[BBEG]

Has anyone played with a Raspberry Pi and USB audio out? I'm thinking about setting mine up as a Pandora streamer, so I'd like to get around the lower sound quality of the 3.5 jack and use USB audio to an external DAC/amp. It seems like some people have done this with Debian, but I don't know anyone who's set it up quite like what I had in mind.
 
Thoughts?

 

[kkl10]

This is something that interests me as well.
You may want to take a look at this thread under "Computer Audio" Sub-forum:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/631355/raspberry-pi-dac-for-headless-audio-player
 
Some good Googling will provide more info but I think it pretty much depends on the OS installed on the board...
I plan to get a RPI myself and play around with it to see if I can turn it into some kind of mini media center.

 

[214324]

I believe the Linux kernel should support audio-over-USB. Raspbian (Debian) and Arch Linux should support it (Soft-float Debian should also work). RISC is something I'm not rather familiar with.

 

[kkl10]

^ I think it does...
 
From my still short research I got the impression that using USB to take digital audio from the RPI is still somewhat unreliable?...
Functional issues are brought to the surface when using Ethernet port and other processor intensive tasks at the same time and the USB drivers on the RPI apparently are not generally well understood yet...
This seems to stem from the Firware/Hardware and is not dependent on the OS used...
http://www.raspyfi.com/anatomy-of-a-pi-usb-audio-quality-and-related-issues-on-pi/
 
Not sure if anyone can comment on this?
 
Another better alternativelly may be a miniPC or board with the Alwinner A10 SoC.
This SoC support botting Linux OS (ARM architecture capable) from an SD card and has better hardware features.
http://opensource.com/life/12/1/linux-hardware-race-tiniest-and-cheapest-15-cheap
 
There are also lots of A10 based tablet/mini PCs running Android which can do USB audio after some tweaking..

 

[cat6man]

works fine.........i'll be posting a complete how-to in the next few weeks
 

 

[brunk]

Quote:

works fine.........i'll be posting a complete how-to in the next few weeks
 

subscribed

 

[cat6man]

It's going to take me at least a few days to get all the pieces together to describe this in detail, but here is my latest design (currently working in my car).  I will give instructions as well as some key files that you can copy to simplify configuration.
 
This supports playback up to 24/192 (my files are in FLAC format).
 
(image missing)

 

[brunk]

Quote:

It's going to take me at least a few days to get all the pieces together to describe this in detail, but here is my latest design (currently working in my car).  I will give instructions as well as some key files that you can copy to simplify configuration.
 
This supports playback up to 24/192 (my files are in FLAC format).
 
(image missing)

Thats a creative design you have there. I personally use Plex on an ipod touch, which is tethered from my samsung galaxy s4 Then the ipod touch is connected via usb to my alpine deck that does the dac duty.

 

[cat6man]

Here is a photo of the RPi music server in my car.
 
From the bottom: USB hard drive, USB powered hub, Raspberry Pi, Meridian DAC (top).
Each layer separated by 4 3/4" vinyl bumpers ($2.99 for a package of 12 at hardware store),
whole package held together with 7" multipurpose ties (2 x 7" around width, 3 x 7" around length).
The multipurpose ties are great because they are narrow and can be arranged around the various
USB, power and SD card slots.
 

 

[214324]

This is actually the first time I've seen the PiBow apart from the pictures from the website itself. Looks nice. 

 

[tronco]

I have Raspyfi running and it works out of the box. Connection with USB to a FiiO E17 Alpen as well as the ALO PanAm worked right away.
 
It's a nice little setup consuming very little power and taking very little space on the desk. You can use a smartphone or any other pc to control the MPD so the Pi doesn't need a keyboard or a screen, just plug in an ethernet cable.
 
As of sound quality I can't tell if it sounds better or worse than a Windows/Jplay or other setup since I am new to this and ny ears are still recovering from using cheap headphones for too long...