You can run a power bank into the pi and see if the noise is from the switching supply. The most quiet supply would be four AA rechargeable batteries. I use power banks on several of my pi/ hat/ moode audio players, and a few others use switching supplies. Even built one of Mark Johnson's power supply filters, but have only listened a short time to that system.
My hats are from HIFi berry, PIFI and ALLO. The allo boss sounds the best followed by the HIFI berry with balanced outputs. I don't seem to experience the problems you are having so maybe the issue is something you are over looking.
My hats are from HIFi berry, PIFI and ALLO. The allo boss sounds the best followed by the HIFI berry with balanced outputs. I don't seem to experience the problems you are having so maybe the issue is something you are over looking.
Its not a conclusion as I really only have rather sparse data to go on. Its my best guess, subject to revision as more info comes in.
@abraxalito well as long as it sounds good
@tjrep what do you mean bad driver ?? i dont run windows ! and the dac seems to configure itself once you edit the config.txt and update, please explain
@tjrep what do you mean bad driver ?? i dont run windows ! and the dac seems to configure itself once you edit the config.txt and update, please explain
No just plug into the usb on the PI. The only system that may be close to that is a portable system using a HIFI berry AMP 2 where the battery plugs into the amp hat and the hat powers the rpi.
The original goal of the Pi project was to make an open hardware design as cheaply as possible. It's a great learning tool but very poor in terms of design and build quality.
@signal lost cheers it's gonna be quick and easy to try that
@astouffer you are correct, maybe i'm expecting too much from a £100 mini computer . ps LoL at "crumbling wasteland", come take a look at southeast london !!!
@astouffer you are correct, maybe i'm expecting too much from a £100 mini computer . ps LoL at "crumbling wasteland", come take a look at southeast london !!!
Not only Windows but every OS uses drivers to setup hardware. If possible those drivers are dedicated to the hardware, if not then the OS tries with a generic driver. So perhaps there isn't a dedicated driver for you HAT and the OS uses the generic driver, which is mostly very detrimental to the quality.
@jean-paul what SBC would you suggest ??
@tjrep iqaudio is part of the raspberry pi foundation, i believe it uses the same driver/kernel blob of a previous dac, but i'll check
@tjrep iqaudio is part of the raspberry pi foundation, i believe it uses the same driver/kernel blob of a previous dac, but i'll check
If you used the RPi headphone output, the low quality is perfectly logical as that output is plain PWM, no real DAC. It is well known and advertised.
PA could resample at low quality but I would call that a bad audio chain setup (software issue), nothing to do with RPi. Also PA is more prone to introducing audible clicks - underruns (called xruns in linux alsa). If PA does no resampling, it's basically bit-perfect (apart of possible linear scaling in volume control).
RPi is rightly denounced for low quality of I2S bitclock when running in I2S master mode as there is no PLL clock available which could be configured to run at integer multiple of the samplerate. As a result a fractional clock divider must be used which produces rather jittery clock.
The IQaudio DAC Pro uses this cheapest mode where the I2S controller generates the bitclock - linux/iqaudio-dac.c at 7fb9d006d3ff3baf2e205e0c85c4e4fd0a64fcd0 * raspberrypi/linux * GitHub Therefore, the DAC PCM5242 generates its master clock via internal PLL (the master clock is the key clock for DA conversion - see page 47 of https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5242.pdf ) from the incoming bitclock.
While it is true that the clock arrangement could be better (with a tiny expense of a cheap crystal), I do not believe the PLLed MCLK from the jittery BCLK causes what you are describing. Are you sure you have not included the 24db_digital_gain option in your dtoverlay command linux/README at bcb79983422d056ea85d2b4a515762c0d56690e5 * raspberrypi/linux * GitHub ?
Also the DAC board is powered from the PSU which powers your RPi. Are you sure that PSU is powerful enough and does not output some audible noise?
Also are you sure there is no ground loop in your audio chain? The advantage of using the balanced outputs available on your DAC board was already mentioned here.
RPi4 is a very powerful and capable audio platform, when used correctly. The talks about "cheap and low quality components and build" are unfounded, unless one is talking about the actual Broadcom SoC which really lacks in master-mode I2S. But that is not low quality and build but simply a feature of that particular SoC. On the other hand it is quite powerful and fast for the price - e.g. my test of safe 1,536kHz I2S loopback STICKY: The I2S sound thread. [I2S works] - Page 41 - Raspberry Pi Forums (of course using external master clock, with I2S running in slave mode). It shows that the I2S hardware is well designed and implemented.
As Phofman wrote the reason I like the Allo Boss DAC is that it is a master DAC and if I understand correctly has clock circuits for 44k and 48k sampling. So music files and streaming sources sound great.
Looking at the information for your DAC the drivers are included in raspidian distro but may not be be in others. I am not sure what operating system you are using.
Looking at the information for your DAC the drivers are included in raspidian distro but may not be be in others. I am not sure what operating system you are using.
The mainline kernel has no vendor-specific audio drivers
linux/sound/soc/bcm at master * torvalds/linux * GitHub
vs.
linux/sound/soc/bcm at rpi-5.12.y * raspberrypi/linux * GitHub
The driver (DTS) is defined in the /boot/config.txt dtoverlay parameter, IMO this RPi-specific configuration via dtoverlay Device Trees, overlays, and parameters - Raspberry Pi Documentation is not available in the mainline kernel.
linux/sound/soc/bcm at master * torvalds/linux * GitHub
vs.
linux/sound/soc/bcm at rpi-5.12.y * raspberrypi/linux * GitHub
The driver (DTS) is defined in the /boot/config.txt dtoverlay parameter, IMO this RPi-specific configuration via dtoverlay Device Trees, overlays, and parameters - Raspberry Pi Documentation is not available in the mainline kernel.
smh, is this a pi hating party? I get great sound running my PI2 or 4 with a doggle or other schiit. A PI zero with a 12$ hifiberry hat that also sounds fine, all running moode. Not utopia, I have also crashed them all at various times and degrees. Windows cannot produce comparable quality without magic spells (ASIO, eAPO, 12 chanting druids in a circle, etc...)The design of the PI is no different than 99% of every electronics product on the earth, designed on a dream and implemented by the lowest bidder. I prefer this to a 4K$ Naim streamer with $38 in real parts inside made in the same factory as the PI.
@ga77a
I had a HifiBerry DAC2HD that had extremely low output volume with intermittent static that they warrantied, and the replacement worked much, much better. So there is some small possibility that you have a bad DAC card.
Other possibilities, try switching the Pi itself. I don't run Pi 4's, but I've run a Pi 3B and a Pi 2B and they both sound great with the three different DACs I have.
Still another possibility is to try a different distro and app in case it's a software issue. The stripped-down OSMC distro which can be loaded on a 4GB microSD card (I'm doing it) will run KODI just fine. I use KODI both on OSMC and on Raspbian with no problems or sound differences.
Also there is Mark Johnson's DC power filter circuit which I made a board for, with the USB-C input receptacle for the official 3A RPi wall warts. The board has mounting holes to stack on top of the DAC HAT, and for the HiFiBerry cards at least, can provide power through the offset GPIO block. In fairness, I didn't notice any improvement in sound quality when I used it on top of a HiFiBerry DAC2HD on my RPi 2B. Below is a picture of my Pi's with the filter card on top.
Lots of things to try, iow.
I had a HifiBerry DAC2HD that had extremely low output volume with intermittent static that they warrantied, and the replacement worked much, much better. So there is some small possibility that you have a bad DAC card.
Other possibilities, try switching the Pi itself. I don't run Pi 4's, but I've run a Pi 3B and a Pi 2B and they both sound great with the three different DACs I have.
Still another possibility is to try a different distro and app in case it's a software issue. The stripped-down OSMC distro which can be loaded on a 4GB microSD card (I'm doing it) will run KODI just fine. I use KODI both on OSMC and on Raspbian with no problems or sound differences.
Also there is Mark Johnson's DC power filter circuit which I made a board for, with the USB-C input receptacle for the official 3A RPi wall warts. The board has mounting holes to stack on top of the DAC HAT, and for the HiFiBerry cards at least, can provide power through the offset GPIO block. In fairness, I didn't notice any improvement in sound quality when I used it on top of a HiFiBerry DAC2HD on my RPi 2B. Below is a picture of my Pi's with the filter card on top.
Lots of things to try, iow.
Attachments
Check if the IQaudio has a decent clock crystal and PLL circuit. Most sound problems with Hat's come from jitter due to a bad clock circuit. The Pi itself has a terrible clock circuit, that and the fact that the analog output is PWM based accounts for the terrible analog sound.
Personally I'm not a fan of having the DAC on the Pi. Sensitive audio circuits should be kept as far away as possible from CPU's. I prefer to have an I2S to S/PDIF Digi board coupled to a standalone DAC. In my case the Pi-HAT clone uses a Wolfson I2S to S/PDIF chip and my DAC also has a Wolfson chip. Both Wolfson chips have built-in jitter correction in order to get the best sound.
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Well comments go from very good for audio to terrible 😀 If you guys are not of the same opinion then who is? There are quite some other ARM based devices that perform better than RPI but at a higher price and let that exactly be the reason why RPI became so popular. My point is simply that one needs a lot of expensive surrounding stuff to make it all happen and/or to blend it in in an audio environment. Esthetics, user-friendliness and spaghetti cabling are a drama IMO.
I haven't tried Volumio Primo yet but I would choose it over any RPI contraption without blinking an eye (provided it performs excellent).
I haven't tried Volumio Primo yet but I would choose it over any RPI contraption without blinking an eye (provided it performs excellent).
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@ jean-paul The thing with the Pi is that it can be both: very good or terrible.
The Pi is often being used in a way it was never designed to be used. The HAT's also vary in quality from very good to terrible, so some experimenting with different types and brands may be necessary to get the best results.
The Pi is often being used in a way it was never designed to be used. The HAT's also vary in quality from very good to terrible, so some experimenting with different types and brands may be necessary to get the best results.
Exactly. The Pi was never designed or meant for audio and is mostly chosen for its low price and the best software support of all. Many persons earn money with the audio related stuff for RPI and it created a vast worldwide new market for sellers of both software and hardware. It has therefor become an ecosystem for many (clicking HATs is the new DIY 🙂), which is fine but please let's not pretend it is the best thing since sliced bread. All the clever wordings aside (it is good but..., "when used correctly" etc.), if one would design a new SBC for audio with mostly the same parts the RPI has the "Audio RPI" would be designed very very differently.
It would be honest to add up all cost of various tested HATs and all stuff and then see what that money could have bought. It is not hate or anything like that (why would one hate a device?) as I used RPI myself but it is like always: horses for courses. This is an approx. 50 Euro SBC meant for the third world and for education.
It would be honest to add up all cost of various tested HATs and all stuff and then see what that money could have bought. It is not hate or anything like that (why would one hate a device?) as I used RPI myself but it is like always: horses for courses. This is an approx. 50 Euro SBC meant for the third world and for education.
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