Good DAC/STreamer on a raspberryPI

[Pierre159]

Hello,

Hello All,

i'm not abble to pay 1000 eur for DAC on the market, but i want great sound, i'm newbie,i'm thinking to use a raspberry pi 4/5.
is it a good idea to make it myself or it's better to buy a small DAC on the market?
i want to build a DAC minimum 24/192khz more it's better, i don't know what hat card you could advice me to take
for the streamer i'm not abble to code i need something with permit me to stream qobuz/tidal/ deezer, i have seen volumio but i'm not ready to pay15 euros per month to use volumio in more qobuz's price.
Have you any experience to help me?

 

[Phorize]

There are lots of DACs that are tested here and would work well with a pi. It depends on what features you want such as volume control and output types in particular. Moodeaudio will run on a pi and gives you a few ways to stream qobuz and tidal. What device would you control the pi from? If you don't have any hardware yet I'd seriously consider one if the wiim players.

Hello,

Hello All,

i'm not abble to pay 1000 eur for DAC on the market, but i want great sound, i'm newbie,i'm thinking to use a raspberry pi 4/5.
is it a good idea to make it myself or it's better to buy a small DAC on the market?
i want to build a DAC minimum 24/192khz more it's better, i don't know what hat card you could advice me to take
for the streamer i'm not abble to code i need something with permit me to stream qobuz/tidal/ deezer, i have seen volumio but i'm not ready to pay15 euros per month to use volumio in more qobuz's price.
Have you any experience to help me?

 

[Phorize]

WiiM + $100 DAC = done.

All wiim products have a DAC built in. So provided you only want RCA output wiim=done

 

[Multicore]

I was messing around with RPis for a few years and then got the WiiM. So much easier.

If you like tinkering (and why not?) then I suggest moOde. I liked it better than Volumio or Max2Play or the other two I tried.

 

[Phorize]

The pro plus comes within 1db sinad of an rme adi 2. For all intents and purposes it's transparent. The adc is not exemplary if course, but that's a separate matter.

 

[Pierre159]

glad to hear you all,
it's for poor "audiophile" envirenement actually all my system is analogic and some weeks ago i have change my loudspeaker and now i ear all the defaults of music if it's the streaming is not really good or if it's not comming from a cd. i'm affraid i need more 24/192khz but still not tested
the first idea was to put all in one box: the pi, an hard drive for storage and a hat card for the DAC but it seems to be that the hat available for the pi are not so good as buy a DAC fully build..
I listen you all because you have so much more experience than me and so much model are tested here that i'm lost

 

[ahofer]

I guess it depends on which WiiM. I'm only familiar with the Mini and the analog output was not as good as alternatively feeding an external DAC. Ymmv.

You are pretty new here. Consider the length of this thread:

Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

Good for you. Would have been a waste of your money. The RME already is completely transparent and any deviations are orders of magnitudes beyond human hearing capabilities. Meaning, even if there is a measurable improvement with a different PS, you will certainly not hear it. The problem with...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[ahofer]

I'm not sure of your point.

You are implying that the WiiM (mini) DAC is just as good as any other DAC?

I haven’t looked at the measurements closely, but my guess is that it couldn’t be told apart from other DACs in a blind test of music at normal levels, yeah. If it measures transparent below audible thresholds, definitely.

Update: measurements are here - it would be borderline audible in a few use cases, I suppose. FR is flat, jitter is well under audibility/. I’d still bet on blind test failure for most people, just as they would with an apple dongle vs most more expensive DACs that aren’t intentionally coloring the sound.

WiiM Mini Review (Streamer)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the WiiM Mini Wifi/Bluetooth streamer. It is on kind loan from a member and is on sale on Amazon for US $89. As you can see the former factor is a "hockey puck." An included phone charger needs to be used to power the unit over USB-C. It did not...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Pierre159]

i bring an additional info i download from quobuz in hi res (i don't know which sampling it is) but if the DAC can be adapted it could be great

 

[orchardaudio]

Take a look at my PecanPi and PecanPi+ products.