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Post by John on Mar 12, 2019 12:17:43 GMT
I have read a lot of thoughts on the pi. Most of us find them to offer incredible sound to cost and perhaps allow your budget to go elsewhere However others quickly dismiss them of not being serious
My own opinion is that you can always get better but this will not be cheap
I am interested in other people's thoughts on this positive or negative
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Post by MartinT on Mar 12, 2019 13:24:28 GMT
I would say yes, absolutely. - The Pi 3 has a pretty good ARM processor and RAM specification which is easily the match of many SOC (System on Chip) processors used in commercial streamers (those that don't actually use a Pi anyway)
- There are many good HAT boards for the Pi, like the Allo Kali and DigiOne, HiFiBerry and IQAudIO boards
- There are many quality and well debugged software builds for the Pi
- The GPIO offers flexibility with various outputs including I2S
- There is a wealth of knowledge and support for the platform in the community
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Post by John on Mar 12, 2019 13:36:45 GMT
One of the things I like is the comminity behind it for example Spotify connect on my Neo works but not ideally With the pi community the issue is sorted within a week
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Post by Slinger on Mar 12, 2019 14:36:43 GMT
Yes. Next question.  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 14:45:56 GMT
I would argue it probably has the potential, but just out of the box with a Digi One in my experience it wasn't that much better than the Touch in my system, and a lot less user friendly.
If you invest carefully in power supply's, etc. then it can be a serious contender. However the only argument then, is by the time you have spent all of the money getting it to be that good, you might as well just buy a stand-alone streamer.
Also, I see the Pi as a bit of a PC vs. Mac, the Pi is for techies who are happy to fiddle about (i.e. PC) and stand-alone streamers just work and are more suited for the non-technical individual (i.e. Mac).
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Post by Slinger on Mar 12, 2019 15:24:53 GMT
...Also, I see the Pi as a bit of a PC vs. Mac, the Pi is for techies who are happy to fiddle about (i.e. PC) and stand-alone streamers just work and are more suited for the non-technical individual (i.e. Mac). That's what put me off, for a long time. Not because I was daunted by the prospect but more because I used to do "that sort of thing" for a living and had no wish to have to "get under the hood" so-to-speak, just to get some music. I was totally wrong and I should have read more carefully what others were writing. It's dead simple to set up, there are loads of step-by-step instructions on t'internet, and, more to the point, there are forums both dedicated, and general, like this one, chock-full of nice people willing to talk one through pretty much any part of setting a Pi up as a streamer. I probably lost a year, and I still regret it. When all's said and done I couldn't have bought a dedicated streamer for what I've spent, nor would I have had the amount of flexibility I enjoyed. At it's most basic it's just an interface to plonk between streaming services you may already subscribe to, or hard drives you may have full of your music files, and the nice DAC you probably already own. To quote Aleksandr Orlov - Simples. |
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 12, 2019 16:14:34 GMT
To get serious performance from my digione, once set up the *only* thing I have had to do is to replace the stock psu with a £20 powerbank from Amazon. But of course it doesn't have fancy casing and doesn't cost much so in some peoples' eyes it will always be little more than a toy.  I'm fine with that ... |
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Post by John on Mar 12, 2019 16:27:26 GMT
Paul, I agree you have to spend a bit extra but it is still nowhere near the price of my SOtM 200 Ultra Neo
I found with the pi paying attention to jitter, isolation, signal and power all helped with each one being a step forward, The shock for me was the improvement to streaming that occurred.
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Post by Pinch on Mar 12, 2019 16:43:59 GMT
It should be fairly obvious by now I think that it's capable of great things.
When I was experimenting with one as a digital transport, it didn't take too much fiddling for it to be almost on par with my dedicated audio PC, which cost significantly more than the Pi (aside: this prompted me to completely reassess my plans for the PC).
I still use a Pi in my present set up, but as a dedicated music server, rather than a transport to the DAC. This works very nicely.
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Post by seanm on Mar 12, 2019 16:50:50 GMT
While I agree with everything Martin and Slinger have written above, I also see things slightly differently :
Whilst we have had excellent results, ease of use, flexibility and tremendous value for money, this technology is in it's infancy. Big strides forward are still being made, either because of the latest DAC or simply straightening out the separation, routing and noise/jitter of power supplies and clocks. With things moving so fast, I would be reluctant to spend serious money on a "final solution" streamer at this time. I'm happy to spend £10s to £100s on new DACs and other improvements which are arriving thick and fast. Many of us enjoy tweaking and tinkering as part of the hobby and the Pi and associated bits are perfect for this.
Martin & Co are branching into unchartered territory with their I2S approach. This is a bold approach, but needs to be made if we are to collectively understand the best ways to plumb this hardware together and where the inherent strengths and weaknesses are in the digital reproduction pipeline.
A Pi 3B can happily play 24@192 flacs, the 3B+ offers about 17% more oomph for £35 and the Pi 4 will probably be along in 2020. One would hope it will cope with full fat DSD
My Pi "player" is a perfect example of "Trigger's broom", it is on it's 3rd DAC/Digi HAT and 2nd Pi board. It has evolved as my needs have changed. Currently, since I am a nomad it has a amp HAT to form an ultraportable player. During all of this, the user interface and the link to my music library, and now streaming, has remained constant through Volumio or Moode.
I am consuming and controlling music in ways I never thought possible... streaming, shouting at Alexa, shouting at my phone in the car, prodding phones, tablets and watches. Casting music left, right and centre. Whilst these activities are a little bit of diversion from the pursuit of quality reproduction, the flexibility and ergonomic improvements are exciting. I am proud of *MY* music library, but the concept of *MY* music is fading, you can paste me a streaming link here, you can send me a playlist and if you come to my house, most of *your* music will follow come with you via streaming.
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Post by MartinT on Mar 12, 2019 17:04:54 GMT
It's a good thing you don't have a partner called 'Alexa'! |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 12, 2019 17:09:57 GMT
Answering the o/p question "Is the pi capable of being a serious streamer" as literally as I can, I give you my experience:
Even with the Pi/DigiOne feeding S/PDIF to my previous modified SEG playing Spotify, it pulled ahead of what my once £4k Ayre SACD player could manage. I believe Stereophile thought the Ayre pretty serious as they gave it a class A+ rating.
Now replace all that with a Pi/Kali feeding I2S to my LKS playing Qobuz. There is simply no response other than YES IT IS!!!
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 12, 2019 17:29:45 GMT
Perhaps another question to ask is if anyone can come up with a credible argument as why the Pi isn't a serious streamer?
I haven't read anything yet to convince me otherwise, more importantly the proof is in the listening ...
Also, if the ultimate arbiter of the streamer we are using is sound quality, what does one need to spend to find something that betters it in this regard,
and can be upgraded and tweaked to give it some kind of future proofing.
As has been said, not many people want to spend thousands on streamers and DACs in such a fast moving market.
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Post by zippy on Mar 12, 2019 17:35:30 GMT
Don't forget that Bryston use the Pi as the basis for their base model streamer.
To me that means that it's perfectly fit for the purpose...
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Post by Clive on Mar 12, 2019 18:54:19 GMT
For sure the Pi is capable of being a serious streamer. It's low cost and can deliver very good quality sound with a little tinkering. As with other forms of files and streaming devices the downside is that the user needs to be a little technology savvy. There will always be little problems that crop up, even if it's only that your wifi connection has dropped on your phone and you can't find the darned Pi on your network.
Surprisingly I've gone back to Jplay on a PC (Femto accessed via Bubbleupnp), it's a little less hassle to keep running and sounds as good or a little better than my Pi. No doubt I'll return to the Pi in the not too distant future - the goalposts keep moving with this stuff as per Martin's I2S experiments.
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Post by John on Mar 12, 2019 21:51:19 GMT
Can I ask what did you do to your pi in order to get it to perform at it best With the pi all the tweaks mattered
I heard Femto and really liked it A very musical software option
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Post by Clive on Mar 12, 2019 22:19:27 GMT
TBH I'm lumping Pi with the similar Sparky, as you know I have both. For the Pi/DigiOne I used battery and Sbooster PS. I made the usual config changes in the software but in the end I did more with Sparky as I felt it has the edge in SQ....so twin power supplies which I have to switch on in the correct sequence.
Jplay Femto is so much easier to use and yes I feel it sounds better but it's the ease of use which attracts me as much or more than the SBC options. I don't need to mess with Jplay Femto....it just works on my fanless W10 PC with linear PS.
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Post by John on Mar 13, 2019 4:33:44 GMT
Yes I think the Sparky a bit better too The DigiOne Signature is a nice step up from the DigiOne not as subtle as the Sparky upgrade. After moving away from Bughead I could not go back due to the time it takes to use it so I get where you coming from with ease of setup
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Post by nrg on Mar 13, 2019 9:13:13 GMT
I think it’s all been said above, the RPi is definitely a ‘serious’ streamer whatever that may be. The Sound per Pound Value is unmatched IMHO, it’s a great platform for experimentation and DIY’ers. The quality of the TopHat DACs is getting better and the ability to output low jitter I2S is a really killer feature for me.
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