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Thread: lap top v raspberry pi

  1. #81
    Join Date: Sep 2009

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    It's not a faff... You just need patience and you will be rewarded.

    The pi has never failed in regards to drop outs or distortion. Set up once done stays as is. Just leave it alone.

    The sound is simply magnificent and using moode it's so bloody simple to use that you hardly need to think, or even get out of your seat.. So drawbacks are none apart from feeling guilty about not having any exercise.



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  2. #82
    Join Date: Oct 2008

    Location: Glasgowshire

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    I'm Gary.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    You keep insist on puffing this board and dissing Mac-based approaches on the back of what I'm sure was a bad demo, but is hardly the only story in town.

    I'm sure this board is good, indeed it may be very good but your approach in previous posts has been to insist that it's always and everywhere better than a Mac. That's nonsense. I've never insisted that a Mac couldn't be beaten. But I don't either accept this board's web site claims to be the best transport on the planet. There's far too much hyperbole (perhaps the word bollocks is more appropriate) both on hifi web site and also, in people justifying the kit they own on forums.

    At the end of the day the Pi remains a cheaply mass manufactured, utterly basic computing device, and building anything on such a shaky foundation, while it may be fun and appeal to the sound per pound instinct, is not the route to the ultimate anything.
    Pretty much agree with this...
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  3. #83
    Join Date: Nov 2011

    Location: Newcastle UK

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    I'm Rich.

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    The appeal of RPi to audiophiles is not in its inherent sound quality but rather in its capacity to facilitate faffing around with....

    Remember amongst our number are people who will gladly spend several hundred pounds on a fuse!

    I bought/built one for precisely this purpose and arrived at the conclusion the benefits were so imperceptible as outweigh the effort.

    Of ways to skin the digital audio cat, RPi is the amongst the least efficient.
    One of these days... I'm going to cut you into little pieces.

  4. #84
    Join Date: Nov 2011

    Location: Newcastle UK

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    I'm Rich.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RichB View Post
    The appeal of RPi to audiophiles is not in its inherent sound quality but rather in its capacity to facilitate faffing around with....

    Remember amongst our number are people who will gladly spend several hundred pounds on a fuse!

    I bought/built one for precisely this purpose and arrived at the conclusion the benefits were so imperceptible as outweigh the effort.

    Of ways to skin the digital audio cat, RPi is the amongst the least efficient.
    I don't intend the fuse comment here to dig at anyone, just to illustrate the lengths people are prepared to go to...
    One of these days... I'm going to cut you into little pieces.

  5. #85
    Join Date: Sep 2009

    Location: Derbyshire

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    I'm Josie.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RichB View Post
    The appeal of RPi to audiophiles is not in its inherent sound quality but rather in its capacity to facilitate faffing around with....

    Remember amongst our number are people who will gladly spend several hundred pounds on a fuse!

    I bought/built one for precisely this purpose and arrived at the conclusion the benefits were so imperceptible as outweigh the effort.

    Of ways to skin the digital audio cat, RPi is the amongst the least efficient.
    Ugh.... Sheesh. Honesty guys..

    No its not less efficient. You just need to know a bit more and have more patience. Once it's set up its as solid as anything else.

    The RPI is now an amazingly sounding unit with the correct DAC fitted.

    I don't have crap sounding kit and I'm blown away with the sound...

    Nuff said, innit.


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  6. #86
    Join Date: Mar 2014

    Location: KY - Scotland

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    I'm Mike.

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    I've now unsubscribed from this thread as I can't be arsed with the argument merry go round

  7. #87
    Join Date: Sep 2017

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    I'm Pavel.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    At the end of the day the Pi remains a cheaply mass manufactured, utterly basic computing device, and building anything on such a shaky foundation, while it may be fun and appeal to the sound per pound instinct, is not the route to the ultimate anything.
    Yes it is basic and cheap, but I seriously doubt that PCBs inside expensive audio products are less cheaply manufactured. They may be more expensive to produce, but not because they’re of better quality — only because they’re manufactured in far smaller quantities!

    That said, on its own, the Pi is totally useless as an audio device. But if you use high quality add-on boards, it mostly acts as a decoder. And from a rational standpoint, if its CPU is fast enough to decode audio formats of your choice, anything less basic and more powerful would be just a waste of electricity

  8. #88
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Shovel_Knight View Post
    Yes it is basic and cheap, but I seriously doubt that PCBs inside expensive audio products are less cheaply manufactured. They may be more expensive to produce, but not because they’re of better quality — only because they’re manufactured in far smaller quantities!

    That said, on its own, the Pi is totally useless as an audio device. But if you use high quality add-on boards, it mostly acts as a decoder. And from a rational standpoint, if its CPU is fast enough to decode audio formats of your choice, anything less basic and more powerful would be just a waste of electricity
    Not sure I'd agree with that. The main board in a laptop is designed to be lugged around, indeed thrown around, chucked in airline overhead bins, plugged and unplugged multiple times daily, used in all sorts of conditions and expected to last for years - it's surely made to a higher standard than a Pi whose board probably costs under $5. The OS and UI is the product of millions of man-hours of work, over literally decades, to produce a quality user experience not limited to what can be displayed on a browser. Good boards on audio equipment use very thick tracks and discreet components of good individual quality - but that's for audio and as you say, the Pi isn't an audio device it works solely in the digital domain.

    But I don't think that's the argument. I'd be the first to admit that the sound you can get out of a Pi (particularly from SPDIF out) can be very good, comparable to a much more expensive CD transport. (They aren't doing the same thing, of course - the CD transport has a mechanical as well as a digital job to do). Price-performance is excellent, I'll grant that as well. Though I call bullshit on the notion that it's the absolute best possible way to handle digital output, as much for all the faff and compromised UI reasons outlined as for anything to do with sound quality.

    (Though faff can be fun - I mean I'm 90% vinyl and what's a bigger faff than that, what with matching cartridges and arm resonances, handling isolation, and cartridge/tonearm setup issues to say nothing of RCMs and fluid and vinyl storage?).

    The thread started with Wee Tee Cee asking whether a Pi can be better than a laptop. Short answer, yes it **can** be but not necessarily (depending on the kit used), and it may or may not be worth the surrounding effort. The rest is opinion based on our different experiences.

    For some of us, as an easy alternative to a branded plug and play audio device that starts going out of date from day of purchase, the best option remains a proper computer (in my case my old Macbook, redundant since I replaced it with a later one), with high-quality OS experience rather than browser only. Plug it into to a USB DAC or a high-quality USB-SPDIF converter, change one setting (the sound output device selection), and go. That's the same job as a Pi but a hell of a lot easier and not necessarily any worse quality, ***if done well***. Yes the Pi may be cheaper but again that's not the biggest question here.

    It would be interesting to take a poll here of people who got a Pi (two in my case), spent some months buggering around with it, and then quietly sold it or left it to languish while they went over to other streaming methods or back to CD. An easy majority I would wager. There is a reason for that and it's probably very little to do with the sound.

    People love their Pi's, I get that. I get the evangelical bit too. But I strongly take issue - from my own experience - with the view that it's an automatic answer here, some kind of no-brainer. It's too compromised for that.

  9. #89
    Join Date: Feb 2017

    Location: Manchester, UK

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    I'm Luke.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    20 years working for software companies and it seemed like a faff to me. Of course if you enjoy the faff and get some enjoyment out of it, that’s fine.
    I also don't understand these constant references to "faff" and "bother" of setting up a Pi.

    Flash the card, set a few settings if you like (or leave at default) then forget about it and just listen to your music.

    For me, using a laptop would be much more "faff", having to open and close the case all the time! As it is, I can stash the Pi out of sight and use my phone or tablet to control it from the comfort of my sofa without having to get up!

  10. #90
    Join Date: Dec 2014

    Location: UK, inactive

    Posts: 1,570
    I'm inactive.

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    Straddling both sides of this (non) argument ...

    I use two Pi players - one as a most excellent radio streamer (I am particularly chuffed with the 320K BBC streams built into Moode player) and the other as a headphone amp/player.
    I am also quite happy doing pretty much the same but using my Mac Mini as medium and carrier.

    Each has it's own convenience, charms and benefits and each has it's own bletchy areas and to be honest I could live quite happily with either.

    Only real difference is that, all told, the Pi twins were all in all a damn sight cheaper than the Mac ..... and that does count for a lot when all's done and dusted.

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