Life after Squeezebox - any advice?

[Richard]

Hi all, I'm using SB Touch at the moment into Arcam IRDAC and controlling with Squeezer app on android phone. A PC in another room has the flac library and Logitech Media Server and is LAN wired to the router and the SBT is wifi'd to the router.

I'm only really interested in playing flac from the hard drive on the PC and not streaming off the web or web radio.

Has anyone moved on from a similar setup to the likes of Raspberry Pi and Rune etc? Is it better in sound or user terms? Can I just use a Pi3, with wifi dongle and psu and Rune, and a usb connection to the DAC? Or do I need the Berry with SPDIF out into the DAC etc?

I'm happy to give it a go but would like to dodge any major been-theres Any pointers/tips/advice please?

[Stanton]

Hi Richard

I've never had a SB Touch so cannot comment on the sound differences but I have tried a Pi using Rune and was very pleased with the sound. Controlled it from my iPad with FLAC files on a USB drive connected to the Pi. A better power supply makes a big difference to the sound quality. This forum is a great help in setting it up.

http://theaudiostandard.net/thread/1...audio-streamer

I used the USB connection to a Musical Fidelity V DAC 11 despite many suggesting the HiFi Berry. The thing to watch is the Pi doesn't like large power consumption from its USP ports but the V DAC has its own power supply so not drawing power from the Pi.

If you go down the Hi Fi Berry route there is a cheep alternative from China on eBay from time to time but I don't know how good it is.

Regards Frank

[Richard]

Many thanks Frank. I've been happy with the SB but wondered if/why anyone was using the Pi. I suppose it offers an alternative to newer users so like you they may just use it instead

[Mark]

Hi Richard,

I have recently switched from an SB Touch to a Pi3 with a HiFi Berry DIGI+Pro SPDIF out. I feed it with a couple of USB sticks. I think the Pi3 sounds a little cleaner, clearer and more detailed. I use Moode because it was the only one with a DIGI+ driver at the time. Be prepared for a lot of faffing about making sd card images and then configuring it. Moode and Rune et al look very slick but they are very counter-intuitive in places. The old Microsoft nonsense of clicking on the Start button to shut down comes to mind.

Make sure you put the Pi3 in a box - the sd card sticks out and is vulnerable to knocks if you drop it.

Not sure about the better power supply making much difference to the sound. You do need a minimum of 2A I think. Separate power supplies to the DIGI+ are supposed to sound good, but I haven't got that far.

I borrowed a Denon USB DAC from a friend a while back and it sounded good on the Pi3, but I need to compare it against an old Meridian Bitstream DAC I find hard to beat before I could say if the USB out is better than an SPDIF phono. I would try the USB out before spending on the HiFiBerry. The analogue out from the Pi is actually surprisingly good !

Mark

[Richard]

Hi Mark,

That's great info and thanks for the candid comments about setting up. I've done a fair bit of reading on the web but you'll know it's something of a moving target.

It seems Pi3 has wifi so hopefully no dongle but I'm not sure how good the usb connection to the IRDAC would be so perhaps an SPDIF card would be best.

In the back of my mind is the thought that I'd not be using many of the things this might be good for like hi-res and DSD. Given that I'd be using the same dac perhaps there would be little to gain from swapping - but it might be fun to try

[Mark]

Hi Richard,

The Pi3 does have built in wifi (unlike the Pi 1 or 2 I borrowed from a friend and wasted hours and £1.50 on an eBay dongle that wasn't compatible with it!). The cost of entry in financial terms is relatively low, but the time commitment is higher than I think it should be, but YMMV. 20 years + after the advent of Windows 95 you would have thought we had all learned how a good user interface should work, but perhaps I am just a grumpy old man :-).

I wouldn't spend £40-50 on a HiFiBerry DIGI+ PRO until you have tried your own USB DAC. As long as it's one of the newer asynchronous (?) ones it should sound good.

I was listening to a CD I had long given up on last night with the Pi3, Meridian DAC, rHead headphone amp and Fidelio 2 cans and the clean, clear sound and the level of micro detail was so good it prompted a 'Wonder what this sounds like now' wander through the contents of the USB stick - which to me is always a sign of good hifi. It sounds great with an old chrome bumper Nait 2 i have as well.

Mark

Mark

[Richard]

Hi Mark,

Thanks again, I've spent a good few hours the last couple of days revisiting the job.

I set up SBT a couple of years ago and tried it with its own and 3 external dacs. As standard SBT has a USB A socket but it's only for attaching storage rather than connecting a USB dac so I used SPDIF. I settled on the Arcam IRDAC (2014) which sounds great but it meant I'd never actually used this dac via its usb connection and having bought it secondhand didn't know if it worked.

Anyway, after your suggestions I went to,
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Nightly_Builds

which lead to installing LMS 7.9.1 which in turn updated SBT to 7.8.0

that lead to installing developer Triode's EDO third party app which gives 192K and makes the USB socket into a dac connector. (Unfortunately USB storage connection is then lost and you do have to revert the software to get it back again.) So a balance of requirements to be decided but it works well and sounds good on the 44K flacs that I've used so far.

All this looks promising for a RPi3 starter kit. It shouldn't need a dongle and the dac works on USB so no extra card, just a choice of software, is that right do you think?

[Mark]

Hi Richard,

Sorry I missed your post over the weekend.

In short, yes, just a choice of software. I have used Volumio, Rune and MoOde. They are all similar. MoOde is $10. The others are free. I used Moode because it was the only one at the time that supported the HiFi Berry card, but that won't bother you with a USB DAC.

Alternatively I believe a friend of mine has a Squeezebox server he ran from his SBT and has found some way of using that on the Pi which may obviate the Rune/Volumio/Moode route, but I may have got that wrong. I will get back to you.

Mark

[Richard]

Thanks Mark. Any other advice or experience from folk also welcome

[Richard]

A quick update just to say all is working well now with SBT (and Boom in the kitchen) and the latest Windows update seems to have sorted an increasing number of connection issues on our home network. I'm still reading around the web and will get a Pi for hobby interest at some point