Pi-Squeeze! A DIRT-CHEAP music STREAMING system (+ ROON alternative)
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2020
- Camera: Olaf von Voss | Editor: John Darko | Motion GFX: John Darko
(Filmed May 2020)
PATREON:
/ johndarko
A dirt-cheap, VPN-capable music server/streamer built around the Squeezebox platform with Raspberry Pi hardware.
Backstory:
darko.audio/2020/07/a-short-f...
5 more thoughts on the Squeeze-Pi server/streamer:
darko.audio/2020/07/5-more-th...
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Essential reading...
Getting started with Raspberry Pi:
projects.raspberrypi.org/en/p...
ALLO DigiOne:
darko.audio/2017/08/allos-dig...
HifiBerry HATs:
www.hifiberry.com/
PiCorePlayer:
www.picoreplayer.org/
How to burn PiCorePlayer to a microSD card:
www.picoreplayer.org/how_to_b...
How to install LMS on PiCorePlayer:
www.picoreplayer.org/how_to_i...
Material skin:
github.com/CDrummond/lms-mate...
Orange Squeeze:
play.google.com/store/apps/de...
Squeeze Player:
squeezeplayer.de/
iPeng:
penguinlovesmusic.de/
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Feeling lost?
Back to Basics Part 1: music streaming:
• BACK TO BASICS Part 1:...
Back to Basics Part 2: Music servers and network streamers:
• BACK TO BASICS Part 2:...
A beginner’s guide to Raspberry Pi streaming:
• A beginner's guide to ...
Raspberry Pi streaming 101:
darko.audio/2020/01/raspberry...
Digital audio streaming 101:
darko.audio/2020/05/digital-m...
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Also seen in this video...
dCS Bartok:
darko.audio/2019/07/a-short-f...
Schiit Freya+:
darko.audio/2019/09/a-short-f...
Schiit Vidar, Aegir:
darko.audio/2020/05/a-short-f...
Klipsch Forte III:
darko.audio/2019/10/wheely-go...
Hifi Racks Podium XL:
www.hifiracks.co.uk/products/...
All cables by AudioQuest:
www.audioquest.com/
#squeezebox #raspberrypi #streaming
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Darko.Audio FAQ:
darko.audio/faq/
What the bloody hell am I talking about?
• What the bloody hell a...
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DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE A PODCAST?
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
open.spotify.com/show/1mnKixp...
/ johnhdarko
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Darko.Audio is a web magazine covering new and exciting developments in the audio world and we aren’t afraid of indie rock or techno.
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I really love the fact that you make so many videos with Raspberry Pi!
I like this sort of video where you point to what's possible, and we go on journey of discovery. This way we learn so much more and probably discover something different on the way.
Nice to see such a great review of an alternative to Roon for those who balk at its price. I think you were very honest in the effort to get it working and how its features compare to Roon. I personally prefer to pay for Roon as it is so super simple to set up and run. The time savings partially justify its cost, the metadata, signal path display, and multi-protocol support justify the rest for me.
Also, your videos look gorgeous. Great video quality, very much a 'film' look in how the colours come out. I always enjoy your content.
I believe you are providing a service that is very valuable not just to your viewers (although that is not inconsiderable by any means), but to the industry as a whole with your focus on easy/inexpensive/newbie-friendly digital music playback solutions. Lowering the barriers to entry is crucial for the continued health of the industry, and the benefits thereto accrue to all of us, not just newbies. Best time ever to be a music-lover, and your efforts are part of why. So thanks!
Just built this system over the weekend after watching this video. Its brought new life to our old music drive. Once I added iPeng to my phone I was sold. Love it. Thanks for putting out all this great info John.
Great video, John. Luv it like usual. Luv the semi bloopers at the end 😄👌🏼
If it wasn't for all your raspberry pi videos, I wouldn't have my current allo digione running volumio. So thanks for the kickstart, John.
I don't think I've ever seen you so excited! Good stuff!
Fantastic! This is just enough of a supplement to your past videos on raspberry pi streamers. Also, a wonderful economical, tech solution to streaming. This is exactly why your channel is unique; it offers these videos which round out how to experience audio.
Thanks so much for this. I was running music from my laptop, but it was big, got in the way, noisy fan and more. I bought myself a 4GB PI 4 and a case, connected it to my DAC via USB, flashed a micro SD and was up and running in around 30 minutes. I love it. Small, quiet and easy to control from Orange Squeeze. My config may not be the last word in HiFi, but then my ears aren't so great these days. But it was worth doing and it only cost me £65 for a complete audio solution that I can play my FLACS from and also my stream from Spotify. Good man, keep it up!
Best addition to the picoreplayer LMS setup for me was installing the ‘Material’ skin plugin . Brings it bang up to date with a modern look , and simplified some of the navigation for me too
Thank you so much John, for your always insightful, and as I see it, extremely well presented option for streaming on the cheap, which is exactly what I need right now.
Hello John Darko and team, I simply love this video because the last 5 days I have been seeing a lot a videos (your's Basic 1,2,3, all HAT videos too ) and reading articles searching for this simple solution. Now I really know the hardware and software I need. Thank so much.
I love the excitement. So fun.
As someone new to the audiophile world your videos are incredibly helpful. There are a million videos on how to install an OS on a Raspberry Pi, the issue is what software, not how to do it. Thanks for the review.
I'm so glad you took the time to cover the LMS/Pi system. I run three audio systems in my house, with a pi acting as both server and player in the main one. I do wish you'd covered one other great feature in LMS, which is its shuffle system. It's hands down the best shuffle I know of with the way it can dig into a library and tease out just the right song again and again. The main shuffle screen on the server goes a long way toward explaining how this is possible with the ability to exclude genres from the generated list. The few times I've auditioned Roon in my systems, the inferior shuffle system and the outrageous cost have been the two factors that have kept me in LMS. Why pay $500 for something that's already largely free?
Yes, loved it. Keep'em coming!
Finally. You managed to dig up the holy grail of digital audio. Thank you very much for this.
Amazing video! Just spent an hour or two installing the picoreplayer and LMS on my Pi4 and it is much less complicated then first appears. The fact that you can use only the Pi as server and player may just saved me buying an intel nuc for use as a roon core. And with Ipeng on my iphone the gap between it and roon is not that big for me. I love that i can get my personal / work laptop out of the way without spending more money. Maybe, just maybe, i will not renew my roon subscription next year... thank you for pointing out this solution. Keep on the good work!
So fine, well done John.
thanks John for info. I love that you challange all of us to do some work thanks again !
Music lovers and audiophiles should give great respect to the piCore player, LMS and LMS plugins developers and community!!!!
As great piece of software as piCore player is, and the community behind it, you should check GentooPlayer too. For rpi and x86. You can have Squeezelite (and S.lite R2), LMS, MPD, UpMPDcli, Bubbleupnp, Roon endpoint and many more simultaneously...
It's great and free too.
Also Archphile in its last "resurrected" version can run MPD and Squeezelite, changing from one to another very easily. LMS must be installed elsewhere though.
May be the best sounding of all.
I want to thank you for the series. I have learned so much. I ordered a pie and we shall see.
John thank you for this. I'm late to the party but with your help on this series I was able to build my network streamer. I used Pi4 with the Allo hat. I really am enjoying this solution.
Great video. Thumbs up for Squeezebox, and the Touch! I switched to Innuos Zen Mk.3-based streaming, using its embedded LMS and SqueezeLite player, *but* still using my Touch primarily as a visual display (and not a paperweight), while using an Android device and app for browsing music and controlling playback....though with an IR remote I can quickly pause, skip, etc., or even browse, on the Touch. Old meets new, and they work beautifully together.
Love it. A €150 streamer/server attached to a €12,000 DCS dac. 👍
A proper way for DCS is to have Antipodes CX upstream with a direct ethernet link to Antipodes EX to get rid of all the noise and provide galvanic isolation. Then from EX to DCS via USB or better yet via Antipodes P2 re-clocker. CX + EX is ~7000eur. High-quality DAC like DCS cannot make up for a poor quality server (source is the King).
Cheaper alternatives:
Antipodes DX Gen3 to SOtM Stable (2 SOtM dCBL-CAT7 ethernet cables & ISO-CAT6 ethernet cleaner box; Trifecta D-Link DSG105 w clock mod LPS-1; sMS-200 w clock mod sPS-500; txUSBultra sPS-500 providing clock connections; IsoRegen LPS-1; clock Cybershaft OP-14 w original Cybershaft 50ohm cable) with Mutec MC3+ via Habst Digital BNC 5N cryo treated silver cable 70ohm to Mutec Reference 10 clock.
Replace Antipodes DX3 Gen3 with Macbook for even cheaper solution (but sell DCS and get a cheaper DAC).
Yeah, valid point Mark, however the point of the video (IMO) is to bring people into the hobby, not frighten them off/bore them, like moonlights answer to you. Ha
@@moonlight-kh6uz you can stop flexing now.
Good information 👍. You are one of the few that look to alternatives than to simply get that uber expensive unit. Appreciate it Darko.
Great vid John.. as always.
This is great...I'm sold!!! Thank you!!
Been running this for years, its excellent!!
When comparing LMS to Roon don't forget that there are 2 Alexa skills (one 'Smart Home' skill called LMS-lite and and one 'Custom' skill called MediaServer) for controlling pretty much everything LMS can do by voice. The MediaServer skill also allows you to stream music from LMS to an Amazon Echo as audio sink. That can be quite useful in rooms other than your main audiophile listening room. The 'Follow Me' command can be very useful to have the music follow you as you move around in your house without having to touch a screen. Voice is just one extra control paradigm to complement e.g. iPeng or Material but Roon does not have such an option and their API is too closed for a community effort.
Love your channel. Some good reviews! this one is also great. we are going to move soon, where i get a dedicated home office and it is going to be my audio room, and this is one of the solutions i'm going to implement.
Thank you, love your channel. I received a PI4 for my birthday, you have helped me make up mind on what to use it for.
Great video, as always.
Interestingly enough just ordered a pi 4, hifiberry hat and a battery pack yesterday, should be with me tomorrow.
Already planned to install Plex, Volumie to try it out. Now, got another one to try it out, cheers mate.
Going to be a busy weekend and the good thing is to try all those different combo only the cost of the SD card, and it’s reusable!
What not to like? Life is good.
Thank you for this John! This is exactly what I needed! Had a pi and a Behringer UCA222, so going really cheap here, and thought I'd try this out on my setup. It is really convenient to not have to use my phone as a streaming source anymore! Didn't think I needed a streamer but it's been pretty life-changing the last few days. Thank you for thinking of us who have no money but are willing to put in a little effort!
Regarding effort, once I wrapped my head around the server/client relationship (and the relationship with mysqueezebox.com for Tidal in particular) I found this setup to actually be really easy to do. It just works. Granted I have a lot of experience with Linux and the Pi, but if anything that has taught me to expect things to be difficult, so I was actually very pleasantly surprised that I was able to get this setup up and running with virtually no issues whatsoever in probably an hour or less. And that's including adding plugins, doing all of my streaming from Tidal, Spotify, or Bandcamp.
Contrary to what some other commenters have said, I did not find this to overcomplicated setup and has been working for me trouble-free for a couple days now.
Thanks John....the video was a good start at persuading me into the world of Pi.....the Allo Player arrived yesterday and after a few steep learning curves it's up and running controlled by I-Peng from my I-Phone.
It's connected to a 1970's Quad 33 Pre-amp, 303 Amp into JR149 speakers - ie kit that is over 40 years old. It sounds great and I can now play any of 26,000 songs on my USB drive plus get BBC Radio and much more. What an adventure. Happy listening and keep up the great reviews - Julian
This was a fun thing to try and | managed to get it working eventually. I wired up my Allo Digione to my back up external drive containing my music files, found a spare sandisk card and pushed it out through my old Meridian CD Dac. I now have an completely independent digital system in addition to my main PC /Jriver / Chord Hugo - going to my Hi fi system. The only additional expense was just under £10 for Ipeng App on my ipad to control it. Thanks John - another great video
Great video, John
This is great! I have been streaming to my Rasp-pi/Allo Digione signature using Moode on the Allo Digione Signature and controlling it with Mconnect app. But I have been searching for away to this with both a PC and Android, with little luck finding a solution. Seeing your smiling face with the answer to my dilemma and a few hour later... wallah Bliss. Kudos to you Sir!
Then I just plug it into my $13k Barton and I’m away! 😂 But seriously John kudos for keeping it real and taking the time to help newcomers experience the joys of hi fi. Thanks for supporting our community.
John your guidance on the Raspberry Pi/ PiCore steaming platform has been invaluable.
Just built my streamer on a Squeezebox system, through a Schiit Bifrost, Quicksilver GLA and Audio Refinement electronics to my Monitor Audio speakers streaming Tidal,,,, amazing sound.
excellent video and Very useful video.
Schiit! I have Volumio playing nicely in my Pi. You catch the fish, now I would have to try this.
Great video John! I've been wanting to do this exact project. I'm running out of room for my cd collection.
Hi John, firstly, thank you for your excellent content here - it's always informative, enjoyable, and beautifully produced.
We also have a VERY similar taste in music (your most recent video reminded me of Robag Wruhme's "Olgamikks" which I've not listened to for ages.
Like you, I'm a big fan of Squeezebox/LMS, since I first bought one of their "Duet" systems.
I now run an entirely Pi based version, with a Pi v4 and a large USB 3 HDD attached. It easily handles my c140k track library (the bulk of which is FLAC) files. I have 4 Pi-based receivers, a couple of which use the Pi Zero for a really small, neat, and cheap option where ultimate sound quality isn't so important (kitchen for example).
And with built in support for Spotify, LMS is a brilliant, cheap, open platform for home streaming.
Sometimes you watch a video and are frustrated you can only give them one thumbs up.
This is good.
Thanks, this is quite close to something I've been thinking about doing with my setup. I currently got all my (digital) music on my computer which is connected to my amplifier, so it might be easier to have something smaller (and not need to run my tabletop PC all the time). Then again, I do watch quite a bit of film and television series as well, so some kind of more robust media server might be better.
Excellent video - challenge accepted! THANK YOU!
Follow up, with Plex now branching into Music specific media steaming and Tidal integration I would love your thoughts on Plex as a solution as a hifi server.
This. With Plexamp they now have a native headless pi os for streaming and it is pretty awesome!
I’ve been wondering too why no one is using plex as music server. Ive been using it for a year now and it works great. And also with the new plex amp apps you can download your file to your phone and delete it later...
Maybe it lacks gapless. Its pretty good otherwise. I use Plex. Check my other comment on how I have it setup
Does Plex support true gapless playback? Or do they use crossfade to approximately mimic it?
I was just love tweeting about PlexAmp using a AirportExpress through TOSlink to HiFi...
Must say that for those of us that just want an inexpensive alternative to the original Logitech squeezebox radio, this is an excellent solution. I already have two original Squeezebox players that after some 20 years of service started to give me problems. Since I already had an LMS server on my Network I used an old raspberry pi 2b as the main player and then added a cheap raspberry pi audio interface for $20 and within minutes it's was working perfectly. I used an android phone app called Squeezer to control all my Squeezebox players and it immediately picked up the new player. I'm very happy with this alternative. Thank you for showing that those of us with a low budget can still enjoy our audio music as well as thousands of Internet radio podcasts and streaming services like Pandora and others.
Thanks for the vid, John.
Would you be so kind as to shortly summarize the key diffences between using Squeeze and Volumio?
Since there are various apps, OS' and concepts involved I really lost my overview.
Much apprechiated. Cheers.
I've played with volumio and OS' that incorporate Squeeze. MoOde and Max2Play are both free and have Squeeze incorporated. MoOde is a little harder to navigate. Both take patience if you're a noob. Max2play includes kodi if you're in to that. MoOde sounds better
Thanks for sharing the idea. How would you compare it with the Bluesound Node 2i? In what situation would you prefer one over the other?
Bought an Allo Digione Signature after your review and definitely took some time to get it up and running. Tried a bunch of UPNP players for Android (and like 10 different OS's for Pi) and was unimpressed with any of the interfaces or the functionalities. Sometimes, I wouldn't be able to skip a track. Other times, Tidal was not supported, etc etc. Got sick and tired of it and shelled out for Roon and now I'm a happy camper :) Oh and Roopieee OS is probably the best and cleanest Roon OS I have found. It's almost plug and play, has support for a remote control, Spotify connect, etc. In hingsight, the process was kind of fun but I don't mind being done with it haha
My Squeezebox Touch is still running fine 10 years after I purchased it.
Mine too,though I have a couple of volumio setup on rpi3b as well
And I'm still running three Squeezebox Classics (v3), one that I originally purchased and two that I purchased on eBay after Logitech stopped selling the devices. They are all working great with LMS running on an AWS EC2 instance.
Great video, will give it a try.
Love your stuff. This id exactly the right level of detail John. Please go on with those pleasant surprises.
Great stuff!
Thank You for this amazing tutorial.
Question/comment: I wound up using a second raspberry pi (running picore player with a 7" touchscreen on my stereo end as the first, recreating my beloved squeezebox touch) in the basement as the lms server because I could not figure out how to get the picore to sleep the harddrives and the noise and hd wear of the constantly spinning hard drive was unacceptable. The lms server is running raspbian, which is easily configured to allow the harddrives to sleep.
Question: did I miss some way to sleep harddrives in picore player?
Does the SB Touch sound better/worse/the same as your Pi setup?
Another great one John, thank you. You kind of gave us a "preview" of this (much more detailed ) content when you reviewed the Volumio Primo, but this is a totally different cut and I like it a lot (+ this is exactly how I've been streaming for 6 months now, except for the OS of choice). I was wondering if you prefer PiCore over Volumio OS for any sound-quality related reason, given that all you mentioned is also possible with Volumio.
Thanks again and keep up with the great job you're doing.
This gets two thumbs up from me, I've got a Pi3 sitting around doing nothing, a Dragonfly ready to go to work, and a cheapskate attitude towards quality streaming through a monthly Spotty subscription, so this is ideal!
Thanks to your videos about Raspberry Pi streaming solutions during the COVID lockdown I've built my little streamer using Moode as operating system and a wonderful sounding (to my ears) Audioquest Dragonfly Red for streaming Tidal through Audirvana to my (not so much) hifi system. I've started with another operation system but I did my explorations and found that Moode is better to my ears and for the kind of music I listen to. I've also modified the exit for the audio from raspberry to Dragonfly from direct USB to a AUX/USB adapter and it sounds a lot better. Now I'll give a try to PiCore Player. As you stated in your video the nice thing about Raspy is that you can try and tune the sound to your tastes for very low prices. Maybe sooner or later I'll move to better streamer solution (a Myth Brooklyn Bridge is on whish list) but at the moment I've discovered a whole new audio world with no problems with the "Wife Acceptance Factor". Thank you so much John for being open minded and for sharing so many informations
Excellent, thank you
thanks mr.Darko . That gives me more than enough to be getting on with.lol All the best
Really cool!
great video as always John... choices, affordably, flexibility, and without saying of course $$$$ equipment is great and what we all lust for, but many of us need budget equipment at different stages of our audio journey...and you deliver these options continually....you introduce many to the concept of new equipment...that you can have incredible, enjoyable audio at every price point..thanks for your efforts
Anybody have experience getting the airplay and Chromecast plugins of picore to function?
For the Chromecast plugin, does it allow you to stream from a phone to this device? (The documentation for picore is a little ambiguous)
LMS v8 now includes Online Music Library integration i.e. Tidal, Qobuz & Spotify libaries can merge with your local library
Also investigate Music & Artist Information plugin which brings the reviews, bios & lyrics into play
Thanks! I didn't know about V8.
Ha, I was going to post exactly this info!
Also there is a material skin native app for Android, not in the store but needs to be installed from the developers GitHub.
As a longtime user of pi based music systems I have settled on lms/picoreplayer as the best. Amazing that it is free, those developers are living legends!
Also you didn't mention that once you have one pi with lms on it, you can add as many players as you want around your home and feed them from the same lms instance
What would you recomend for using Pi as a music and movies server/player? I tried with NOOB and installed KODI and Volumio. Kodi works, but Volumio just cant scan my music library. I even reformated external HDD with music collection to FAT32 but no dice...
this is quite complicated, but soooo awesome!
Awesome video tutorial!! I didn't even know about this media streaming world before this series. I love it and bought a Usbridge Signature. I was enjoying music on Moode audio which is much simpler and allows network streaming from USB, Tidal and qobuz. You can use any DLNA, Upnp, Airplay apps to stream from it. But, this looks much more sophisticated and perfect because for me, Roon is perfect and beautiful, but I don't want to buy it because it needs to run on another computer 24 hours besides Raspberry pi. I researched a lot if it's possible to run Roon on Pi directly. But, this is next to Roon and it's free on top of that. Amazing solution. Thanks for sharing....Nice project for the weekend...
Hello John, another great video. I've just setup a Raspberry Pi4 this morning with PiCorePlayer and LMS. One enhancement I'd add for anyone with Chromecast devices is adding the 'Chromecast Bridge' plugin, just the ticket for streaming Lossless audio to those legacy audio systems around the house :-) Love your work
Have you been able to stream CZcams audio via Chromecast using an Android phone to the Allo? (I'm talking about the general CZcams app not CZcams music - I would like to send the audio to the speakers and continue to watch on my phone)
Or does the Allo just cast to other Chromecast devices around the house?
@@dustinwongphotos The 'Chromecast Bridge' is a plugin to the LMS server software, that enables the streaming of audio to google chromecast devices elsewhere on the IP network.
The Allo digione is a 'HAT' that provides better quality digital SPDIF output to a directly connected DAC from the Raspberry Pi client streamer software
in this case Squeezelite from the piCorePlayer.
There is a CZcams plugin for LMS that may do what you want, I haven't tried it myself.
What Raspberry Pi HAT could I use, if I want to go analog from the Pi's HAT to powered speakers like the Adam Audio T5v? I am looking for a simple but decent sounding solution for Spotify Connect playback, with as little components involved as possible. Ideally, it should be available in Germany :)
Stupid question: but anyhow has an idea about the brand of his transparant/grey glasses? they are awesome :D - ow yeah the video is 2 :D
Thanks for the good video and all the explanations. I am really surprised about the LMS ecosystem nowadays and i still have my squeezebox touch. Actually i like to use the UPNP/DLNA plugin in the LMS server and stream to my integrated amp and it really works good. Looking forward about future updates/plugins and improvements of the LMS software.
Hi john i was wondering if there is good difference between music streamer? I use to have a Naim streamer but now I have an Audio Note Dac so I need something with no Dac witch one would you recommend me my budget is 1000$ to 1500$ thanks I love your channel
Thanks for bringing up this little project, John. Coming from the Squeezebox ecosystem, I still have a half a dozen Squeezebox devices and use them daily. A couple of features to point out with LMS is its plugin system. There are plugins that give LMS the ability to push audio to DLNA/UPNP devices, to Airplay, or to Chromecast. All of these devices can live simultaneously on your network and will show up as endpoints within LMS. With this, I am also able to utilize relatively cheap Google Home devices such as the Google Nest Hub, the Nest Mini, and the Chromecast Audio as Squeezebox devices. The coolest part about the puck-sized Chromecast Audio is that not only does it have a mini-optical jack for use in the rack, I can also power it off a small USB battery, add a pair of earbuds, and I now have have a portable WiFi "Squeezebox-walkman" for use around the house. I'd also like to mention about the Android, there's an app called SB Player that allows you to change the audio quality settings of the stream. While it should work with Orange Squeeze, I prefer using it with another app called Squeeze CTRL. Similar to the warnings you've given in your video, the setup for these plugins take some work and will require some research to configure along with some trial and error. One more thing I forgot to mention is that there are also virtual Squeezebox players on Windows and Mac called Squeeze Play. All the aforementioned can be found through a Google search!
Thank you for the excellent video! It really encouraging me to build my own network streamer with app. I’m choosing a medium price network streamer right now, and I find out that always is something missing - or it does not support USB input, or does not support DSD (bluesound for example), or app is bad, or DAC is bad ... Is it really so difficult to incorporate all those common features in one box!?
If it wasn’t for you John, & your channel I would never of herd of the artist Burial & bought my first ever Ritchie Hawtin album Decks, EFX & 909. So I thank you John Darko for everything that you do on your channel 👍🏻
This might be a noob question, but how about using a Roku or some other streamer, or plugging a smart TV direct through hdmi or TOS link?
Interesting video that has got me thinking! I currently have a old laptop running JRiver + separate USB HDD connected to my Rega DAC-R (via a asynchronous USB connection) in my hifi rack. If I was to set up this "Pi-Squeeze" as an alternative (with HAT) running to into my Rega DAC then how would you expect the sound quality to compare?
Very much appreciate your effort on this Mr. D. Previously I saw your Pi videos. So I approached and then veered away from Pi in favor of a HiBy R5 player-streamer. The HiBy balanced out seems distinctly better than its single ended, so I acquired two adaptors - pentaconn male -> dual XLR. Then dual XLR -> dual RCA to get into my Schiit Asgard. Awfully hard to A/B compare, but I’ve declared victory and am a happy listener. For today. This hour, anyway. 😉
Great video John, a noob question, I have a squeezebox touch, can i use a Raspberry Pi with Toslink/Coax HAT to feed the streaming signal to squeezebox touch and make use of the DAC in SB touch ? I am using a vintage Sansui AU Aplha Amp that only has RCA as inputs, sadly no digital inputs.
Do you notice the difference in sound quality compared to e.g. high end streamers from Aurelic and Innuos or from a decent CD transport? I’m just thinking there must be a price to pay (in sound quality) ...something surely has to give?
Not really. Look at the higher end stuff from Allo, like the DigiOne. They’re also RPi based and top out at 500€ or so including a linear PSU, and they are up there with not only the best comparably expensive transports but with the best transports period. They just come in ugly cases and you need to be willing to do some tinkering - those are the prices you need to pay.
The Kadas Tone board seems to be great
Hi Darko! what alternative to a HAT do you think will be better to extract spdif audio of a PI??... my main issue with allo and other alternatives is the ugliness of the cases (yes i know that i'm too shallow).
I am ecstatic! I just hooked up my RPI4 + hifiberry digi+ pro to my Schiit Modi3. All of this based on your recommendations. I'm streaming from an SMB share locally. Took me about an hour to get things running!
paisleyboxers what’s your overall impression on the music quality? I’m also considering Rpi+day board Vs HDD plugging into the AVR directly. 😆
Jeff L If you are looking for descriptive narratives like John provides, I won’t be able to measure up. The digital coaxial is going into a Schiit stack (Modi3, Loki, Magni2), and I’m listening with Sennheiser HD6XX.
I would be the low end spectrum here, but really appreciate what I’m hearing so far. This is cheap enough not to second guess just picking it up for a run
I've been running a similar setup for 5 yrs.
Server - cheap NUC, with external SSD holding music library, covers etc.
3 players (around the house) - 1 surviving original Squeezebox, 2 cheap Android tablets running Angry Goat's Squeeze Ctrl & SB Player (far & away the best clients imho, Android & Windows 10 versions avail).
The Squeezexbox is connected to my AV, the tablets connect (via HDMI to optical converter boxes, £16), to small T-Class amps, & spare bookshelf speakers.
The advantage of the tablets is they are a great interface to Squeeze Ctrl (which has a tablet mode), allowing you to browse your music collection, have album art in playlist, display full cover etc. Costs way less than Sonos & performs just as well, & is a huge visual improvement. If you are doing any home automation, the tablets can double as access/control points to your system.
It's a great way to utilise ageing/surplus tablets & speakers.
Found this channel about a month ago when I was searching for a DAC. Like the way you present it and how the videos are edited. As for the DAC I’ve decided on the Cobalt and use it on my phone and Nvidia Shield TV. The latter gives a nasty high pitching sound on the USB port when it gets hot so now I’m looking for another streamer for music. Your vids about the Raspberry made me curious and after looking into it some more I decided I will give it a try. At this moment not sure about the HAT with the Chord because I have the Dragonfly. Anyway, you give me a lot to think about and will follow your channel, thanks.
Buy an usb 3 ground loop isolator or use optical toslink. It will break the ground loop causing the noise you hear. Unfortunately they are a bit pricey but you can use it later on whatever dac you get since many hifi enthusiast highly recommends one. If you have 2 ground alternatives between 2 devices you'll get that effect your noticing. Its nothing wrong with the devices, its just a ground loop you have created with multiple cables which shares ground. Hope this helps :).
@@impuls60 Thanks for the advice! Never heard of such a device before but this could solve my problem. Google came up with the Audioquest JitterBug USB filter. Not sure if this is a ground loop isolator but it does filter out unwanted noise and it's the same brand as my Dragonfly. Going to try that. I always can return it if it doesn't work. It should also take care of the sharp edges of the sound of the Raspberry PI which I am going to try anyway.
Geeeeee, so happy i got an Innuos........ great video
Best video yet!
Excellent semi-tutorial - you cover enough to show how it can be done without drowning us in detail. Your target is people who like music rather than tech heads.
Also appreciate that you base almost everything on CD quality rather than making us all feel inadequate if we don’t have exotic vinyl systems. How about a video on 10 tracks to show the best and worst of a system?
Good stuff. I tried Volumio for a while and it was nice, but this seems worth a try as well.
Dense video, but after viewing several times and taking notes, useful. Overall, though, very accurate statement, having a hard drive filled with music is itself a streamer. That’s the direction I’m currently taking.
Have an older system with Marantz AV & Outlaw power amp to Def Tech Mythos towers. Took a 4th gen IPad no longer in use and got a Dragonfly Cobalt. The IPad is a beautiful big touch screen streamer that runs while charging with an Apple lightning-usb camera adapter.
I'm still using the Squeezebox as a streamer into a Chord Qutest. My Music is on a network hard drive and I use Qobuz and Spotify through the Squeeze LMS (the LMS is running on a network computer), not as user friendly as Roon, but it gets it done for little money. Would I get better sound quality with the type of set up you describe?
I think the pertinent question is: How does the digital output of the Squeeezebox compare to that of the All Digione Signature? I'd be interested in the answer to that too as I am running the same set up as yu, albeit with a Mojo DAC.
That's a good question which I can answer: even the standard ALLO DigiOne sounds better than the orig Touch's S/PDIF output.
John Darko Thanks John, so it sounds like Rpi 4 with Pi Core, Digione loaded with LMS and Squeeze. I already have Ipeng. Are you a Foobar 2k fan ?
chasing the dragons tail? - hmmmmmmmm.... I really, really enjoy your pragmatic audiophile reviews, and as a fellow aussie do truly enjoy your delivery. Now, however, i've plateaued out on my audiophile journey - been a short one during Covid19, and am now really content with the hardware i have.
So, new hardware reviews are of only academic interest, and i'm much less engaged by them.
I'd really like to see/hear (and you always have the best sound) more on audio tracks that can challenge my ears, and listening preferences. I'm guessing that like many of our fellow audio travelers, we enjoy being challenged with good music of every genre - after all, i have your tshirt - Music first! (perhaps 1 review in every 2, just on music?)
Love what you do! - Thanks!
Good timing, I have just ordered a HiFiBerry HD DAC and am correctly looking for a stream OS. I was considering Volumio or Moode Audio. How do these compare to the PiCore Player. Will you be looking at how these players work in this particular setup? The only difference in my setup is that my music library is on a Pi server run by OpenMidiaVault.
I just got an allo digione with moode. Picore has a renderer built into moode
Interesting video. Which features are you missing with a setup like this? I’m guessing it lacks many ports.
Am I right to think that if I use the HDMI out of the rPie into my AV receiver, the sound is as good as the DAC inside my receiver. Can the sound be improved by going in analog if I'm still using the same receiver for amplification?
The source audio is a digital format. Going from digital to analog requires conversion, whereas the hdmi does not, so unless I am missing something, can't see how that would be an improvement, unless you have an external DAC that is way superior to your AV amp?
Hmmmmm This is sounding good so far. Really straightforward.