits, again you only need the part you want. In your case, a simple spdiff output board will do what you need to plug into your dac, no need to go via USB

4. Its very cheap, so there is next to no downside to trying it.

[Neonknight]

How is it any different than any other stand alone computer solution?

In one sense its not, but the important differebce are

1. Its a low power solution, so you only need a simple power supply, it doesn;t need switching supplies or boost controllers to give the ATX voltage levels.

2. Its cut down to the basics, and you only need to add the bits you want. No local disk needed if its getting data from the network, no wifi needed if you use ethernet. No display if you use it headless

3. There are good quality add on boards that do the dedicated HiFi bits, again you only need the part you want. In your case, a simple spdiff output board will do what you need to plug into your dac, no need to go via USB

4. Its very cheap, so there is next to no downside to trying it.

Ah OK. That's interesting. I will start trying to locate the spdif board and other various bits. I have a 500G Western Digital stand alone hard drive to trial with this. I imagine I will need to find a new music server program as Hysolid is not Linux compatible. It sounds like there are a lot of resources out there for these things.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Fanmusic FM-6011

[George Hincapie]

Ah OK. That's interesting. I will start trying to locate the spdif board and other various bits. I have a 500G Western Digital stand alone hard drive to trial with this. I imagine I will need to find a new music server program as Hysolid is not Linux compatible. It sounds like there are a lot of resources out there for these things.

If you are in North America, then one of these stores should hold stock:

[Fretless]

You will need :

Raspberry Pi 2B or 3B board
HifiBerry Digi+ or Digi+ Pro add-on board.
Pi casing
Micro SD card
Power supply 5v / 2A (or 3A)
Digital coax cable
Ethernet cable

Check out http://www.volumio.org or http://www.moodeaudio.org for music system software.

Go for it !

[Geoff.R.G]

A Mac Mini may well have a low noise floor but you can buy many Pi s for the cost of a Mac Mini, surely it is worth a try.

[walterwhite]

Hi. I'm another member who's going to recommend the Raspberry Pi, and add my vote for the Durio Sound version, which I liked more than the £5k Classe CDP I was using at the time. I burned my CD collection to disc, sold the CDP, and have never looked back.

Here's what you'd need if you decide to try this. Durio Sound Dual Mono All-the-way- Assembled http://www.gravitech.us/duduala.html. This comes with all the hardware needed except the HDD and power supply.

It has the benefit of an on-board switching power supply so you can power it three different ways. Either USB power to the RPi direct (not recommended), or DC wall wart (Maplins here, or Radio Shack in the US) or AC transformer to the Durio Pro board. I use this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272263526102? ... EBIDX%3AIT.

I made up my own cable for the power supply using this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380335424755? ... EBIDX%3AIT and this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231704839431? ... EBIDX%3AIT.

At $185 it's an absolute steal, although I can't say whether it's any better or worse than any of the other I2s DAC's that are being recommended here. One plus is that it's as near to plug and play as you're likely to get in this sector of the market, and there's always plenty of help available here to get it up and running.

As for why it's better than a normal computer? The pi B+ upwards has a dedicated audio (I2S) bus, and it has no other tasks interrupting it with requests for the CPU etc. It is a proper, stand alone, dedicated music server, no whirring fans, and can be controlled from any device on your home network that can run a browser. I use a tablet or my laptop.

The only drawback for me is the lack of a suitable case for it, so if you have kids or pets it's a little bit vulnerable to damage.

[George Hincapie]

Does Durio have Tidal integration?

And further; can anyone confirm which other Pi OS have Tidal integration?

[Fretless]

Methinks you mean Roon ... Hic !

[Fretless]

George. I seem to remember that Max2Play software offers Tidal integration for the Pi.

https://www.max2play.com/en/