How to connect my hard drive to DAC

[Murrfk]

You will note from this simple question that this is all new to me. I have an TU-8200R tube amp with a DAC board:

https://tubedepot.com/products/elekit-tu-8200-optional-dac-module-ps-3249

I want to get music on my hard drive to the DAC and be able to control it through a tablet or phone connected to the network.

I was thinking of getting an old Mac Mini and connecting a hard drive to it, but could not find a way to control that through my Android devices. I also read that a Raspberry Pi would work for this. I have never programmed a Raspberry Pi, so have no idea how to do that.

What do you recommend for this? Are there other options that could be considered?

Any advice and guidance is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[GGroch]

A Raspberry PI is the obvious and I think the best choice. Because your DAC is USB you would want to use a Raspberry PI 4B as the base because they have correctly implemented USB output. Volumio and Moode Audio are the 2 most popular Streaming OS. They are free, and require only a 16-32GB Micro SD card to operate. You can easily install them and compare simply by switching the cards and rebooting.

They are controlled through a web interface....so any phone/tablet/computer with a browser. The response time is fast...although slower if you use a physical hard drive rather than SSD and have many thousands of files. If that is a concern look at the volumio or moode forums to see what users with similar libraries are experiencing.

Both Moode and Volumio websites have quick start guides that enable people with no linux experience to get them up and running in less than an hour. If you really do not want to do it yourself, you can get both systems Pre-Loaded on cards cheap on eBay and elsewhere. But, it is worth the effort to try it yourself first because you will end up knowing more about how they work. There is no way you will break things.

I just put together 2 raspberry streamers myself. Total cost about $90 each with a nice case and power supply. They work and sound great.

 

[Eetu]

Another happy Raspberry Pi 4 user here. After getting the SD card ready, you can configure Volumio or Moode via smartphone. No command line/programming needed.

 

[ctakim]

A Raspberry PI is the obvious and I think the best choice. Because your DAC is USB you would want to use a Raspberry PI 4B as the base because they have correctly implemented USB output. Volumio and Moode Audio are the 2 most popular Streaming OS. They are free, and require only a 16-32GB Micro SD card to operate. You can easily install them and compare simply by switching the cards and rebooting.

They are controlled through a web interface....so any phone/tablet/computer with a browser. The response time is fast...although slower if you use a physical hard drive rather than SSD and many thousands of files. If that is a concern look at the volumio or moode forums to see what users similar libraries are experiencing.

Both Moode and Volumio websites have quick start guides that enable people with no linux experience to get them up and running in less than an hour. If you really do not want to do it yourself, you can get both systems Pre-Loaded on cards cheap on eBay and elsewhere. But, it is worth the effort to try it yourself first because you will end up knowing more about how they work. There is no way you will break things.

I just put together 2 raspberry streamers myself. Total cost about $90 each with a nice case and power supply. They work and sound great.

I have both a MacMini as a Roon server and a Rasberry Pi as a streaming endpoint. As described you could just use the RPi as the source, too. Don't be too put off by the RPi option as there are plenty of YouTube videos to help with the set up. It is a great and economical solution to what you are trying to do!

 

[Murrfk]

Thanks for those suggestions. I was thinking that I have a Nvidia Android Box with three USB ports. Is that also an option? Is there a way to control it with a separate phone or tablet?

 

[Phorize]

Thanks for those suggestions. I was thinking that I have a Nvidia Android Box with three USB ports. Is that also an option? Is there a way to control it with a separate phone or tablet?

What’s the actual device?

 

[Murrfk]

The Android box is a Nvidia Shield Pro.

I did find this and there appears to be some solutions in the thread:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...hile-having-problems-with-shieldtv-probably-/

 

[Berwhale]

You could run Plex Server on the Shield with your music on a USB hard drive. You would control Plex either via your TV or one of the Plex apps for Android, iOS, etc.

Setting Up and Managing Plex Media Server on NVIDIA SHIELD | Plex Support

Some people, including me, have had problems getting the Sheild TV to recognize certain DACs. I haven't tried it for a couple of years, so I would geuess that some of these issues are resolved on the newer OS versions.

 

[Eetu]

If you decide to go with a RPi based solution I warmly recommend also installing Logitech Media Server (LMS) with Material Skin. I'm using it with Volumio currently. I listen to a lot of classical and I can for example browse composer->work->release. Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal etc. are also integrated.

 

[Murrfk]

I think I have a Raspberry Pi 2 kicking around. I have never tried it for anything. Could a version 2 work?

 

[JeffS7444]

I think I have a Raspberry Pi 2 kicking around. I have never tried it for anything. Could a version 2 work?

A quick look at Moodeaudio.org showed mention of RPi Zero-W, 3 and 4, And because you need a USB connection, the 4 (not sure about the Zero) seems especially apt, as they revised the architecture of the thing and no longer share USB bandwith with network, which should mean less possibility for glitching.

 

[Tatr76]

I just built what you could consider yesterday. Raspberry pi 4b 4gb with 2.5 inch ssd attached via usb, also easy to add streaming services. Have tried moode and Volumio so far. Volumio was easier to set up as also accessed a nuc that have been using via network, failed at getting Moode to do that but did get it to accept direct streaming hi res from phone with neutron player. Never tried anything like this but literally took 10 mins to have ssd route working. Plan is to tinker and learn more as not fully utilising everthing and find out which program suites me best. As said before buy a few sd cards and play around with different OS. Off to see if can add a nas to network. So cheap and fun to learn something new. Also bought allo boss2 hat and pi 4b 2gb which have been playing with as well.

 

[rkbates]

I think I have a Raspberry Pi 2 kicking around. I have never tried it for anything. Could a version 2 work?

Definitely. I have used a Pi 2 no problems. Even a Pi 1 works (for 44.1 kHz), just the browser interface is a tad slow.

 

[Murrfk]

Definitely. I have used a Pi 2 no problems. Even a Pi 1 works (for 44.1 kHz), just the browser interface is a tad slow.

Well I tried this, and there is something amiss. I got the piaudiocore.img flashed to a sd card, inserted the card, and applied power and then ethernet cable. The front light is flashing green, but the rear lights for the ethernet are both dark, I can't find the blackberry on my network, AND when I plug into the HDMI port with a cable to my TV, there is no signal. These blackberry pi's were given to me from a guy who worked in an industrial setting, as they were upgrading, so I have no idea as to how they are configured, or why they do not appear to work.

EDIT: THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE POWER SUPPLY! It is working now.

 

[Beershaun]

If you suspect there is something wrong with your hardware or want to verify it works. I'd suggest take a separate 8gb microsd card and flash rasbian onto it and see if you can boot it up normally and use it like a PC.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

I am not familiar with piaudiocore. Have you tried creating a Moode or Volumio image on a microsd card?

You can find the image for moode here: https://moodeaudio.org/

You can use a program like balena etcher to create the Moode image on the microsd card here: https://www.balena.io/etcher

 

[Murrfk]

If you decide to go with a RPi based solution I warmly recommend also installing Logitech Media Server (LMS) with Material Skin. I'm using it with Volumio currently. I listen to a lot of classical and I can for example browse composer->work->release. Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal etc. are also integrated.
View attachment 131565View attachment 131566View attachment 131567

I would like to try this. Does this get installed on the Raspberry Pi as a plugin?

 

[Murrfk]

I have made progress. Lots and lots of small issues, but I managed to get LMS installed through Piaudiocore. The instructions said to turn squeezelite off, which would not allow my phone apps (squeezer and squeeze controller)to find the Pi as there was no player running.

I was following this guide:
https://docs.picoreplayer.org/how-to/install_lms/

I am still getting the music files onto a hard drive and will also try volumio to see how it compares. I am having issues getting the nvidia shield to access the the hard drive but do have the usb audio working through the DAC in my amp. So....progress. Thanks for all assistance.

 

[Eetu]

I have made progress. Lots and lots of small issues, but I managed to get LMS installed through Piaudiocore. The instructions said to turn squeezelite off, which would not allow my phone apps (squeezer and squeeze controller)to find the Pi as there was no player running.

I was following this guide:
https://docs.picoreplayer.org/how-to/install_lms/

I am still getting the music files onto a hard drive and will also try volume to see how it compares. I am having issues getting the nvidia shield to access the the hard drive but do have the usb audio working through the DAC in my amp. So....progress. Thanks for all assistance.

When I tried piCorePlayer + LMS I followed this YouTube guide. Check it out if you're still having trouble.

 

[Murrfk]

When I tried piCorePlayer + LMS I followed this YouTube guide. Check it out if you're still having trouble.

I think I have it working. I had to set squeezelite to usb audio output, and then disable internal pi audio, then set the output to hw:CARD=b1,DEV=0, and it is now working.

I am unclear as to what each of these software components do. What ARE each of squeezelite and LMS. Both are running, but what is the purpose of each?

 

[Jimbob54]

You could run Plex Server on the Shield with your music on a USB hard drive. You would control Plex either via your TV or one of the Plex apps for Android, iOS, etc.

Setting Up and Managing Plex Media Server on NVIDIA SHIELD | Plex Support

Some people, including me, have had problems getting the Sheild TV to recognize certain DACs. I haven't tried it for a couple of years, so I would geuess that some of these issues are resolved on the newer OS versions.

And if it still behaves like it did a few years ago- insists on resampling before outputting.