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Questions about going Raspberry Pi 4 direction

SPOautos

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Hey guys, please excuse my ignorance about all this....its new to me and I'm trying to figure it all out. Currently I have a Yamaha wxc-50 with a phono pre going into it via analog rca and I like that I can bluetooth my phone to it and play anything on my phone such as YouTube, Tidal, etc. It has a app on my phone to control volume and such. BUT I want to use a personal library of music and I just dont feel its adequate, too slow to scroll through large libraries, etc. I think I want to replace it with a Raspberry Pi4

SO....brings me to RPi 4 with something like Volumio or Moode and looks like Roon can be installed on it as well which I'm interested in. Roon would give me a large personal library where it has excellent sorting and can even make suggestions for you and such cant it? As well as Tidal in, all together.

Questions......
Can Roon be managed and play music and volume control from my phone using either a app or browser....with a good experience? I want this to be VERY easy to use for multiple people who need a very simple 'Spotify' type experience.

If I use Roon I wouldnt need Volumio or Moode, correct? I can just attach the storage via USB 3.0 to the RPi4 and control it all using Roon. But I will need something like Ropieee....correct?

With RPi4 I think I want to go for replacing my wxc-50.....are the HifiBerry products going to be as good or better sound quality than the wxc-50? I will need a analog rca in from my Cambridge Audio Duo and a analog rca out to my power amp. Everything else I listen to will be from within the RPi4.

Is there a way with RPi4 to use my phone to browse YouTube and play it through the system either via bluetooth or wifi connection? I don't mean YouTube music service but rather just browsing regular YouTube such as the YouTube app on my phone.

I know I will have more questions as I try to piece all this together in my mind. Please excuse my ignorance, I'm not much of a computer/networking guy and have only just learned of all this yesterday. Lol. I'm researching and trying to figure out how to pull it all together.

Thank You!
 
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SPOautos

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I suppose if my Yamaha WXC-50 has better more clear dac and analog in/out for my phono pre then I can just run the RPi4 with optical out to my wxc-50 and let the Yamaha control volume and do the dac work.

Any thoughts on which would be better sound quality wise? Doing this would also allow me to bluetooth my phone for other things like YouTube browsing.....not sure if I can easily bluetooth my phone to the RPi4 for audio playback of apps on my phone.
 

somebodyelse

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So many options...but to start with, where is your personal library of music now? And is your phone Apple or Android? These will affect the choices available to some extent.

If your music is currently on a DLNA server you don't have to stick with the Yamaha app - any DLNA control point app should work, and may provide an experience you prefer. There are (or were...) a load of them available. I'm not a DLNA fan so haven't kept up with what the good ones are.

I don't think you can run the server part of Roon on a Pi, but I could be wrong. Last I looked you could run it on a PC or Mac, and they had a dedicated linux version that they suggested you run on an Intel NUC but would run on most PC hardware. The player end would run on the Pi - usually Ropieee - although I gather it can stream to squeezebox clients too.
 
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SPOautos

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So many options...but to start with, where is your personal library of music now? And is your phone Apple or Android? These will affect the choices available to some extent.

If your music is currently on a DLNA server you don't have to stick with the Yamaha app - any DLNA control point app should work, and may provide an experience you prefer. There are (or were...) a load of them available. I'm not a DLNA fan so haven't kept up with what the good ones are.

I don't think you can run the server part of Roon on a Pi, but I could be wrong. Last I looked you could run it on a PC or Mac, and they had a dedicated linux version that they suggested you run on an Intel NUC but would run on most PC hardware. The player end would run on the Pi - usually Ropieee - although I gather it can stream to squeezebox clients too.

Right now the music storage is not in use, it's waiting on me to move it to whatever I end up going with
 

somebodyelse

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Right now the music storage is not in use, it's waiting on me to move it to whatever I end up going with
Ok - keeps all the options on the table.

There are a whole host of Pi based players out there, with variations on features and emphasis. The ones that most commonly get mentioned round here are Volumio, Moode and PiCorePlayer, but there are a bunch of others if you go searching for them. Generally speaking they can be controlled via both a web browser and an app, as well as the Raspberry Pi touchscreen if you get one. If you go down the Pi route I'd suggest getting more than one uSD card and trying the different options to see which fits your needs. PiCorePlayer works for me - I have the LogitechMediaServer (LMS) part running on another machine, but you can run it on the Pi too.

I think Moode, and maybe Volumio, let you stream audio to them from your phone via Bluetooth, or Airplay if you're an Apple user. There used to be problems using both Bluetooth and WiFi at the same time on the Pi - I'm not sure if this was fixed with the Pi 4 or not.

I don't think any of the above have an option for analog input, but it might work with PiCorePlayer and one of the LMS plugins. This makes using it to replace the Yamaha difficult. On the offchance it would work you'd need a USB audio interface like the MOTU M2.

It looks like an optical hat for the Pi would be the best way to connect it to your Yamaha.
 

Aldoszx

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If you want Roon the Core must be on a PC or MAC. It cannot be installed on RPi4. You can use LMS + Squeezelite on RPi4, and a storage or a NAS for music files. piCorePlayer is a good choice and also support Bluetooth streaming from your phone. If you need analog in, you must have an ADC as well. Hifiberry DAC+ADC could do the trick.
 
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SPOautos

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If you want Roon the Core must be on a PC or MAC. It cannot be installed on RPi4. You can use LMS + Squeezelite on RPi4, and a storage or a NAS for music files. piCorePlayer is a good choice and also support Bluetooth streaming from your phone. If you need analog in, you must have an ADC as well. Hifiberry DAC+ADC could do the trick.

Do I really need to convert the analog to digital then it gets converted back to analog? (What In assuming a adc will do)....its already analog coming in, I just need to pass it through to my power amp like a preamp and the ability to adjust volume.

If I replace my wxc-50 I can spend around $300, if I do something that works with the wxc-50 I need to be around $150 (not counting storage space just the management portion).....it seems like the RPi4 is a good choice budget wise.

I thought I was reading on the roon forum that there was a good way to use Roon with RPi4. But I'm not familiar with any of this so a high likelyhood of misconceptions lol. Roon looks pretty awesome and seems to have a great Tidal integration.

I suppose I can use pretty much anything that can run Roon well and have a optical out to the Yamaha. Then I can control volume with the Yamaha but In afraid it's going to start feeling all pieced together for the end user where they have to sort music in a browser go to a different app to control volume, etc.
 

samsa

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The Roon forum might be a better place to ask these questions, but here goes.

The Roon architecture involves 3 pieces.
  1. A machine to run Roon Core on (often an Intel NUC, running either Roon's own Linux distro, ROCK, or Linux or Windows with Roon Core running on to of that).
  2. A Roon endpoint, which could be a Raspberry Pi with USB-out to your Yamaha wxc-50.
  3. Roon Remote app running on one or more phones, tablets or PCs.
The Raspberry Pi needs an operating system and needs to be running RoonBridge. You can get both in one shot with Ropieee XL.
 
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SPOautos

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The Roon forum might be a better place to ask these questions, but here goes.

The Roon architecture involves 3 pieces.
  1. A machine to run Roon Core on (often an Intel NUC, running either Roon's own Linux distro, ROCK, or Linux or Windows with Roon Core running on to of that).
  2. A Roon endpoint, which could be a Raspberry Pi with USB-out to your Yamaha wxc-50.
  3. Roon Remote app running on one or more phones, tablets or PCs.
The Raspberry Pi needs an operating system and needs to be running RoonBridge. You can get both in one shot with Ropieee XL.

Okay so that was my misunderstanding.....when they were talking about using Roon with Raspberry using RopieeeXL I THOUGHT it was all on one device (RPi4). I envisioned this as having Roon installed like people do Volumio or Moode.

So the Roon needs to be on basically a windows or Linux computer. BUT I suppose if I had one with a optical out I could run it straight to my Yam wxc-50 and not need a RPi4....correct? Does the computer with Roon have to have the storage directly on it or can the storage just be on the network.

I was really trying to avoid a full computer....the RPi4 is tiny so wasnt worried about that but I have no where good to put a full computer plus no budget for it. Hmmm, I guess I need to reconsider some things. I doubt I can build a sufficient computer, even linux based....maybe a used one for $200 but it probably wouldnt be sufficient.

On the flip side I could stick with RPi4 and drop Roon and go with something like Moode.

Decisions decisions
 

samsa

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Yes, you can skip the Roon endpoint and connect the Roon core machine directly to your Yamaha WXC-50. But the $50 you'd spend on the Raspberry Pi is well worth it.

It means you can put the Roon Core machine anywhere on your home network. In particular, since it is strongly recommended that Roon Core machine have a wired ethernet connection, this obviated the need to have ethernet at the location of your stereo.
 

HemiRick

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There are several DAC hats that fit on a Pi as well, I prefer and use an Allo Boss.
 

somebodyelse

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Do I really need to convert the analog to digital then it gets converted back to analog? (What In assuming a adc will do)....its already analog coming in, I just need to pass it through to my power amp like a preamp and the ability to adjust volume.
Unfortunately there aren't many options for that sort of thing. Some of the USB audio interfaces can do it, but all the ones I know of use mixer interfaces that are too complicated for the basic volume control built into the player interfaces. Even then I think they're mixing in the digital domain inside the interface. Are you up to building your own?

If I replace my wxc-50 I can spend around $300, if I do something that works with the wxc-50 I need to be around $150 (not counting storage space just the management portion).....it seems like the RPi4 is a good choice budget wise.

I thought I was reading on the roon forum that there was a good way to use Roon with RPi4. But I'm not familiar with any of this so a high likelyhood of misconceptions lol. Roon looks pretty awesome and seems to have a great Tidal integration.

I suppose I can use pretty much anything that can run Roon well and have a optical out to the Yamaha. Then I can control volume with the Yamaha but In afraid it's going to start feeling all pieced together for the end user where they have to sort music in a browser go to a different app to control volume, etc.
I'd stick with the WXC-50 and use a hat with an optical out on the Pi - something like the DIGI+ or the pro version. There's nothing to stop you using the software volume control on the streamer end, but it could get conusing having 2 volume controls.

Another option is just to use the Pi as a DLNA server, and use your preferred DLNA control point app to control the streaming. You probably still hit the confusion of 2 apps or browser tabs though.

A Roon endpoint, which could be a Raspberry Pi with USB-out to your Yamaha wxc-50.
According to Yamaha the WXC-50 doesn't have USB in, just optical, hence the suggestion of a hat for optical output from the Pi.
 

samsa

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According to Yamaha the WXC-50 doesn't have USB in, just optical, hence the suggestion of a hat for optical output from the Pi.


Did I misread the specs ?

Screen Shot 2020-06-14 at 4.29.56 PM.png
 
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SPOautos

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The USB input will only take a thumb drive. According to Yamaha you cant connect devices to go it... they even say only a thumb drive up to 32GB. No idea why they would do that. There may be some type of work around but I'm not familiar with it.
 
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