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About Me

Found 2 results

  1. Rebuilding the perfect beast. How I evaluated an heir-apparent for my Squeezebox Touch and had a little fun in the process. This not meant to be a measurements-laden post as there are plenty of those out there already. My objective was to figure out how to set up a Raspberry Pi (RPi) microcomputer as music streamer and DAC. It’s more a a chronicle of my successes and mistakes - followed by listening impressions. I'm not that keen on DIY devices, but the RPi has intrigued me from the start, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity to jump in and create a Roon endpoint for my secondary office system. Roon is my music library player of choice, so this informed my initial goals. I suspect that most people here already know about Roon, so I won’t spend too much time on it aside from the setup screens. If you’ve never heard about Roon as a music front-end for your system, you’re in for a treat! I had 4 basic questions out of this exercise: 1) Would this be a suitable replacement for my aging Squeezebox Touch? 2) Can a regular guy assemble this easily? How long will it take? 3) Can this device compete with devices at significantly higher price points? 4) Will I be constantly dealing with unstable hardware and software? If it ain’t broke – fix it! Did I really need a new DAC in my office? No, not really. My Logitech Squeezebox Touch (SBT) had been working well as a Roon Endpoint connected to a set of powered AudioEngine 5+ “Classic” speakers. It’s a great way to discover new music while working, and it’s plug and play simple. The SBT is a fully contained Endpoint and DAC that outputs via RCA to my powered speakers - simple. Here is what that looks like. I know the pictures are not great, but please bear with me: The legendary Squeezebox Touch (SBT) was released around 2010 and was so far ahead of its time, that Logitech in their infinite wisdom cancelled it after just a few years of production. It attracted many fans who continue to happily use this device to this day and still runs $125+ on the used market (new MSRP was ~$300). SBT prices spiked a few years back, but I suspect the Google Chromecast Audio took a bite its market - before it too was cancelled! Roon has a simple setting that emulates the old Logitech Media Server protocols and can stream beautiful music to the SBT with minimal fuss as seen in the below Roon device setup screen: I was looking for an excuse to get on the Raspberry Pi bandwagon and was initially curious about how it would compete as a network streamer/DAC combo with the SBT I knew so well. When the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was recently released, I figured I’d give it a go. If it was not what I wanted, I could repurpose the Raspberry Pi for any number of fun alternate projects. Here’s an inventory of the what I got to get started, it comes to about $300: · Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: $35 · Orchard Audio ApplePi HAT DAC: $139.99 · Orchard Audio ApplePi Volume-Clocker: $84.99 · Samsung 32GB MicroSD EVO Select Memory Card (MB-ME32GA/AM): $7.99 (way larger capacity than needed, borrowed from my dashcam) · Mackertop 5.25V 3A Micro USB Wall Charger AC Adapter for Raspberry Pi 3, HP HSTNN-LA43 PA-1150-22HA: $12.99 (buy 2 if you plan to add a Touchscreen) · HVAZI 320pcs M2.5 Nylon Hex Spacer Standoffs Screws Nuts Assortment Kit: $12.99 (way more freaking parts than needed – I should have gotten copper/metal ones) Note: most of the non-Orchard Audio parts came off Amazon.com so I used the exact product descriptions above to help with the search. A Feast of Options How did I settle on the ApplePi, especially given that there are many HAT DACS for the Raspberry Pi to choose from! They range in price from $25 to $350 so there is something for everybody. At the top of the range the competition from ready-built systems starts kicking in hard, and I am especially thinking of the BlueSound Node 2i at $500. I chose the Orchard Audio ApplePi DAC because I missed out on the Kickstarter campaign about a year ago, and I had been curious about this DAC ever since. I had read up on similar offerings from Allo, HiFiBerry, Pimoroni, JustBoom, etc. It was a toss-up between the Allo Katana and the Orchard Apple Pi. The Orchard ApplePi seemed less complicated, given that the Katana had so darn many options; multiple output stages, power supplies, etc. Frankly it was a bit too daunting to make that many decisions up-front. Next up was to decide on the OS for the RPi, which I needed to be a Roon endpoint, so I chose RoPieee as my primary OS over Volumio, DietPi, MoodeAudio, etc. RoPieee is a really straightforward OS that self-updates and requires minimal configuration to allow the RPi + DAC to act as a Roon endpoint (over Ethernet or Wifi). Nothing else. The great news is that I can swap out my MicroSD card at any time with any of these other OS configurations, but first things first. Get the darn thing working. I downloaded the excellent Balena Etcher software to write the RoPieee OS 1 GB image file to my MicroSD card. Within minutes I had my RoPieee MicroSD cart ready to be inserted into my RPi! I got the RPi first, so I connected an HDMI monitor, plugged in an Ethernet cable and the 5.25V 3A power adaptor (Note: getting the power right power supply will prevent undervoltage warnings and reboots). On my monitor the setup scripts whizzed by, and I let the setup/reboot process run its course until the green LED on the RPi was blinking about once a second. Once RoPieee setup is complete, there is no more output to the HDMI screen, so further configuration happens via web interface: http://ropieee.local/. This interface also accounts for multiple RoPieee devices so they can all be configured and named from here. Sweet! Oh, and any later screens you see me show do not show up via HDMI connection, only via the optional touch screen. The elegant RoPiee interface allows for the configuration of any USB connected DACs and/or a DAC hat. My DAC was still a few days out, so I connected an old LH Labs Geek Out 1000 to the USB port and selected the “Audio USB” setting in the web UI. Without a DAC, Roon doesn’t “see” the Raspberry Pi, so once the Geek Out was connected directly into the USB Port I checked Roon and it had been recognized. I enabled it and was ready. Whoah, that was easier than expected! I plugged in headphones to the Geek Out and started playing music via my Sony MDR-Z7 headphones hooked up via the 47 Ohm output. The audio quality was ok, but not as good as I memory served me while connected to my OPPO 205 or via balanced connection to my Pono DAP, nor my impressions from having the GeekOut connected to my laptop, but that was not what I was looking to do. The RPi USB is apparently pretty poor, so perhaps I was getting a taste of this. I decided not to take this side mission. Either way, it was working! A few days later a neat package arrived from Orchard Audio containing the ApplePi DAC and Volume controller boards, and the stacking header connectors. I pulled out my maximum overkill box of 320 spacers and screws and fished out the following items (these are all the M2.5 thread): · 4 x Feet · 4 x 12mm Standoff · 4 x 14mm Standoff · 4 x Screws (In retrospect I would have preferred getting the brass ones). A nice video on the Orchard Audio website explains it all, and I had watched in anticipation. It helps to measure the standoffs beforehand so you aren’t eyeballing the difference between a 12mm and a 14mm standoff when you have 5 different sizes to choose from. Pro-tip y’all! The stack came together quickly ONCE I had the right sizes! I wasted no time moving the RCA cables from my Squeezebox Touch to the miniature stack of circuit boards I had just assembled. In the RoPieee OS web screen I selected the Audio HAT to be the Orchard Audio ApplePi DAC, hit save, and had RoPieee reboot the DAC via the Web UI. Upon completion I enabled the newly discovered DAC in Roon: I love it when stuff just works… I know very well how the SBT and AudioEngine 5+ powered speakers sound, but even as I was being somewhat distracted by enabling this new RPi endpoint in Roon, my focus was immediately drawn to the music when I started up Jean Michel Jarre’s latest “Equinoxe Infinity” (via Tidal). It’s a new reference recording, and I immediately noticed a significant sound quality improvement. Granted the SBT is probably a better streamer than DAC, but holy cow! The stereo imaging on Flying Totems (Movement 2) was outstanding, and the bass much, much tighter. Everything was just better. The Roon screen below shows the ApplePi as an EndPoint alongside other devices on my network. At louder volumes (90-100 dB) the ApplePi DAC exhibited its prodigious talents in a way that impressed the hell out of me. I did a series of sighted back and forth plugging between the ApplePi and the SBT on the same material and noticed that the immediate differences I had noted were undeniable. At louder volumes (I was using a SPL meter) the SBT had me reaching to turn down the volume because it sounded too bright, but I never got this urge with the ApplePi while listening to Mozart Violin Concertos (MQA Remix 2016) on Tidal. Honestly, I thought the AudioEngine 5+ speakers were decent but not spectacular, so I had that upgrade itch. That urge has since disappeared. The bass is huge and the imaging is precise. Way better than I thought possible. I even forgot about wanting to add a subwoofer. My wife even commented on how great it sounded and wants me to now set up something at her office. What just happened?!? Once I had the above configuration up and running for a few days, I decided to go deeper down the rabbithole and add the optional RPi 7” touchscreen and stand. You can operate the device without the touch screen, but I wanted the screen because it’s one of the things that made the Squeezebox Touch so versatile. This added another $91 to my total cost, so it was pushing $400 now. · Raspberry Pi 7" Touchscreen Display $80 1 · Pibow Touchscreen Frame Noir $11 Once the screen arrived, I was followed the instructions and connected the screen to RPi using the supplied flat ribbon cable. The ribbon cable receptors on the Raspberry Pi and Monitor card require you to pull up the black tab so it unlocks the receptor. Once inserted, pushing down the tab will clamp the cable. Initially I tried jamming the ribbon into the slot, which was stupid. Just use the tabs ok? The touchscreen frame assembly was elegant and simple. Mounting the Pi with HATs onto the back of the touchscreen took some fiddling and picking the right spacers and wishing the ribbon cable was 1cm longer so it would not be such a tight stretch (figured out later I could have reoriented the device). The touchscreen needs power as well, and the manual proposes two ways: one which used two of the supplied jumper cables, but that way didn’t work because the HAT was already using the terminals. The other option was to use a USB to Mini USB cable from the screen’s board (screwed to the back of the touch screen) to the Raspberry Pi – this worked fine, but I later decided to order a dual head female to male Mini-USB power splitter extension, the $7 Electop Micro USB Female to 2 Micro USB Male Splitter Cable. This would also free up the side USB port (totally optional though). The DAC needed power too, so to avoid the dreaded underpower yellow lightning bolt I grabbed the second Mackertop 5V power supply which I received with the ApplePi but left in the box. It happened to be identical to the one I had ordered beforehand. I plugged this second power supply into the ApplePi Volume Clocker so it would power the DAC section. I have an iFi iPower 5v power adaptor (currently in use in my main system) and could have used it too. Below is an image of the back of the touchscreen with everything hooked up. Note how tight the ribbon cable fits, but I will eventually reverse the spacers and rotate it so the RPi is closest to the screen rather than farthest away as shown. The only advantage here is that it’s a little easier to access the MicroSD card. Back to Business I was playing around with the headless configuration of RoPieee but it did not automatically see the newly added Touchscreen. I reflashed my SD card with RoPieee and restarted the setup process and this time it automatically set up the Touchscreen. At this point the Touchscreen had upside-down text about not finding Roon. I went into the Roon Settings / Display screen on my PC and saw the newly discovered Roon Extension called Ropieee Remote control - which I expertly enabled (getting drunk with success!). Tip: Whenever you reflash the OS you will need to go into the Roon Audio settings and re-enable the Raspberry Pi (don’t forget the DAC, WiFi, and timezone settings in RoPieee). For these reflashing operations, make sure the Network cable is plugged in so you can see what is happening in the http://ropieee.local/ setup screen on your PC after the setup is complete (once the RPi green light blinks once a second) or when you see Welcome to Ropieee on the touchscreen. Don’t mess with anything while RoPieee is configuring itself. It takes 10 minutes at most and may reboot a few times. Patience... Inside the RoPieee web control screen you will find a snazzy new Display Tab that allows the display to be configured in case it shows up upside down. Make sure you use the exact Roon Control Zone name you gave the DAC in Roon, in my case I called it Orchard Apple Pi DAC. Hit commit and let the RPi reboot and it will be ready to go afterwards. Note: Make sure you Commit and Save Changes in each individual RoPieee screen when you are customizing the setup. Below are some of my settings in RoPieee: Below is a view from the top with the RoPieee screen running. I had this on a small desk top space next to my laptop which I was using to flash the images and control the settings on the webpage. The way the ApplePi DAC is oriented puts the RCA cables and the power supply cables pointing upwards. I might have preferred that they faced away from the screen (90 degrees to the back), but for now, this worked and above all, was sounding great. Final Thoughts This exercise was to check out what it takes to assemble a Roon endpoint from a Raspberry Pi and that proved to be easy and fun. I blew my $300 budget by adding the touchscreen, but it made total sense especially because it “hid” the RPi + DAC behind the handsome bevel and I had an awesome pause button to hit when incoming calls happened and a cool digital clock when nothing was playing. The case is another matter, due to the height of the RPi plus the HATS I measured that a case would need to be at least 2.5” tall. I was unable to find a suitable case but read somewhere that people had success with the HifiBerry case, but it’s not tall enough to accommodate the two HATs nor does it have the right holes to accommodate the volume knob or the XLR/RCA outputs. Don’t bother. There is an “open” case available from Pi Plates that uses large standoffs around the 4 corners that I might be able to use, so I ordered one to see how it would work. I also realized that instead of stacking the HATs on top of the RPi, I could get an extension 40-pin ribbon cable and separate the DAC from the Pi. This would allow me to use the Pi Plates container to contain the DAC and Volume control separately from the RPi and provide more flexibility. I also wonder how a LPS would impact the sound of this rig, but I wanted to repurpose my existing iFi iPower switching PS first. No rush. Remembering the Initial questions: Q: Would be a suitable replacement for the aging Squeezebox Touch? A: Yes, and more – there are various different programs including a SBT emulator that would give me far greater choices. With the screen and vastly superior DAC it’s no contest. You can even emulate the SBT on the RPi! Q: Can a regular guy assemble this easily? How long will it take? A: Yes, but the assembly time depends on choices you make. A barebones setup can be done in 10 minutes and adding the initial RoPieee configuration you could be up and running in 20 minutes. I initially made a few easily reversible mistakes which took me ~45 minutes. Q: Will this be able to hang with Roon Endpoint devices at significantly higher pricepoints? A: What else under $500 or even $1000 has a 7” touch screen and such a great DAC that is not Raspberry Pi-based? A $499 Bluesound Node 2i is compelling, and it comes with the highly acclaimed BlueOS. I don’t have one to compare against, so I cannot comment on sound quality differences, but if anybody has compared it against the SBT I would welcome the datapoint. Q: Will I be constantly fumbling with unstable hardware and software? A: The hardware and software proved to be robust enough to put up with mt clumsy manhandling. After playing with RoPieee, Volumio and DietPi I got the hang of it and even brushed up on some SSH skills to tweak DietPi. It must be said - RoPieee is superb – it sounds great (if not the best) and is dead simple to use. Most of these tools can auto update, so that’s a bonus to always have the latest. PROS 1. Great sound – it must be said, the DAC’s sound quality is immediately obvious. 2. Highly flexible platform, easy and (mostly) fun to assemble. 3. Upgradeable; touchscreen, higher quality linear and switching linear power supplies, choice of multiple operating systems and features, etc. 4. Outside of the Allo Katana, nothing under $500 or even $1000 appears to be in the same league according to published measurements. This is a serious DAC, regardless of platform, that’s the eye opener. CONS 1. No case, so aside from lacking RF or EMI shielding, the circuits are exposed and A/B testing by plugging/unplugging RCA cables requires care. 2. Raspberry Pi boards pass “dirty” power up through the ground and this is not isolated from the DAC. I suspect there is a tweak for this, but for now I cannot hear it. 3. Most RPi “starter kits” lack the required standoff screws so the 2.5M screws and MicroSD card must be ordered separately to get started. Just order the pieces individually. 4. A Touchscreen adds another $80 but requires an extra power supply and is best with a $10 frame + stand. The mainstream audio press has not given these Raspberry Pi devices much attention, but it’s clear to me that high-end digital audio vendors should be taking note. It’s imminent that better electrical isolation, professional cases, and more fully pre-assembled RPi-based turnkey systems will proliferate and massively disrupt the price performance expectations of the entire audio industry. It won’t just be limited to intrepid hobbyists. ApplePi Specifications · Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR): 128dB (2,510,000 to 1) · Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (THD+N): <0.0005% (-106dB) · Balanced Output Voltage: 5 Vrms (0dBFS) · Balanced Output Impedance: 200 ohm · Single Ended Output Voltage: 2.5 Vrms (0dBFS) · Single Ended Output Impedance: 100 ohm · Dual TI Burr Brown DAC (PCM1794A) in Monaural Mode · Ultra Low Noise Linear Regulation · Low Jitter PLL Clock Generation · Supported Sample Rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192kHz · Supported Bit Rates: 16-Bit and 24-Bit · Outputs: Mini XLR or RCA · Power: Powered from Raspberry Pi or Power Directly (Optional) · Optional Power: 5V with Micro USB connector · Power Consumption: 4.5W (5V @ 0.9A) · Supported SBCs: Raspberry Pi, Tinker Board, Sparky SBC Part 2 – PecanPi, Ready to serve! Fast forward a week and as I was wrapping up my findings on the ApplePi, Orchard Audio announced the PecanPi; the next generation of the device and it read like a wish-list come true; custom aluminum case with a volume knob, volume board, headphone amp, and DAC combined onto one board. It’s almost as if they were listening to me! What’s new is the option of getting the PecanPi DAC completely pre-built and pre-configured. It struck me that the ApplePi I had just written about suddenly made the jump to become a turnkey device and I could either scratch everything I had written or just provide my impression of the new device. The PecanPi will be available as a kit (between June/August), but the case is mighty compelling because there no great cases options available (Allo has better options here). Knowing what I know now, I would opt for the PecanPi DAC and aluminum case because I would want to add a screen and my own choice of 9V power supply and also because I already have a RPi. You could say that I have been emboldened by my positive experiences with the ApplePi, and I am excited by the opportunities for customization. However, the prebuilt/configured system makes far more sense for those who aren’t ready to take the plunge and want to plug and play. The beauty is that you can now have it either way! More info: https://orchardaudio.com/shop?olsPage=products%2Fpcnp-strmr As a bonus, the technical performance has also improved with the PecanPi, SNR is 2dB better, THD+N is 3dB better, and jitter performance is also improved. Honestly, after listening to an early production model for a week, I can’t hear an immediate difference when I am doing casual A/B switching, but it may impress the measurements crowd. The ability for the PecanPi to function as a headphone amplifier is worth noting in that it sounds huge and powerful. Better than I am used to with my 5-year-old portable DAP and comparable to the OPPO 205. I’m not a fervent headphone listener, and the need to use an optional Y connector to convert the RCA outputs to a headphone output means you’d have to remove the Y connector and replace the RCA cables when you want to switch back to regular RCA output. I took a few pictures of the PecanPi DAC to show the robustness of the board design, gone are the mini-XLR connectors for full sized ones, and the aluminum case is robust, with enough porousness to not interfere with Wi-Fi. See below. Well that wraps up my journey so far! I have a lot more to learn, but boy am I having fun!
  2. Only "civilian level" pc knowledge skills, by no means a computer whizz. I use ROON for Streaming Qobuz and my small collection of flac files on a usb drive. My current setup is an Intel i5-7500 pc @3.4GHz with 16GB ram & NVidia GTX 1060 (my general purpose living room pc which I use for browsing, Netflix etc) running Win10 pro. This currently runs my ROON Core and usb connected to my SMSL M8A usb dac & a trial version of HQPlayer. I have now just got a NUC8i7BEH on which my son installed ROCK (not yet put in hifi rig). Also now have just got a RPi4b for RopieeeXL. I think I understand how to install Ropieee XL on the pi and will try tomorrow. Using XL cos of my Spotify playlist and great music suggestions & it has the HQP NAA. 1) Should I first get the pi up and running first with my pc and only then transfer the CORE to the NUC? i.e. change one part of the chain at a time. 2) When the pi and NUC are up and running, I would like to use HQPlayer on the PC. What will be the limiting factor on the pcm and DSD rates I can stream to my DAC (pcm 768, native DSD 512 capable)? Is the pi the limitation or can it stream via usb to my DAC whatever I can upsample via HQPlayer on my pc? I have a Holo Audio May L2 DAC on order and am trying to get my system up and running before it arrives and "learn" HQPlayer to get the best out of the DAC. Thanks for any help and my apologies in advance for any equally dumb follow up questions and time delays in responding as there's up to a 8 - 12h time difference. Cheers
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