Forget usb coax toslink. - I2s is where it's at

[tubehunter]

Just been converted to using a Raspberry Pi 2 with an Iqaudio Dac+ sitting on top connected directly via I2s.
Running Linux Volumio.
Sounds very good indeed and for around £50 has to be the best sound for pound I've ever spent[emoji1]

Plays everything I throw at it, controlled from my iPhone browser, or any browser on any device.

Happy days
Duncan

[Gazjam]

Nice one Duncan, love it when a plan comes together. :)

[rallye666]

Very interesting! Im looking to get a 2nd hand mac mini to store music on connected to my dac, but this seems like a MUCH more affordable way of doing it!

How easy is it for a computer novice to set up? I have no knowledge of linux and the last time I soldered anything was 15 years ago at school!

[struth]

have heard they are quite impressive .. someone else here was using one i think

[tubehunter]

I was up and running in 15 minutes.

You will need a store of music files on a shared drive on a network.
The IQaudio Dac + fits on the Raspberry no soldering required.
Connect to your pre via its phono sockets.

You don't need to know any Linux.
Just download Volumio 1.55 image from their site, lots of info there.
Write image to a micro sd card then boot the Raspberry Pi with it.
Configure Volumio from a browser either on your pc, phone or tablet.

Jobs a goodun'

Duncan

[Sparker242]

I have a Raspberry Pi with a Wolfson audio board feeding my Rega DAC over a co-axial digital cable.
Running OpenElec so it can play video and audio.
Needed some faffing about to include the kernel to run the Wolfson board.
It sounds very good indeed and can be controlled remotely using an Apple or Android device.

I've also been running a Hummingboard which is like a more powerful Raspberry Pi that also has an on-board mSATA connection so it can act as a playback device and a server.
It's a much more expensive solution when you add in a decent sized mSATA SSD drive.

Music is stored on a separate Linux server using ZFS but that's a whole other story....

[Rothchild]

Totally recommend this for your Pi

http://www.madsonic.org/

Not only does it play your music it will transcode it and stream it across the internet to a whole host of devices, so you can listen on your phone etc and just adjust the quality to suit your bandwidth / data allowance - it will also play straight FLACs in Jukebox mode. (ie from its primary audio out).