A Raspberry Pi as a music server

[Aldoszx]

I have one of those and it works well, but in my experience the audio players are fine even when throttled, and that was before the power management improvements. Keeping things cool is nice, but not strictly necessary unless you're doing something more cpu intensive.

I like to keep my RPi streamers as cool as possible, taking into consideration that all of them are always ON.
That's why a have some custom heatskins too keep them usually under 40 degrees.
Something like this:

 

[TheWalkman]

I like to keep my RPi streamers as cool as possible, taking into consideration that all of them are always ON.
That's why a have some custom heatskins too keep them usually under 40 degrees.
Something like this:View attachment 90341

Wow! Is that a Raspberry Pi or a miniature Cray supercomputer posing as a streamer?

What kind of cooler is that? Did you make it?

The IceTowers do a nice job of cooling but, obviously, aren’t passive. Too, I find the gawdy lights grate on me after a while.

 

[Aldoszx]

Wow! Is that a Raspberry Pi or a miniature Cray supercomputer posing as a streamer?

What kind of cooler is that? Did you make it?

The IceTowers do a nice job of cooling but, obviously, aren’t passive. Too, I find the gawdy lights grate on me after a while.

View attachment 90479

The heatskin is from an old Bull server if I remember well. What I've done was to find a way to attach it.
I have two of them and the temp is around 30 degrees Celsius.

 

[Honken]

The only time I reboot my Pi 4 is when I update the kernel, which I'm not doing very often. I would've gone with a Zero W if those supported 5Ghz WiFi as mine's stuck in idle mode most of the time so that extra compute is a waste. As for memory, well...

$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3875          70        3212           8         591        3753
Swap:             0           0           0

 

[JonP]

Moode is good, but if you are controlling from a mobile phone you'll need a 3rd party app like bubbleupnp which is ok, but doesn't order my tracks properly.

Why do you need to do this?

 

[Sukie]

Why do you need to do this?

You don't. You can control Moode from a mobile using the Moode UI.

However if you want to stream Tidal or Qobuz then you'll need a 3rd party app.

 

[JonP]

You don't. You can control Moode from a mobile using the Moode UI.

However if you want to stream Tidal or Qobuz then you'll need a 3rd party app.

Ah... I see what you mean. Thought it was some inside of Moode use case you were talking about. (and I've read further back in the thread...)

 

[Pep2020]

You don't. You can control Moode from a mobile using the Moode UI.

However if you want to stream Tidal or Qobuz then you'll need a 3rd party app.

You can do that, but Moode is not a good UI on a mobile. Volumio or LMS apps much better.

 

[Sukie]

You can do that, but Moode is not a good UI on a mobile. Volumio or LMS apps much better.

I agree that Moode UI on mobile isn't great and that using a 3rd party app is the preferred option (I use Bubble UPnP). I tend to use it to stream Qobuz and also music that is stored locally on my phone's SD card so I never need to use the Moode UI.

 

[Monte]

My RPi/Moode/USB Hard Drive just got knocked off my desktop by my V20 with 500GB SD card, VRadio and Neutron Player. (The V20 isn't even on the desktop, its on a PC under the desktop. Even better!) VRadio is sooooooo good.

 

[abdo123]

The flirc case is the best option for cooling if you’re not using the GPIO (instead you use a USB DAC).

But honestly, there is no need for cooling at all if you use some streaming distribution like volumio or roopie.

 

[somebodyelse]

The flirc case is the best option for cooling if you’re not using the GPIO (instead you use a USB DAC).

It's certainly a good option, but Argon40's cases are arguably better.

 

[nelamvr6]

I like to keep my RPi streamers as cool as possible, taking into consideration that all of them are always ON.
That's why a have some custom heatskins too keep them usually under 40 degrees.
Something like this:View attachment 90341

The hottest I've ever seen my RPi4 get with a Flirc passive cooling case is 42C. Just saying...

 

[nelamvr6]

The heatskin is from an old Bull server if I remember well. What I've done was to find a way to attach it.
I have two of them and the temp is around 30 degrees Celsius.

A RPi 4 isn't adversely affected by temp until it reaches 85C, at which point it automatically throttles itself.

Are you overclocking or something that would make keeping your Pi especially cool necessary?

Does your fan make any noise that you can hear from your listening position?

 

[Aldoszx]

A RPi 4 isn't adversely affected by temp until it reaches 85C, at which point it automatically throttles itself.

Are you overclocking or something that would make keeping your Pi especially cool necessary?

Does your fan make any noise that you can hear from your listening position?

From my experience, any chip must run as cool as possible.
It's "life" depends very much of the temp it's running.
All my RPis are running non-stop so I feel comfortable to keep them under 40 degrees any time.
Maybe it's a matter of taste.
I am not overclocking, and I don't use any fan.
All my heat-skins are passive ones.
Like this, I can easily reuse them for Kodi for example, when the temp rises very quickly and goes to throttling.

 

[nelamvr6]

From my experience, any chip must run as cool as possible.
It's "life" depends very much of the temp it's running.
All my RPis are running non-stop so I feel comfortable to keep them under 40 degrees any time.
Maybe it's a matter of taste.
I am not overclocking, and I don't use any fan.
All my heat-skins are passive ones.
Like this, I can easily reuse them for Kodi for example, when the temp rises very quickly and goes to throttling.

Well there certainly can't be any downside to keeping your CPU cooler, especially since no fan and therefore no fan noise.

 

[snip3r77]

Didn't have time to read through all the pages?

Based on measurement which PI + DAC hat should I purchase?
I already have an amplifier. Just need the streamer as the input. Tks

 

[Sukie]

Didn't have time to read through all the pages?

Based on measurement which PI + DAC hat should I purchase?
I already have an amplifier. Just need the streamer as the input. Tks

In terms of HATs that have been measured on this site, these 2 are recommended:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...surements-of-allo-boss-raspberry-pi-dac.4529/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...w-and-measurements-of-hifiberry-dac-pro.8555/

Neither of these measures as well as stand alone DACs (e.g. Topping D10s), but the differences won't affect sound quality.

In terms of the particular RPi, I'd always go for an RPi4 2GB. You won't need any more memory for music streaming.

 

[abdo123]

In terms of HATs that have been measured on this site, these 2 are recommended:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...surements-of-allo-boss-raspberry-pi-dac.4529/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...w-and-measurements-of-hifiberry-dac-pro.8555/

Neither of these measures as well as stand alone DACs (e.g. Topping D10s), but the differences won't affect sound quality.

In terms of the particular RPi, I'd always go for an RPi4 2GB. You won't need any more memory for music streaming.

I think Amir also measured the Allo Digione and Digione Signature.

 

[TheWalkman]

Didn't have time to read through all the pages?

Based on measurement which PI + DAC hat should I purchase?
I already have an amplifier. Just need the streamer as the input. Tks

Any Pi will work, but my current favorite is the 3A+ with an Apple dongle. See the pic in post #130 in this thread.

With the the Apple dongle you‘ll need a usb C adapter to micro, usb A, etc. depending on which pi you’re using, but the dongle is cheap, unobtrusive and sounds great.

My only complaint is the wire on the Apple dongle is very thin, so I reinforced it with a piece of heat shrink tubing but that really isn’t necessary.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/