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Building a streamer/network player

porttack99

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Hello all, I'm new to this forum and want some advice.
I am thinking about putting together a device so that I can play the high quality music files on my network drive and stream audio to my stereo system. My price point is up to about $200. I am thinking about using a Raspberry Pi with a touch-screen and the Boss 12S DAC V 1.2

1 Does this hardware selection seem reasonable or are there better options for this price point? I also considered the HiFi Berry DAC, but I sense that the Boss may be somewhat better.
2 Software suggestions? Will the software be compatible with the RPi touch screen? I have looked at Roon, but I'm not thrilled about the subscription fees. What open source software would you recommend
3 Power supply? The quality significance of the power supply appears to be a controversial issue
 

Cahudson42

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While not heard around here much, if you have almost any Windows 7/10 Notebook/Desktop lying around, you could look at setting up a PLEX server - both music, and if you wished, video/movies/TV DVR (with an additional tuner like a SiliconDust Extend).

The software comes in two parts - a Server and a Client. There are clients for almost anything. The Server is less deployable - though it will run on certain NAS, like Nvidia..
 

frangle

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I've just started putting together something similar, though without a DAC. I didn't want to use Roon due to the extensive tagging I've done of my collection, and I'm happy with the UPnP AV tree that Minimserver gives me. I variously use Kazoo, BubbleUPnP and the Moode interface as a control point.

I got a Pi 4b with the deep Anidees Al box. I installed Moode and got this running with Minim and my NAS very easily. Temporarily, I am running either USB or HDMI into a Oppo 105 which I am using as a DAC. Tomorrow I expect an Audiophonics DigiPi+AES HAT to arrive, so I can cut out the Oppo and go straight into the speakers using AES3.

So far, it has all been very easy and sounds great, even with a redundant DAC-ADC step in the chain.

As you are doing DAC in the box, the power supply is maybe more important. Some people say the Pi 4 isn't necessary for music playback and is noisier than earlier models (though these are getting harder to find).
 

Apesbrain

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Both of those "Bareboard DACs" are recommended by this forum:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Audio_Equipment_Reviews/

The software recommendation would depend on what server you plan to use. For Logitech Media Server, I'd recommend piCorePlayer. For Roon, Ropieee. For DLNA, probably Volumio though there are many other good options as listed above.

If you can live without the screen -- and use your phone, tablet, or PC instead -- it makes the whole affair significantly less complicated.
 

TimW

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I use Roon so I run RoPieee on my RPi endpoints. One of these endpoints is a Boss player I assembled myself. Amir recommended the Boss DAC as an affordable HAT option and it sounds great to me, importantly there are no noise issues. I considered putting together an endpoint with the official RPi touchscreen since RoPieee supports it, but I wasn't happy with any of the case options available. Except maybe the Audiophonics RaspTouch but it isn't exactly what I wanted and isn't cheap.

Now there is RoPieeeXL which supports DLNA, Airplay® and Spotify® technology for streaming audio. Not sure if that works for you. Not sure if the screen functionality works with those other streaming platforms either.
 

BDWoody

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Hello all, I'm new to this forum and want some advice.
I am thinking about putting together a device so that I can play the high quality music files on my network drive and stream audio to my stereo system. My price point is up to about $200. I am thinking about using a Raspberry Pi with a touch-screen and the Boss 12S DAC V 1.2

1 Does this hardware selection seem reasonable or are there better options for this price point? I also considered the HiFi Berry DAC, but I sense that the Boss may be somewhat better.
2 Software suggestions? Will the software be compatible with the RPi touch screen? I have looked at Roon, but I'm not thrilled about the subscription fees. What open source software would you recommend
3 Power supply? The quality significance of the power supply appears to be a controversial issue

An older Mac Mini is also a commonly recommended option. You can get them for a couple hundred bucks...that's with i5+, 8g , 500+GB and better.
I picked up an older i7 quad core and will be setting it up as my Roon and Plex server. We'll see...
 

TimW

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Yeah unfortunately RoPieeeXL does not make use of the screen unless Roon is the streaming method.

RoPieee Functionality.PNG
 

Geert

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I use MOPIDY (open source) on a NUC. It has different Web interfaces by I only use an Android MPD app like Soundirok or MALP on my tablet It's also offered as a preinstalled Pi image, called Pi MusicBox.
 

MPA1

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Hadn't heard of that one. https://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html for more info and downloads, although it's light on details of Pi support. See the images folder of the downloads section for the Pi part. I'm not clear on whether the NAA part requires the paid license.

what I meant to say was that the HQP NAA is included with RopieeeXL nowadays and does work with the official 7” display when you use Roon as control.

HQPlayer NAA (network audio adapter) can be used(run) without a license but it’s senseless to do without HQPlayer Desktop.

HQPlayer Desktop needs a paid license.
 
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