Dear Friend, I assure you that the same doubts have been haunting me for a few months, ever since I had the first crazy idea to make my first DIY streamer.
HI. In the last few days I have discovered Volumio and it looks great. I have in WIP a DIY media server based on another media streamer which has many problems with rasspberry PI4 8Gbyte + berry hifi card with digital audio output Recognize my wifi network Bluetooth connection MDP/ALSA error...
community.volumio.com
I have always considered this first project a laboratory, in fact inside there are only a pile of scraps that had the purpose of demonstrating that such a tool could have any possibility of playing hi-end. In this project the case is just a container that hides the extreme disorder with which I brutally connected everything, using a PSU ATX PC, a Raspberry PI 4B, a 7” touch display and an infinity of extender cables because all the ports of the rasberries are duplicated on the rear panel, including an SD card reader, in order to switch from Volumio to MoOde, to Picoreplayer in the time of a reboot by replacing the SD card only.
The second project, even crazier, provides zero noise (in the first there is a noisy fan otherwise the old PSU would catch fire) and above all the integration of a quality DAC like SMSL DO300 on which the final choice fell.
In the attached photos you can find what the new case should contain approximately…
The design of the second case is still very WIP and is based on the concept of being decomposable into two parts both integrated into the design and both with a HIFI form factor. I can't stand boxes lying around as the houses of the majority of all DACs available today. In addition, the case integration eliminates 2 exposed cables (DAC power cable and DAC USB cable). The Fan will also contribute to a slight ventilation of the DAC case. I'm lucky enough to have access to 3D Printing and CNC milling technologies, so I can make a good project of any object at no cost.