Best value streamer with no DAC

[Roland68]

I finally gave up and have thrown in the towel! Both the Volumio Rivo and Zen Stream are Linux based, and incompatible with my USB DAC. The Cambridge is pointless for me as it doesn't do any more than my 12-year-old SB Touch so wouldn't be an upgrade. So, I've accepted that what I need just does not exist. 99.999% of streamers include a DAC or amp or both. To hell with that noise! So I'll continue to use the SB Touch. Amazing bit of kit. Hope it lasts!

Just take an SMSL PO100 Pro and connect it to your Geek Pulse via SPDIF. The new XMOS generation is a clear upgrade.

 

[Dave543210]

Not sure what it is that you expect a streamer to do. My Cambridge Audio handle more formats than I care about and it’s easy to bypass the DAC, if you’re so inclined. You can even connect a blinged out power cord.

It's just that it does no more than the SB Touch that I already have (24/192 and DSD64) so would be pointless for me. Also, the USB Audio port is on the front, which I dislike.

 

[Dave543210]

Just take an SMSL PO100 Pro and connect it to your Geek Pulse via SPDIF. The new XMOS generation is a clear upgrade.

SPDIF is useless for me as my DAC won't play 24/192 or DSD64 that way, only via USB. Interesting device, though.

 

[roog]

After trying a couple of streamers I have settled on a RPI + touch screen running Picoreplayer. I do like to have a separate DAC because mine, an RME adi-2 has volume control, a clever remote control and allows me to apply basic Parametric EQ

 

[Dave543210]

After trying a couple of streamers I have settled on a RPI + touch screen running Picoreplayer. I do like to have a separate DAC because mine, an RME adi-2 has volume control, a clever remote control and allows me to apply basic Parametric EQ

I love the PiCorePlayer - just wish it was compatible with my DAC (which won't work with Linux). Glad it's working for you!

 

[mdsimon2]

I love the PiCorePlayer - just wish it was compatible with my DAC (which won't work with Linux). Glad it's working for you!

How sure are you that your DAC is not compatible with Linux? Reason I ask is the SB touch (and pretty much all off the shelf streamers) are Linux based. You say the SB touch works.

Your DAC says it is USB class compliant and Linux has a class compliant USB driver. While there are sometimes odd compatibility issues with certain distributions / kernels all signs indicate your DAC should work.

Michael

 

[Snoopy]

a Pi4 is all the streamer I really need

Roopie or RoopieXL are great for Roon + Airplay. Don't need a display either, I rather use my iPad Pro as display and remote.

 

[Dave543210]

How sure are you that your DAC is not compatible with Linux? Reason I ask is the SB touch (and pretty much all off the shelf streamers) are Linux based. You say the SB touch works.

Your DAC says it is USB class compliant and Linux has a class compliant USB driver. While there are sometimes odd compatibility issues with certain distributions / kernels all signs indicate your DAC should work.

Michael

Yeah, it is strange. I spent several days online with tech help in a Squeezebox forum, trying to get my RPi to see my DAC via usb. Tried different OS's, but mainly PiCorePlayer. In the end I was told the RPi lacks the required driver for my DAC (it worked fine with a Chord Qutest, but not with my preferred DAC). Next I enquired with Volumio about the Rivo streamer, and was told that if a DAC doesn't work with the RPi then it will likely not work with the Rivo either as that is based on the RPi/Linux internally as well. I've read that the Zen Stream is Linux based, but to be fair I may be wrongly assuming that therefore it won't work. Maybe it's not based on RPi, which may make a difference.

 

[AudioSceptic]

How sure are you that your DAC is not compatible with Linux? Reason I ask is the SB touch (and pretty much all off the shelf streamers) are Linux based. You say the SB touch works.

Your DAC says it is USB class compliant and Linux has a class compliant USB driver. While there are sometimes odd compatibility issues with certain distributions / kernels all signs indicate your DAC should work.

Michael

I was about to ask the same: USB is USB, and it doesn't matter what the OS is, as long as the audio is what you need.

 

[Dave543210]

I was about to ask the same: USB is USB, and it doesn't matter what the OS is, as long as the audio is what you need.

That's what I used to think, but I got a lesson with the RPi! It has to "talk" to the DAC (or shake hands or whatever) when using USB (asynchronous connection)—it's not the same as just streaming the data via coax or optical, apparently it needs a driver. Same as when you connect the DAC to a PC or Mac. That is why usb streamers will often have a published list of compatible DACs. Not all DACs are guaranteed to be compatible. I'm no expert but whatever universal drivers that are in the SB Touch obviously work with my DAC.

 

[AudioSceptic]

That's what I used to think, but I got a lesson with the RPi! It has to "talk" to the DAC (or shake hands or whatever) when using USB (asynchronous connection)—it's not the same as just streaming the data via coax or optical, apparently it needs a driver. Same as when you connect the DAC to a PC or Mac. That is why usb streamers will often have a published list of compatible DACs. Not all DACs are guaranteed to be compatible. I'm no expert but whatever universal drivers that are in the SB Touch obviously work with my DAC.

Gotcha. Maybe I was just lucky but with my RPi (first a 3 then a 4) I just installed Volumio and expected it to work over USB with my Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital... and it did. This is extra useful because the Pro-Ject is also powered over that same USB so I only need one mains adapter instead of 2.

 

[ahofer]

Gotcha. Maybe I was just lucky but with my RPi (first a 3 then a 4) I just installed Volumio and expected it to work over USB with my Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital... and it did. This is extra useful because the Pro-Ject is also powered over that same USB so I only need one mains adapter instead of 2.

Yeah, I haven't had this problem with RME Dacs, Pro-ject DACs, or even IFI DACs. Just shows up.

I use ROPIEEXL for all my Pi streamers.

USB DAC/Amp compatibility

Doubtless this is my own ignorance talking, but I don’t see anywhere on ropieee.org that indicates which USB DACs are compatible. I see RoPieee | Audio Hardware, which lists USB DACs that provide native DSD streaming, but nothing beyond that indicating which are compatible more generally. Is...

community.roonlabs.com

 

[Dave543210]

Gotcha. Maybe I was just lucky but with my RPi (first a 3 then a 4) I just installed Volumio and expected it to work over USB with my Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital... and it did. This is extra useful because the Pro-Ject is also powered over that same USB so I only need one mains adapter instead of 2.

I believe most DACs are more likely than not to work with most streamers, but I was unlucky with my particular DAC. Often manufacturers will have an official forum and ask users to report if their DAC is confirmed to work, and a growing list will be published. Just occasionally someone will report that their DAC doesn't work, and the manufacturer will possibly update the firmware to resolve it. My DAC hasn't been made for about seven years and the company no longer exists so it would be difficult for streamer developers to ensure compatibility with it. There are such lists for RPi and there's one for the Volumio Rivo on their official forum as well.

 

[somebodyelse]

I was about to ask the same: USB is USB, and it doesn't matter what the OS is, as long as the audio is what you need.

If only! Sadly it's not true. There are standards for USB Audio Class 1, 2 & 3. UAC1 is the oldest and least featureful, but is simple enough that it probably does 'Just Work' on pretty much any OS that can do any sort of audio. UAC2 is what the majority of devices now use...mostly. MacOS and linux had support for this fromtheearly days, but it took many years before MS finally added built in support for it to Windows. This is why you find so many devices that use a variant of the Thesycon driver to provide Windows support. However there are sometimes device quirks, and sometimes drivers don't fully support the lesser used aspects of UAC2. The first is the reason the linux drivers have a whole area dedicated to device quirks - if you've got a quirky device that nobody has reverse engineered the issue with then you could have a nominally 'Class Compliant' device that won't work. An example of the second is MOTU relatively recently identifying a part of the spec that the linux uac2 driver didn't handle completely but that their devices were using but most others didn't, and contributing a fix. That's before we get into devices with proprietary extras to cover things not covered in the class specs. That's more likely on complicated multichannel pro interfaces. I don't think I've seen anything using UAC3 yet. Linux is meant to support it I think - no idea about others. It's also possible someone could implement something that doesn't follow the standards at all - don't know if they ever did.

Edit: Also some applications make invalid assumptions which can cause things to fail, like assuming all audio devices support a 2 channel mode, then crashing silently with something that only has a 4 channel output mode.

 

[Dismayed]

It's just that it does no more than the SB Touch that I already have (24/192 and DSD64) so would be pointless for me. Also, the USB Audio port is on the front, which I dislike.

There's actually more than one usb port. Anyway, I like mine. Good luck!

https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/sites/default/files/ecommece/product/image/Cambridge_Audio_CXN_Rear.png

 

[Dave543210]

I thought according to the manual, the rear port is to connect a drive, the front port is for DAC. Maybe I remembered wrong.

 

[tonimccloud]

Dave, Did you try moode? I give up trying to install picoreplayer + lms on my raspberry pi3b. When We spend more time configuring things than listen our favourite music...We have a problem. I'm new with raspberry, Linux etc...and installing moode, compared with picoreplayer + lms, was a piece of cake. I can decode everything, and install music from a usb hdd vía samba. I can use my mobile phone for configuring moode, user friendly. And with mconnect you can use tidal up to 24/48 (and my Sony ta-zh1es doesn't have Linux dedicated drivers). You can watch this video:

 

[Dave543210]

Dave, Did you try moode? I give up trying to install picoreplayer + lms on my raspberry pi3b. When We spend more time configuring things than listen our favourite music...We have a problem. I'm new with raspberry, Linux etc...and installing moode, compared with picoreplayer + lms, was a piece of cake. I can decode everything, and install music from a usb hdd vía samba. I can use my mobile phone for configuring moode, user friendly. And with mconnect you can use tidal up to 24/48 (and my Sony ta-zh1es doesn't have Linux dedicated drivers). You can watch this video:

Looks interesting, no I didn't try Moode. But I did try a few different OS's, none of which would work. I'm still tempted to try the Volumio Rivo because although it is Linux based, it is not actually based on an RPi, as I previously thought. The SB Touch is apparently Linux-based—and that works fine—so I think the issue is with the RPi itself, rather than the OS. But I should try this Moode first. Thanks

 

[phofman]

@Dave543210 IIUC your DAC is Geek Pulse X-Fi. XMOS based, should be standard UAC2. Which linux kernel version does it work and not work with? If there is a problem, it needs to be troubleshooted. But I could not google out any report of people complaining about that device with linux.

The chances that RPi USB HW implementation specifically has problems with your DAC are very very low. SB Touch is an old device, with very old kernel. The Geek Pulse X-Fi seems from around 2013. Theoretically it is possible the XMOS firmware in that device had some non-standard issue which newer linux kernels do not support. Likely a quick peek at dmesg would reveal the problem.

 

[Dave543210]

@Dave543210 IIUC your DAC is Geek Pulse X-Fi. XMOS based, should be standard UAC2. Which linux kernel version does it work and not work with? If there is a problem, it needs to be troubleshooted. But I could not google out any report of people complaining about that device with linux.

The chances that RPi USB HW implementation specifically has problems with your DAC are very very low. SB Touch is an old device, with very old kernel. The Geek Pulse X-Fi seems from around 2013. Theoretically it is possible the XMOS firmware in that device had some non-standard issue which newer linux kernels do not support. Likely a quick peek at dmesg would reveal the problem.

Hi - my DAC is the Geek Pulse fi (not X-fi). To be fair, the only problem I have had is with the RPi (regardless of OS). I'll probably buy a Volumio Rico if the risk is so low. Many thanks