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Post by The Brookmeister on Mar 10, 2019 21:19:34 GMT
Phil,
Keep the touch and buy a good DAC, no need to fanny about with the Pi IMO, unless you have a good DAC already.
I will bring what I consider a rather special DAC to Owston please bring your touch, you will be in heaven I guarantee it.
Oh and one more thing, I gave you that PSU gratis on the condition you stop using that stupid avatar, you did not keep up your end of the bargain mate? LOL
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2019 10:27:26 GMT
Well actually Dave, whilst I agree that a good DAC is worth having, like the Beresford SEG as a good starting point. The Pi is certainly better than the Touch so Phil would get even more from it surely?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2019 10:29:33 GMT
I ripped using Exact Audio Copy to my Blu-Ray drive on the PC. I'm not using the NAS as I find OneDrive easier, but it *should* amount to the same thing. The should bit in your comment as you know is what seems to make all of the difference. I was using an old Apple Mac as a Music Server to stream FLAC, ALAC, Applelossless and MP3 files prior to getting my current streamer and I wonder if that had something to do with it. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2019 10:31:54 GMT
I was surprised by the Pi, but also very disappointed when using files. If all you are going to do is use online services such as Spotify, Tidal etc., the Pi would be the right choice, but with files you’ll need something more substantial IMHO.
I don't usually stream (occasional radio on Squeezebox) as most of mine is on a hard drive.My understanding, although don't quote me on it, Phil is that the Pi has limited processing power, so if you bought one of the dedicated streamers with more processing power it should work better in theory. This is more prevalent when playing files than it is when using streaming services such as Spotify I believe. |
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Post by Stratmangler on Mar 11, 2019 10:58:29 GMT
My understanding, although don't quote me on it, Phil is that the Pi has limited processing power, so if you bought one of the dedicated streamers with more processing power it should work better in theory. This is more prevalent when playing files than it is when using streaming services such as Spotify I believe. Playing 24/192 flac files is fairly trivial, and I've done it on a number of occasions with the Touch loaded up with an SD card. You do not need processing power. You do need processing power if your player is transcoding on the fly, and it's the same with resampling and upsampling. Unpacking flac back to WAV (because that's what happens with flac) for playback is also fairly trivial - there is not much processing going on at all.
Working on network brings a new set of problems. You can run into bandwidth issues using wireless connections, but wired is generally good and stable, just so long as you stream 24/192 flac and not WAV. WAV files at 24/192 are major bandwidth hogs. |
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seanm
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Post by seanm on Mar 11, 2019 15:53:06 GMT
My understanding, although don't quote me on it, Phil is that the Pi has limited processing power, so if you bought one of the dedicated streamers with more processing power it should work better in theory. I have just investigated the CPU usage during playback of a 24@192 flac file. The "top" command shows that mpd (Music player daemon) never goes above about 23% of cpu usage. The all other processes added together are unlikely to take the total cpu load above 25%. This was on a stock Pi 3 model B which is NOT under / overclocked. It is driving an early Allo BOSS DAC and running Volumio v2.555. The music is being shared from a "windows" SMB share on my "pretend NAS", (slow 4TB USB3 portable drive hanging off of my router). Across wired gigabit ethernet. A flac file in 16@44.1 made mpd peak at 9.3% CPU. This had upsampling set to 24@176 with "very high" quality, which is probably the toughest resampling in terms of CPU load. Playing a spotify track in HQ via v0.8.7 of spotify connect2 seemed to hover around 6% CPU Cheers Sean |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 11, 2019 16:57:27 GMT
The Pi is certainly better than the Touch so Phil would get even more from it surely? A Pi running a good build like Volumio and with a good onboard DAC or digital output (especially a DigiOne or Kali) is way better than a Touch ever was. I've owned both. |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 11, 2019 17:01:07 GMT
I have just investigated the CPU usage during playback of a 24@192 flac file. The "top" command shows that mpd (Music player daemon) never goes above about 23% of cpu usage. The all other processes added together are unlikely to take the total cpu load above 25%. This was on a stock Pi 3 model B which is NOT under / overclocked. It is driving an early Allo BOSS DAC and running Volumio v2.555. The music is being shared from a "windows" SMB share on my "pretend NAS", (slow 4TB USB3 portable drive hanging off of my router). Across wired gigabit ethernet. A flac file in 16@44.1 made mpd peak at 9.3% CPU. This had upsampling set to 24@176 with "very high" quality, which is probably the toughest resampling in terms of CPU load. Playing a spotify track in HQ via v0.8.7 of spotify connect2 seemed to hover around 6% CPU Yep, the 'TOP' command is very useful for that. I underclock and undervolt mine and it has no problems playing 24/192 streams from Qobuz via ethernet cable. |
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