RaspyFi/Volumio - Turn raspberry Pi into Audiophile audio Player

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Hello everybody,
I'm writing this 'cause I saw few threads talking about RaspyFi here, so I thought it could be interesting to let you guys know what RaspyFi is. RaspyFi is a free linux distribution for Raspberry Pi, it's meant to transform the little Pi into an audiophile source. I developed it being inspired by the excellent work of Kim-man "Punky" Tse with Voyage-Mpd.
RaspyFi is a complete OS designed to achieve the best audio quality possible out of the Raspberry, but in a user friendly environment.
It relies on MPD, as Voyage do.
You simply download it, flash it to your Pi, configure it a (very) little and you're ready to play your music library from a USB Storage or a NAS.
I must say RaspyFi sounds really good as of now, some of our users compared it with a 20k euros CD player... Apart from that, what really matters is that with this solution, you can get an amazing bang for the buck audio player.
The development started about 6 months ago, there were 3 major releases, and the 1.0 version (which will be pretty complete and hassle free) is to be released in few days.
The optimizations made to the O.S. are mainly kernel related, alsa-related and it would be excellent to discuss them with you guys.
You can grab it on RaspyFi - Pi never sounded so good!, where you will find also some diy article, knowledge is good only when shared, no?
As of now, there are no problems for RaspyFi to output audio to 192/24, even with async USB DACS. And there are plans to implement a DAC directly with i2s interface.
RaspyFi features also a very rudimental Ramplay feature, which is gonna be refined in the future.
More are to come, and would really like to know what you want to find in your perfect audiophile os and what you think of RaspyFi!
 
The discussions below the article mention the 48kHz limit. The recommended MPD setup includes the 48kHz resampling option. Is it still the case with latest rpi usb drivers? If so then IMO RPi is not suitable for audiophile playback as its weak CPU will have to resample everything to 48kHz (in addition to the USB load when feeding data from USB storage/USB-based ethernet).

IMO there are better comparatively-priced solutions suitable for embedded linux audio playback (e.g. well-tested openwrt routers supporting 192kHz natively and featuring dedicated ethernet hardware).
 
RaspyFi implements one of the latest USB patches available, this solves the notorious USB issues. So, RaspyFi can play 24/192 files without problems, in bit perfect mode.
As for computing power, playin a 24/192 file (with XMOS2 receiver) only takes between 20% a 30% of total PI's cpu (including cifs process).
So, with a little optimization the rasbperry is something more than suitable for playin hi res music. So, I can get 24/192 (even 32/192, but it has not been tested extensively yet) playback both from USB storage and NAS.
If anyone has mpd installed on stock raspbian, he can find the USB patch here:

Raspberry Pi Usb Audio fix - RaspyFi

I used to have a via C7 thin client with Voyage-MPd installed, and I can say that the 2 solutions are pretty similar, regarding power performance and quality. If you need to get an idea...
 
If you need DSP then single-core ARM is clearly not for you. Those who do not need any are fine with low-cost single-core boards.

If the USB driver/firmware is fixed and RPi supports standard samplerates as reported above, it is an interesting inexpensive solution.
 
buzz, hum, pops, unexpected crashes, network problems, huge amount of time to set up, difficulty to control basic functions, very bad audio reproduction compared to a sony network player that costs 200 euros.

So all that for 50 euros when with 200 you can have a ready to use solution that includes also a blu ray player.
 
Works good so far...

I tried it this weekend and now my pi is delivering my flac collection to the dac. I have not done any sound comparisons, just listening for noises (ever present before), but so far it's very promising. The Raspyfi distro is very easy to install and the patched usb code is holding up for glitch free playing up to 96.
 
Tried it, it's worthless for this kind of applications.

"some of our users compared it with a 20k euros CD player"

That's ridiculous! Price and comparison.

Hi odysseas, got your point. Comparing is always related to subjective perceptions, so they should be taken not that seriously. But the user that stated this is a respectable hi-fi dealer, so in this case I took this sentence a little more seriously, lol. The way this sentence should be read, IMO, is that optimization makes wonders, and you can have a really good sound system not only with cash efforts. Obviously the big part of sound quality is due to the DAC, the Pi's task ends at delivering the most accurate bit stream to the DAC.

buzz, hum, pops, unexpected crashes, network problems, huge amount of time to set up, difficulty to control basic functions, very bad audio reproduction compared to a sony network player that costs 200 euros.
That's the point! I do absolutely agree with you. We started to develop RaspyFi because the native software environment just wasn't up to the task with music playback. It took me 2 days when my Pi arrived to just install mpd... I mean, 2 days when all you have to do is apt-get install something?
Then, with the notorious USB problems playing at decent bitrates\depth was a mirage.
I thought that the hardware was more than enough (someone said routers?) to play hi-res files. What we did with RaspyFi is optimize the software enviromnment tailoring it to the Pi's hardware (which is a great advantage, since all Pi's are the same and you have predictable results working only on a hardware platform).
So, we think we filled this gap. Now you can have pretty good quality-wise performance without getting mad to configure everything.
This has lot of advantages than a closed solution, you get Ramplay as well, you get community-driven updates and lot of extra functionalities.
And all of this, also for the average user, not only for command line masters.
Then, I may be wrong. But I'm not sure that a 200$ bluray player could overperform last RaspyFi version.


People having problems to play even native Hirez !?!?

Common folks. It's a toy.


If you look at e.g. Wandboard or Minix NEO X5 or newer models you'll get decent
mini computers at around 100$.

Cheers
Here you go. The Pi is a toy, and if we achieved such results with it, imagine what can be done with recent embedded pcs. That's why we're porting RaspyFi to other embeddeds, the most suitable ones for audio reproduction obviously.

What we achieved right now is a software system which was obtained with lot of trial and errors, imagine that to find the right NAS mounting method we tested lot and lot of variables.
But, folks, there are always better solutions. I just wanted to share this thoughts with you to try to improve the distro, to discuss about kernel latencies, dma drivers and so on. If getting your wallet out is the way you listen, RaspyFi isn't for you. Period.
If you want to learn something about digital music playback, and wanna have something that does the job pretty well without hassles, then RaspyFi is gonna excite you. :)
 
My pi is lashed up feeding I2S to a reclocked TDA1541A, and it sounds great! I can't see how it could sound much different to if you lifted the clock, DAC, and IV and connected it to the decoder output of a CD player.
I2S is now quite mature on the pi. There's a driver for it now (in a branched kernel at the moment), and it seems to work well.
Don't write this toy off just yet.
 
Raspberry PIs ... A nice toy. That's what it's meant for.

Describing the “Raspberry PI” as a toy is condescending and dismissive. This low cost mini-computer was primarily developed as an educational tool and judging by the number of sales, the interest generated and network of users it has been successful way beyond the hopes of the Raspberry Foundation. The fact that it found its way into the hands of many hobbyists who pushed the hardware to its limits was a good thing. The Raspberry Foundation has responded to its detractors and has developed the firmware/software in order to get better performance out the PI.

It may be a little early to say that the PI's USB problems are fixed, but there's enough anecdotal evidence to suggest there's been a significant improvement for those using the device in audio applications.

Of course, if you pay more you can get better hardware. It's no surprise that Soundcheck mentions the Wandaboard as this is the chosen hardware of the “community squeeze” project. Whether this board remains in production, and whether John Swenson's matching dedicated audio board ever goes on sale, only time will tell.

For the here and now the “raspberry pi” is well documented and supported, and as along as you are aware of its limitations can be used as an audio server quite successfully. It has been adopted by the piCorePlayer project, and I see Soundcheck has not posted on that thread at the slimdevices forum to dismiss the raspberry pi out of hand. Nor has he dismissed the efforts of the Squeezeplug project.

There's more than a little irony in someone like Soundcheck, who has long promoted his own ideas about how to get the best audio performance out the Squeezebox Touch which has I believe just a 600Mhz ARMv6 Processor with limited memory, offering no encouragement at all to projects like Raspyfi.

I'm grateful for the efforts of RaspyFi, and others, to prove the doubters wrong.
 
mikelangeloz, I re-read my posts and I realize that my tone could be misunderstood.

First of all I have to say I admire your work, the effort you have put into this must be tremendous.

My "anger" isn't towards you, and I definitely I am not snobbing, I am though, towards some other folks, who, when the Pi came out, they were like "OMG,OMG AWESOME, most amazing gadget, you can do anything, router, file server, music streamer, video streamer". (see adafruit, hackaday, make etc etc.....). Well it's not. It has fundamental problems hardware and software-wise that need to be solved by the foundation before people start calling it like that. And I'm talking from experience.

That said, if someone has the will/skills to get involved and make it better, he will have my applaud, but we have to be clear it needs a lot of effort and time. Like what you said, that it took you 2 days to install mpd. It took me one day to boot it after an update.
 
There's more than a little irony in someone like Soundcheck, who has long promoted his own ideas about how to get the best audio performance out the Squeezebox Touch which has I believe just a 600Mhz ARMv6 Processor with limited memory, offering no encouragement at all to projects like Raspyfi.

The Touch was made for audio purposes. A single purpose device.
It performed rather well. (And even better with some tweaking)

Most embedded boards are general purpose boards. If they come with audio ports these are usually poorly implemented. Even the peripheral stacks USB/ethernet etc are lower speced then you'd find them on high quality motherboards.
Most of these boards are work-in-progress and come with driver issues.
Do get driver issues under control is PITA. You might wait forever until somebody fixes the flaws.
Usually you need another external audio device/interface.

There is no irony. I do have an idea about general flaws associated to these type of devices. I currently just don't see the potential.

So please. Don't mix things up here.


I can tell you currently I 'd neither go for the Wandboard, nor for the PI, nor for my Minix NEO X5 ( I have a device at home for toying) , since I think that they don't even got the basics right - at least for my purposes.

(I hooked up my old SB Duet recently to avoid my Minix NEO X5 with Android and squeezeplayer.)

People who'd like to go for quality audio should ask, what HW is giving the best starting point for quality audio. I doubt that's the PI is the first choice here. Linux obviously can be considered a perfect base as long as drivers exist.



Cheers
 
Mikelangeloz, who started this thread, was talking about trying to get “the best audio quality possible out of the Raspberry PI”, not about picking the best possible hw.

Your response is basically, forget the “raspberry pi” it is rubbish. Not only that, but you think the efforts of those involved in the “community squeeze” project must also be a waste of time as these devices “don't even got the basics right”. If you have an alternative in mind, I'm sure the members of the “community squeeze” project would be glad to hear from you.

Of course when you bring your own “perfect” player to the market, I'm sure we'll all be happy to listen to it. And you will have combined your knowledge of electrical/electronic and audio engineering with the software skills to configure, patch, compile and maintain any necessary Linux kernel and other software packages in the same way the members of the “community squeeze” project are attempting.

In the mean time, us lesser mortals will use what ever hardware we think is suited to our needs and be interested in getting the best out of it.

Irony? I doubt you'd recognise it if it got up and slapped you in the face.
 
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