Raspberry Pi as a music server?

[left channel]

It's worth reading this article for discussion of basic RasPi USB performance vs. the Allo USBridge: https://darko.audio/2018/02/step-up-from-a-raspberry-pi-with-allo-digitals-usbridge/

[left channel]

23 hours ago, Giuanniello said:

Hardware wise, what does it take to arrange such a thing? Besides the Pi, which so far I seem to understand being on a Rev 3+, I guess a sound card with either optical/usb/output, is that correct?

 

You'll want USB or S/PDIF output to your external DAC. I'm looking into the same thing for myself. The HiFiBerry Digi+ comes to mind for S/PDIF, but for many of us USB offers more options. The Allo USBridge I mentioned above contains a second board for clean USB output, so that you don't have to depend on the dirtier USB output from their "Sparky" mainboard. They also offer a Digione model with a Sparky and a S/PDIF output board.

 

There is a CA thread on the USBridge here, and someone from Allo is participating:

 

For Audirvana you'd still need a Mac or Windows server, but you could stream to a RasPi from there via UPnP. A modest Roon installation could run on a RasPi though, or it could be a Roon endpoint. I haven't tried Roon or Audirvana myself.

 

Personally I run a Squeezebox network, and am considering DietPi or PiCorePlayer to run Squeezelite. I understand there are also Squeezelite plugins for Volumio and Max2Play, but then you're not really using all the other audio features of those distros. There are many other OS options, and I'm quite overwhelmed at the moment.

 

@March Audio I look forward to seeing your measurements of the boards you mentioned, and any comment you may have on the above.

[left channel]

2 hours ago, Giuanniello said:

@ThuavetaI'd like to keep things the simplest and with the better price/quality ratio to begin with, I already thought the MacMini could serve the purpose but didn't imagine iTunes might sound so bad ? and I am not aware of softwares which play FLAC music which can run on a so old OS as Mountain Lion which is what my Mini runs.

 

The free LMS (Logitech Media Server, formerly Squeezebox Server) will run on your Mac Mini, and supports FLAC libraries as well most streaming services including Hi-Res from Qobuz. No additional hardware required, but you can put clients on RasPi and other boxes if you wish.

As @Thuaveta mentioned above, Plex is another alternative but they will never stop trying to sell you upgrades, most of their development focus has been on video not audio, and in my experience is a step down from LMS when it comes to music.

Activate the Material Skin plugin, and LMS will look and function even more like A+ and similar options. You can control it from phones, tablets, and other computers using web browsers or apps. You can download LMS here: https://www.mysqueezebox.com/download  Support forums are here: https://forums.slimdevices.com/

[left channel]

2 hours ago, Giuanniello said:

 

Ok, I downloaded and install the LMS on my Mini which, by the way, runs a Core Duo 2 CPU which I upgraded from a Core Duo so it won't install any other OS higher than Snow Leopard but I am fine with it if it does what I wish it to do which is simply to act as a media streamer for music, movie wise I have them on the NAS and use Infuse to stream over the Apple TV4.

 

Now, once I have the server up and running, how can I control it off an iPhone to make things easy, I guess there is an iOS app but I can't manage to find it.

 

Grazie

 

Congratulations! There are apps, but first try your iPhone web browser. Enter the IP address of your Mac and add port 9000 — for example, 192.1.4.100:9000 — and you'll open the original classic web interface. I suggest you install the Material Skin plug-in for an updated and mobile-friendly interface, after which you'd append /material/ to the address, for example 192.1.4.100:9000/material/

On the iPhone or on the Mac itself, click "Settings" at the bottom of the LMS page, and you'll find tabs for scanning your library, adding plug-ins, and more. To add the Material Skin plug-in, scroll down here for installation instructions: https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material  Go here for discussion and support: https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?109624-Announce-Material-Skin Other useful plug-ins include Music and Artist Information, What Was that Tune, Radio Paradise, and streaming services.
 

All of the above is free. On iOS the most popular app is not free but it is very good: iPeng. I was using an open-source app on Android, Squeezer, but have switched to the web-based Material Skin as it offers more features. There's lots of information on https://forums.slimdevices.com/ and there are many users here on CA as well.

[left channel]

3 hours ago, Giuanniello said:

I'm giving up the idea of the Mini as a music server, too noisy, a Pi "disco" will be the path past xmas then eventually HAT boards to add cleaner output or being relegated to something else if even this solution doesn't fit.

 

Grazie

 

The Mac USB output can be cleaned up with a Jitterbug, Wyrd, iPurifier, iUSB, iGalvanic, USB REGEN, ISO REGEN, etc. ...but I'm sure your inner ham wants to dig into a Pi! ?  So good luck playing with HATs. 

[left channel]

3 minutes ago, Giuanniello said:

@left channel I was referring to the fan's noise not to mention the SQ out of iTunes isn't that great, not worth to keep that much space occupied to get this much frustrated, I do sure want to play with a Pi and you'll sure see me back asking a ton more questions about it.

 

 

 

Enjoy!  Maybe later you can put the Mac Mini in another room to serve your new RasPi client(s) over a network, using LMS, A+, or Roon for better SQ. Then instead of cleaning up USB output, you'd just want to clean up power input: https://uptoneaudio.com/products/mac-mini-dc-conversion-linear-fan-controller-kit-mmk Or not. Just Volumio or something similar on a Pi sounds like a lot of fun! We're looking forward to hearing future reports of your trip down this or that rabbit hole!

[left channel]

1 hour ago, March Audio said:

As demonstrated above those items are unfortunately a waste of time and do nothing with a well designed dac. Galvanic isolation can be useful and is effective in specific circumstances, again shown above. 

 

That does look good.