'Analog Dinosaur' succumbs to the joys of FBA : enter Raspberry Pi 2/IQ-Audio DAC+!!

[Starterman]

OK I've pressed the "buy" button. Went for the IQ Dac and will use my own linear 5V supply.
Ordered here:
http://www.modmypi.com/
They seem to have all the necessary bits.

I'll be out with my dinosaur blunderbuss if it's crap :-)

[cyclopse]

Here are some pictures of my new Paul Hynes linear supply:-







Fits nicely on top the Nordost Thor.

[Marco]

Nice one, Stephen. Makes quite a difference, doesn't it?

Btw, have you been in touch recently with Paul? He seems to have 'gone off grid' a bit... Could be on holiday!

Marco.

[Starterman]

Not sure about the Touch but both the SB2 & 3 SPDIF is crippled by the use of an inline SMD inductor used to reduced RFI, it screws up the impedance badly. Bypassing it or replacing it with a wire link makes a noticeable improvement.

That works!!!!!!

SB3 digital o/p goes from zero to hero just by removing L8 and replacing it with a wire link. What on earth were the designers thinking about when they included it - obviously not SQ!

BTW, on some other forums they claim bits are bits and all (competent) digital sources sound the same (the SB3 being bit perfect). Well, if they cannot hear the difference between an SB3 with and without L8 they must be absolutely barking deaf!


PS RPi + IQ DAC arrived today.

[NRG]

Cool👍. Will be interesting to read what you think of the IQAudio DAC

[Starterman]

After a bit of cocking about with software (initially loaded Volumio, but found I needed IQ's Volumio) it is now working on Webradio.
Not sure why IQ's version is about 3X the size - seems to be about 6GB unpacked. what the hell is al that code doing in a supposed stripped back system???

I now have to work out how to get it to find my music, which is on my desktop PC. Then I can have a proper listen. That will have to wait 'cos the MTB needs some exercise first.

[mikmas]

(initially loaded Volumio, but found I needed IQ's Volumio)

Not really - I run the basic Volumio OS from their own website rather than the bloated IQAudio version - simply choose the IQAudio DAC as your 12s device in the 'System' menu.
I had nowt but bother loading and running the IQAudio version

[Maximum]

After a bit of cocking about with software (initially loaded Volumio, but found I needed IQ's Volumio) it is now working on Webradio.
Not sure why IQ's version is about 3X the size - seems to be about 6GB unpacked. what the hell is al that code doing in a supposed stripped back system???
.

They are images of the sd cards so most of it will probably be empty space on the IQ image. Can't remember about volumio but standard rune audio has the i2s drivers, you just need to uncomment a line in a file to enable it. It's also easy to resize a partition if you write a 2GB image to a 8GB card etc, but for most 2GB will be fine unless you need to install extra packages, but the IQ image might be an issue if you have a small SD card ie less an 8GB, and some sd cards of the same size can have size discrepancies and refuse to write.

Think I prefer the Pi 2 feeding my jkdac32 to be honest. Sounds like it needs a good power supply behind it to get it upto scratch.

[Starterman]

Finally got it working with a USB stick. Not really what I wanted but at least I can listen to my own music now. Sounds decent so far.

Volumio is pissing me off though - it plays my playlist in random order and there seems to be no menu to change this. Surely this can't be right??
There seems to be no "pause" button either

Just figured the last one out (illogical Mr Spock):
https://github.com/volumio/Volumio-WebUI/issues/11

[struth]

you can directly connect an hdd to it but it needs to be a powered one or through a powered hub unless your psu is rated up at 2 amps. mine isnt(using a linear one). so use a powered hdd. seems fine and after updating everything is in order. I can also send music down to its hdd from my pc running win 8.1 so i can rip new stuff on pc and just send it over network. pleased that this option works so well. so far been unable to get my vista pc to comply though