Few questions about interfacing of my amplifier with a Raspberry Pi streamer
- By dtog
- Construction Tips
- 6 Replies
Hello,
I would like to add a music streamer & cd player by plugging a Raspberry Pi 2B in the AVAUX input of my old amplifier Kenwood A-91, via a DAC - probably an I2S one.
In particular, I am looking for a way to unify at least the power on/off function (others such as volume level or source selection would be great additions but I do not have much clues), and I see 3 potential ways of making the RPi interact with the amplifier:
1. 5V relay module: This would enable me to take control of the amp power from RPi GPIO ports. This is probably the best solution in the current state of my knowledge as it seems simple and well documented. I wonder whether such configuration would allow me to use confidently a plugin such as Amplifier Switch (for Volumio). It basically helps to save power by switching off automatically the amp when it detects that no music has been played in Volumio for X seconds (actually milliseconds), and switching it on when it detects that music is being played. Would the additional ON/OFF cycles caused by such feature jeopardise the life expectancy of my already old amp ? I see for instance that the relay I have linked to at the beginning of this point has a MTBF of 100k operations.
2. Kenwood "system control" interface: I also have the Kenwood radio tuner from the same product generation than the amp, and both devices can be linked via the Kenwood "system control" interface. It is actually a male 3,5mm jack to male 3,5mm jack connection, which enables that even when both devices are fed with independent sources of power, when you turn on/off the amp, it turns on/off the radio tuner. What's more, it enables the use of the few buttons dedicated to the tuner on the remote control, the IR receiver being located on the amp.
Linking the amp to the Rpi via this interface could be a neat option but:
a) I don't know how to interact with this proprietary (?) system control interface. I found this hint but I lack knowledge and experience to assess whether and how it could do the trick.
b) I am unsure whether it could allow me to control the amp power from the RPI (instead of the amp controlling the RPI power)
3. The amp includes two female power plug sockets (as per the manual they are supposed to supply up to 200W at 220V, although in my tests I experienced ) I could plug both the Pi & the DAC power supplies there, and when I would turn off the amp, it would turn off the RPi and the DAC. However the control would be from the amp only (less flexible than from the RPi to the amp, but still acceptable to me) and it would trigger a hard shutdown on the RPi which is not recommended as far as I understood (risk of OS data corruption).
Any answers or suggestions would be appreciated.
Best,
dtog
I would like to add a music streamer & cd player by plugging a Raspberry Pi 2B in the AVAUX input of my old amplifier Kenwood A-91, via a DAC - probably an I2S one.
In particular, I am looking for a way to unify at least the power on/off function (others such as volume level or source selection would be great additions but I do not have much clues), and I see 3 potential ways of making the RPi interact with the amplifier:
1. 5V relay module: This would enable me to take control of the amp power from RPi GPIO ports. This is probably the best solution in the current state of my knowledge as it seems simple and well documented. I wonder whether such configuration would allow me to use confidently a plugin such as Amplifier Switch (for Volumio). It basically helps to save power by switching off automatically the amp when it detects that no music has been played in Volumio for X seconds (actually milliseconds), and switching it on when it detects that music is being played. Would the additional ON/OFF cycles caused by such feature jeopardise the life expectancy of my already old amp ? I see for instance that the relay I have linked to at the beginning of this point has a MTBF of 100k operations.
2. Kenwood "system control" interface: I also have the Kenwood radio tuner from the same product generation than the amp, and both devices can be linked via the Kenwood "system control" interface. It is actually a male 3,5mm jack to male 3,5mm jack connection, which enables that even when both devices are fed with independent sources of power, when you turn on/off the amp, it turns on/off the radio tuner. What's more, it enables the use of the few buttons dedicated to the tuner on the remote control, the IR receiver being located on the amp.
Linking the amp to the Rpi via this interface could be a neat option but:
a) I don't know how to interact with this proprietary (?) system control interface. I found this hint but I lack knowledge and experience to assess whether and how it could do the trick.
b) I am unsure whether it could allow me to control the amp power from the RPI (instead of the amp controlling the RPI power)
3. The amp includes two female power plug sockets (as per the manual they are supposed to supply up to 200W at 220V, although in my tests I experienced ) I could plug both the Pi & the DAC power supplies there, and when I would turn off the amp, it would turn off the RPi and the DAC. However the control would be from the amp only (less flexible than from the RPi to the amp, but still acceptable to me) and it would trigger a hard shutdown on the RPi which is not recommended as far as I understood (risk of OS data corruption).
Any answers or suggestions would be appreciated.
Best,
dtog