I don't know what I want, but I need something

[vinyl_paul]

Hi everyone,

I am after some pointers to set me on my way - there is tons of expertise on these forums but I need to get a start.

 

I have a simple hifi at home. Creek integrated amp with phono board installed, Thorens TD-160 TT to play my vinyl. That's it.

However I am a techie and so have tons of networking gear, linux boxes, RPis  including a stash of FLAC files and a little portable A&K 70 DAP.

I need to play my FLAC files on my existing stereo, but I don't know where to start (and I am not up with the technology terms used).

In my simple mind I have the FLAC files sitting on an SSD. I have an integrated amp waiting for analogue input on the RCA connections.

This means I need a DAC to get FLAC from SSD to RCA

Can I build a little fanless linux box with an SSD for the FLAC files, and have a card/board installed in the same box for the DAC?

Or should I have a simple linux box with the FLAC files and output to a separate external DAC? More flexible but I am just starting out so don't need to leap to very high SQ yet?

What software to use for playing the FLAC files? Roon seems expensive? Any nice open source?

Thanks for the pointers to start me on exploring the options

[marioed]

Hi Vinyl Paul,

 

To start out, since you already have Linux boxes sitting around I'd say go with your thought to build a fanless Linux box with the ssd . For software you could use something like Volumio. Personally I'd say to go with an external DAC over a sound card, for one thing it'll be easier to isolate your power sources. It doesn't need to be a real expensive DAC, something like a Topping D10 or D30 would be one place to start. Another option would be to do a Raspberry Pi with a dac hat, it makes a good endpoint but I'm not sure how it would do as a primary server.

 

Think of this first setup as a learning project. You can use it to figure out what's going to work for you and what won't without spending too much and get a better sense of the direction you want to go.

 

Regards,

Mario

[vinyl_paul]

Thanks for the reply.

So a small linux (maybe running Volumio) to store and present the FLAC files, then an external DAC to connect to the existing amp via RCA.

Seems a good start, and something to play with.

Connection from linux box to DAC would be USB?

All of that seems pretty easy (and cheap!) to start and then I see how I go.

 

[vinyl_paul]

53 minutes ago, marioed said:

It doesn't need to be a real expensive DAC, something like a Topping D10 or D30 would be one place to start.

 

Topping D10 has been ordered and arrives tomorrow! I can start playing around from there.

Just got to get the files into the DAC 🙂

[marioed]

Hi Vinyl Paul,

21 hours ago, vinyl_paul said:

Connection from linux box to DAC would be USB?

 

Yeah, the connection would be usb. The D10 only has a usb input and it's powered via usb.

 

Regards,

Mario 

 

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

22 hours ago, vinyl_paul said:

 

Topping D10 has been ordered and arrives tomorrow! I can start playing around from there.

Just got to get the files into the DAC 🙂

 

The Topping D10 is an excellent place to start. It measures well and its output of 1.5 volts should work well with you amplifier.

[bluesman]

Hi & welcome, Paul!

 

If I understand you correctly, you run only Linux on your computers. This leaves out Foobar2000, an excellent freeware music management & playing system that's only available for Windows. I've run it on Ubuntu using Wine, which works well - but it's a bit labor intensive in use compared to several simpler options. It'd be easier to start out with any current basic audio player for Linux (e.g. Clementine, Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox, etc). You already have your FLACs on a drive, so that drive is obviously accessible to at least one of your computers or you couldn't have gotten the files onto it. Start by playing the files from where they are, using one of the above programs. Drive your new DAC with a USB output from your computer.

 

If you have an RPi 3 or newer sitting around, just download dietpi and burn the image to a microSD card. Stick it into your Pi, boot it up, and follow the instructions on the screen (with help from the dietpi website as needed) to configure it and install a player from their software repository.  There are several flavors of freeware player, including a few MPD instances, Kodi, LMS, Plex etc.  You can use Volumio, Moode, Daphile etc with equally pleasing results.

 

There's now a Roon server option from Dietpi that I don't recall seeing in the past - so you can take advantage of the Roon free trial to see if you think it's worth the cost (which I do).The Roon downloads page still has no option for a server instance on an ARM board, and (in my experience) the 64 bit Linux server package is a bit processor-heavy for use on a Pi.  There are packages for running the Roon server on QNAP and Synology NAS units, but those requirements start with an Intel i3.  Roon's comment on running the NAS server packages on anything less powerful is a simple and euphemistic "Overall, the experience will not be as good as it can be". So I assume (for no good reason other than that it makes sense - it's possible that Roon Labs will add this to the downloads page as I type...) that the Dietpi version of Roon server is adopted by them (rather than by Roon) from the available Linux version. I'm downloading it as we speak to figure out what it is and how well it performs.

 

You can run JRiver Media Center from a Pi - I've have a full instance running for a few years as a web server streaming to my son's house, phones and car. The graphics are a bit slower than they are from a more powerful machine, and functionality is limited - but most of the limits are on features you don't use or need for audio use.

 

You can stick the SSD with the FLACs on it into an external housing and use it as a USB drive on whatever device you decide to adopt as your player.  But if all of the USB ports on that device are on the same bus, you may compromise performance and SQ using that bus for both file input and digital audio output to your DAC. You'd be better served by either mounting the SSD as a second internal drive in a computer or accessing the SSD via your network (i.e. in a NAS box) if you have to use USB for audio out to your DAC.

[vinyl_paul]

Thanks a lot everyone.

...I have started!

Here is what I have installed to start playing:

- Raspberry Pi 3B running Volumio (https://volumio.org)

- Standard power, standard USB cable

- 128GB USB with FLAC files, installed on RPi (<< just for playing/testing)

- External DAC, Topping D10 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoder-Amplifier-TOPPING-ES9018K2M-OPA2134/dp/B07B46KQVP

- Decent RCA cables to integrated amp

 

All in all about £100 but its a start and sound pretty good!!

 

Now to start upgrading/tweaking 🙂

[marioed]

Hi Vinyl Paul,

 

Good job, sounds like you've got everything working. I'd suggest living with your current setup for awhile before you start upgrading/tweaking. Give yourself some time to get over the newness of the setup so you can identify what the factor(s) you'd like to change are. Let us know how things are coming along and feel free to ask questions. Enjoy the music!

 

Regards,

Mario