Article: Simple Raspberry Pi Fun Without a Power Supply

[bluesman]

”P.S. I'm not giving up my Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical anytime soon.“

 

Cool beans, Chris!  But you’re begging the question: why not - SQ?  Aesthetics? Other?  Please tell us what you’re hearing.

[bluesman]

3 hours ago, vortecjr said:

We have Sonic Orbiter ported to the Pi platform. Any interest in this from the DIY community? 

For sure!  I’d love to see how it compares to Roon Bridge on a current Pi.  The big question will be if and how it redefines the value proposition in audio.

 

As I recall, it’s been running on ARM SoCs from inception, so the Pi is a logical home for it. But much of its sonic advantage in commercial devices has been attributed by Sonore and others to hardware components described in promotional literature as “better than consumer grade”.  So I’m wondering how much of its potential can be achieved in the Pi, given the build-to-a-price-and-purpose development that kinda makes a Pi the ultimate consumer-grade device.  I’ve paid more for resistors and caps than a Pi costs.

 

This begs the question of whether the Pi itself and/or associated factors like PS and OS limitations are the final determinants of SQ.  If they are, we may be at the limit now.  If not, let’s see how far past the already excellent Roon Bridge we can go on it.

 

Thanks for advancing the art while making it more affordable!

[bluesman]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

AFAIR, one of the reasons Sonore says their endpoints are superior is that the OS only runs one ot the playback software platforms at a time, and the setup is slightly optimized for each one in turn. I'm wondering if this would also apply to the OS on a Pi.

Here's one of the quotes to which I was referring:

• "The problem with computer music servers is that they all rely on mass-produced motherboards designed for general purpose computing and are built to the lowest possible price point. The ultraRendu solves this problem by removing the consumer grade computer peripherals and optimizing power supplies where necessary."

The Raspberry Pi is the physical embodiment of general purpose design built to the lowest possible price point.  If we removed the consumer grade parts and substituted better ones, it wouldn't be a Pi and it wouldn't cost $55.  Yet several very fine players squeeze truly excellent SQ from it.  So I wonder how much room for improvement is left on a Pi if it's already as good as it can get because everything about it is part of "the problem with computer music servers".

 

Then again, if (as many of us feel) these shortcomings have been a bit overstated and the Pi's a better device than some would have us believe, there's still room for further improvement.  So I'd love to redo some of my SBC software comparisons with SO in the mix.  And if it's better than Roon Bridge et al, let's see how close it can get to a Rendu of any color.

[bluesman]

On 6/4/2020 at 12:12 PM, greyscale said:

FWIW, new Rasberry Pi 4 8GB mem 64bit os just released. Backordered everyware🥵

The 64 bit OS is in beta, and that's optimistic.  You might want to read my initial evaluation of it for audiophiles.  It's simply not ready for our use yet, e.g. I couldn't get Roon Bridge to install after an hour of trying Roon's easy install - it throws an error about the ALSA libraries that I simply couldn't decipher well enough to fix.  It's not fully coded for audio or video, can't use VNC, won't run VLC, has an altered root structure for multiple files compared to Raspbian, etc.  I'm sure they'll fix it all, but for now we still have to use the 32 bit Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian).  Click the image to open the thread.