Advertisement / Annons:

Music Streamer

Raspberry Music Streamer

Introduction, why it's interesting with streaming

Long time ago you played vinyl, lasting at most 20 minutes, then came the CD up to 70 minutes. But even then you must change CDs, and very often if you want to mix music from many different CDs.

Nowadays you play MP3 files with music or stream it from a web radio channel or some other media source. With this you can set up play lists or play them in random order.

To do this you need a media streamer. I looked at media streamers but they are a bit expensive. With use of a Raspberry you can built one by your self. Then you need a Raspberry Pi4, 4GB or similar, a DAC (digital analog converter) of high quality and some software to control it. But how good will it be ? And how well does it handle the music information, is it easy to find the music you want to play ?

Here are some links with info about Raspberry and streamers I have collected to my help: Raspberry Streamers.

My hardware

I already have a Raspberry Pi4 that I don't use. It has a passive cooler and then no noise from it. Low power consumption, good because it will run many hours a day. The signal out from it's in digital form. It must be converted to an analog signal to feed an amplifier for the speakers. There are many to choose from, they called such a devices for a Hat, something you add on directly to the Raspberry. I do it a little bit different, at least now in the beginning.

I have a receiver with digital inputs, SPDIF and HDMI. On the Raspberry there are already two HDMI outputs so it's the obvious choice here. Later I maybe want to have the ability to listen to it direct with headphones without using the receiver. Then I add a Hat with DAC and headphone amplifier.

Raspberry Pi4:

Raspberry Pi4, 4GB:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/ products/ raspberry-pi-4-model-b/ (Raspberry Pi4)

Many media streamers are based on this Raspberry Pi4. A sign that it's good for HiFi music with correct addons.

DAC & Headphone amp:

DAC with headphone amplifier:

https://www. raspberrypi.com/ products/ dac-plus/ (Raspberry Pi DAC+)
https://www. raspberrypi.com/ products/ dac-pro/ (Raspberry Pi DAC Pro)
https://www. hifiberry.com/ (HiFiBerry)

You just put it on top of the Raspberry, no wires needed, but a bigger enclosure.

It's possible to use USB DACs too.

There are many more to chose from. Some included in kits with Raspberry, power unit, enclosure and some cooling device. Something like this is needed if you don't have HDMI inputs on your amplifier, or as in my case, want a stand alone headphone amplifier (later).

Software:

There are many software to choose from, I start with the Volumio that I have read positive information about . It has a lot of plugins, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube (which content you pay extra for) and other things I don't yet know what to use for. Remote controlled from a smartphone or a tablet. There is a free version and and a pay version with more extras:

https://volumio.com/ (Volumio)

It was very easy to install, you not even need to pre install the OS, it's included. I choose to only have it connected over LAN to the router, no WiFi.

The devices and cables attached are: LAN cable, USB memory, HDMI cable and USB C power inlet. Only problem I got was that I couldn't connect it to the NAS server. Maybe because the NAS is very old. I transferred the MP3 files to a big USB memory. It's better with this solution, it doesn't wear out the NAS' hard drives.

Setup:

To get to the setup menu, click on the speaker icon down right.

Then click on the setup icon.

I don't change much from the default setup. I don't have a DAC built into the Raspberry, I use the receivers DAC which is of high quality even if it's old. From 44.1kHz to 192kHz sampling at 16 to 24 bit.

Set the max volume to 60 to not get distortion because of too high level. Audio resampling is disabled, I sent the digital signal in its native form and let the receiver do the best of it.

If you want to do resampling you can change it to higher bit levels and higher sample rates. Even increase the quality how it do the resampling. In my case I get best quality when I set the Audio Resampling to Off and let the receiver do its resampling of the signal.

Go Back to content

Go Back