AudioNervosa

Systemic Development => Digital Audio Devices => Topic started by: richidoo on February 04, 2017, 11:56:09 AM

Title: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 04, 2017, 11:56:09 AM
I'm a Linux noob and my Pi don't work.

All questions welcome. All advice welcome.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 04, 2017, 12:08:21 PM
So I got my RPi 3B! Amazon same day $71 total for everything.  :thumb:

I downloaded Moode Audio zip file. Extracted the image file. Format overwrite the SD Card, then wrote the image to microSD using USBIT
http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/

I tried to use Rufus imager like Deepak recommended, but it couldn't see the SD card in device field.

After writing the image I glanced at the SD drive with windows explorer before ejecting the SD card, files were there.

Inserted SD into Pi, connect USB to Pi, power on DAC in USB mode, connect ethernet cable, link lights active. Power on Pi, browse  http://moode but I get nothing.

Check DHCP server for moode client, it is there. Try to nav to moode by IP address, no response. Not even with explicit port :80 suffix.

Not sure what to do now. How do I try again? Is it safe to just unplug the PS from the Pi without software shutdown command? Can't remember if I read that pulling the plug can damage it.

Moode setup instructions:
http://moodeaudio.org/docs/readme.txt
Pretty simple... hard to mess it up, unless you're me  :lol:
Thanks!
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 04, 2017, 01:13:45 PM
I was able to putty in and shutdown. I reinstalled the SD and unplugged the USB. Restarted and it worked. Plugged in USB and refreshed browser, all OK.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: shadowlight on February 04, 2017, 03:08:13 PM
Glad to hear that you got it working.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 04, 2017, 04:34:45 PM
Thanks Deepak!  :)

Got it dialed in nicely. Resampling to 352k at 32 bits gives a nice sound. Now just listening and enjoying.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on February 05, 2017, 06:07:15 AM
Good news, Rich.

You can see that 16/48 flac Czech station on the radio list - it's # 12 on my list so it should be close on your fresh install.

How are you getting your files to Moode? USB attached to Pi?  Over network?

-Mike
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on February 05, 2017, 06:19:56 AM
And now that you've done Moode, you can load up Picoreplayer in a few minutes and try that too for kicks. Deeep set of filtering options.

It seems like you can now run LMS and Picoreplayer on the same Pi. Cool.

Gettin cheaper and better all the time.

Performance unimaginable for the price just couple of years months ago.

Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 05, 2017, 07:32:57 AM
Tons of great radio stations, including Czech Classical flac. I've not listened to it yet.

Is it possible to add my own internet radio stations to the list?

My wife and daughter want it to play Spotify real bad. Is that possible? I guess I'd look for linux spotify app (my first instinct suggests it doesn't exist.)

As for filtering, etc. I've set Moode to "resample" from 44.1/16 to 352.8/32bit via "SoX: very high quality." That made a really nice improvement in tone and refinement compared to original redbook flac. More info:
https://sourceforge.net/p/soxr/code/ci/master/tree/README

Then I picked an output filter on my DAC that got rid of the hyper spacious hyper detail and made it like normal music listening without the mental fireworks that audiophiles love about the Vega DAC. The DAC is so revealing, it can be a bit rough on remastered CD recordings of 60s jazz, etc. I used Trane My Fav Things to pick which filter since the soprano is sensitive to those tone changes. That's all I've done so far, but after those two changes, I thought of you and said to myself, "all done at least until I hear from Mike... "

Moode has an optional Advanced Kernel that you can install which is somehow better than the standard core, but only runs on Pi2 or 3. So I turned that on also, but did so before I started listening, so I don't know if SQ changes. They say it does.

OK so when you run a squeezebox clone like PiCore, then you are also running the LMS on the Pi also. I was thinking you were still running server on separate box like the old days. Does LMS and PiCoreplayer install together as a package, or separate installs? I'll have to read about that. I think I still have an ooooold slimserver running on my NAS  :shock:

I am playing music now from flacs on my NAS via wired ethernet. I have WAVs on the nas too, and Moode can navigate the wav folders but no music files appear in the folders. So it seems to need a metafile header of some type to be able to display it. No problem, I've been meaning to rerip those to flac for a decade.

The Moode player was a bit flaky when I first started using it. I was worried that it was buggy and annoying. Pause button wouldn't work, inverting the song timer would restart the song, Clear and play would not clear, on and on. But that was because of all the config setting changes I was making without reboot. After a reboot it was bug free and rock solid all night. Boots in a few seconds.
I'll check out PiCoreplayer
Thanks
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 05, 2017, 11:55:02 AM
I can play the 256k czech radio, but the flac doesn't work on Moode nor on my laptop foobar neither. Tis working for you today Mike?
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 09, 2017, 09:24:12 AM
My wife and daughter cook together while listening to music, and their music is all on Spotify, so they wanted to play Spotify on the stereo.

Easy, just turn on airplay in Moode Audio configuration, set the airplay name and voila. Now they can play and control Spotify from their own (apple) phones. Even volume level can be controlled by airplay if you turn that feature on.

Is there an app to do "airplay" from Android?

Also, Spotify Connect will be integrated into next release of Moode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4K2CtaVBo
https://twitter.com/moodeaudio
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on February 09, 2017, 01:32:16 PM
Hey Rich, sorry I couldn't check the Czech flac station the other night.

Get it working?


-Mike
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: djdube525 on February 09, 2017, 09:43:00 PM
Is there an app to do "airplay" from Android?

Hey Rich,

Several Airplay Apps for Android  listed here...  (https://drfone.wondershare.com/airplay/android-airplay-apps.html)

Would Twonky Beam work for you?
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on February 10, 2017, 07:14:12 AM
Thanks for the list Dave. I'll check it out.
Twonky link says "not available in your country yet," It's not in Google Play. No biggie, my Sonos works fine for streaming.

Airfoil will send from my laptop browser to RPi, but there's no Android version for sending, only for receiving.

I guess linux needs a way to run browser apps on RPi and send the audio out through the audio player, like WDM. Does that mke sense?
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: jimbones on February 10, 2017, 07:56:51 AM
Pi O My :lol:
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on April 11, 2017, 12:24:59 PM
Moode didn't work out so well for me. Airplay worked once, then broke. Then I tried playing music from flash drive, it saw the tracks but couldn't play them. The interface was OK, I'll might it again sometime.

A friend suggested I try Volumio, it's supposed to be very easy. So I'm trying that out today. Moode didn't sound fantastic until I activated its 'SoX resampling' feature. I hope Volumio has as good sound quality or a similar interpolating resampling feature. If not I'll have to try to debug Moode to make airplay work so my girls can stream to it.

I learned how to use the windows command line program DISKPART to remove Moode's linux partition from my SD card. The SD only showed 60MB total capacity when I tried to format it for Volumio. Apparently this is normal behavior for Windows trying to format removable linux drives.
http://nlb-creations.com/2013/01/17/removing-partitions-from-a-usb-thumb-drive
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on April 12, 2017, 10:26:24 AM
Volumio is working great. Airplay is always on, works good. Volumio sounds very good all by itself without resampling, unlike Moode. Moode has the excellent SoX resampling (http://sox.sourceforge.net/SoX/Resampling) available which is required when using Moode in a high resolution system, imo. Volumio will be adding resampling once they find a version of MPD that is stable enough to handle the high processing demands. That made me wonder if the Moode stability issues I experience are due to having SoX resampling set to max (32 bit 354kHz,) which sounds glorious. Without Moode resampling turned on, upper mids are pretty harsh and unrealistic. The same test track (Coltrane Lazy Bird) has much smoother and realistic tenor tone, but slightly glassy cymbals, but otherwise very engaging. I don't expect perfection from a $75 digital source. But it is good enough for me at the moment.

I am using an OLD version of Sol's I-15 integrated amp. It is less resolving than the Mod-86 amps, so when I put those back in service this week, their higher resolution may expose more tonal issues with Volumio. Upgrades breed more upgrades.

At the last G2g, jtwrace brought over his SOtM sMS-200, a $600 highend, audio-optimized streamer, like uRendu. It sounded great with Anand's Mod-86 amps. So that's an option if I find the Volumio/Pi not good enough.

Volumio 2.0 has no easy way to program custom webradio stations. You have to edit the list file manually, remotely.

Volumio had resampling and webradio stations in ver 1.5, so they are supposedly in the pipeline for replacement in 2.0.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: tmazz on April 12, 2017, 03:21:04 PM
Upgrades breed more upgrades.

Ain't that the truth.  :roll:
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on May 27, 2017, 08:07:16 PM
Couldn't get volumio to connect to my USB Dac tonight futzed with it for an hour before loading the Dac driver on my laptop to hear music. I will waste another hour tomorrow to ditch volumio and go back to newest version of moode audio for one last try at RPi before moving on to a PC

EDIT: Moode 3.7 up and running. I was using 3.4 last time. Lots of bug fixes and improvements since then. Looking forward to trying it out again. No Spotify Connect as was promised, but Airplay is still there, hope it works better now.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on June 15, 2017, 06:14:20 PM
Jus keepin it real, yo...  Rpi is out of my system. After playing an album, working fine, suddenly Moode wouldn't scroll down through my NAS folders. It showed the first few folders, it was not frozen, everything worked fine, as long as I only wanted to play the first 6 artists in a folder.

I enjoyed unplugging it without first issuing shutdown command. That felt good. I needed it to be OFF asap. I wanted to throw it across the room hard, but I restrained myself to a soft throw only a few feet against nearby wall. There was a satisfying bounce. I think it felt slight pain, which was my goal.

My wife tried to tease me about it, so I threatened to turn it into a TV server and let her have fun with the bugs while she tries to watch "Fixer Upper." hehe

Sorry, but it's just too buggy for me. If I was 20-something and just as interested in linux as music I'd be fine. But I want it to be an invisible, reliable appliance, and it's not that yet. Volumio, Moode, different versions, all buggy. And can't play Spotify on it.

I'm spoilt by Sonos. But my DAC chokes on so much jitter. Really don't want to DIY anymore, so looking for a more fully baked streaming appliance.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: Nick B on June 15, 2017, 08:26:46 PM
Jus keepin it real, yo...  Rpi is out of my system. After playing an album, working fine, suddenly Moode wouldn't scroll down through my NAS folders. It showed the first few folders, it was not frozen, everything worked fine, as long as I only wanted to play the first 6 artists in a folder.

I enjoyed unplugging it without first issuing shutdown command. That felt good. I needed it to be OFF asap. I wanted to throw it across the room hard, but I restrained myself to a soft throw only a few feet against nearby wall. There was a satisfying bounce. I think it felt slight pain, which was my goal.

My wife tried to tease me about it, so I threatened to turn it into a TV server and let her have fun with the bugs while she tries to watch "Fixer Upper." hehe

Sorry, but it's just too buggy for me. If I was 20-something and just as interested in linux as music I'd be fine. But I want it to be an invisible, reliable appliance, and it's not that yet. Volumio, Moode, different versions, all buggy. And can't play Spotify on it.

I'm spoilt by Sonos. But my DAC chokes on so much jitter. Really don't want to DIY anymore, so looking for a more fully baked streaming appliance.

Well, at least you got rid of some frustration...and a mediocre product. I'm loving my Auralic Mini nowadays. Don't know if it would work in your application. I probably mentioned this in another post, but Wyred4sound makes a board for Sonos. It is over $500
Nick
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on June 15, 2017, 09:45:24 PM
Thanks Nick.

I have the Auralic Vega DAC, trying to find good input for it. They make good stuff!

I did try a W4S Sonos a long time ago, but I preferred the stock Sonos so I sent it back. It had that "SRC sound," but there's no way to defeat the SRC.

I don't want to give the wrong impression. There's nothing wrong with RPi, as millions of users love it. There's only minor issues with the free music player OS, they're almost there, and it's no problem for a normal person to cope. Just reboot it and it would work. For $100 all in it is a miracle value with superb sound quality. The problem with it is me. I don't want to reboot it. I just expect too much from it. I'll give it a rest and try it again sometime.

Meantime I just ordered myself a SOtM SMS-200 for my berfday Tues. I've heard it sound great in my own system and seen it run flawlessly in less than ideal conditions. I got 1yr Roon for $70, so if that combo don't float my boat then I'm just incorrigible.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on September 16, 2017, 04:40:55 PM
I have an Allo Digione  https://www.allo.com/sparky/digione.html (https://www.allo.com/sparky/digione.html) coming to sit on one of my Pis. Supposed to cure the common cold and save the honeybees.
I'll run PiCorePlayer on it and output via RCA to my dac. The USB unput of the dac is fed by a fanless, cheap but amazing little PC https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M24W77N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M24W77N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) running Tidal, or JRiver, or YouTube, or Internet radio, or...
IME for bit rates that can be handled by both USB and RCA, the RCA wins out by a bit. More solid. Of couse if you want to go beyond 24/192 you need USB...
-Mike
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on September 16, 2017, 08:16:59 PM
That's really cool Mike! I will definitely check that out.
Do you find PiCorePlayer to be very stable and reliable? Do you use LMS and Player running together on the Pi?
Thanks.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on September 17, 2017, 07:41:05 AM
Hi Rich,

I run LMS on my main PC that's in another room, where the music is. I have many different LMS clients (if that's the right term) around the house so I treat the main PC as the mother ship and run the Pis, Duets, Radio and Touch from it. Haven't tried LMS on the Pi itself.

I have never had any stability /reliability issues with PCP. It's just a great program IMHO.

-Mike
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: richidoo on September 17, 2017, 12:09:27 PM
Nice! Thanks Mike

I like your idea of different digital inputs to the DAC for low res and hires streaming.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on September 17, 2017, 02:03:13 PM
The ultimate goal is to get a Singxer SU-1 to go between the mini-PC and the dac so I can go I2S directly into the dac.

Hard drive - PC#1 - switch#1 - switch#2 - PC#2 - Wyred Remedy - future SU-1 - dac.  The purist audiophile  :rofl:
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: HAL on September 17, 2017, 02:45:44 PM
I have an XMOS XU208 USB to I2S Bus interface Singxer U208 board running on my MS-3 running Windows 10 Home Premium x64.  Going to be using it with an AKM AK4495S DAC via I2S BUS.  I just installed their USB 3.20 version driver and the board was running.

Going to compare it to the Amanero U8 Combo 384 USB board.

Not the SU-1, just the board level product. 
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: shadowlight on September 19, 2017, 05:50:58 PM
I have to agree with Mike that piCore is one of the simplest and stable setup for Pi.  I have tried both Volumio (sp?) and Moode Audio, with issues.  If anyone wants to try a Pi setup with Allo Kali and Piano DAC let me know and I can send my setup on tour.  It is configured to have LMS running on another system. 
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on December 16, 2017, 05:31:57 AM
If you accidentally feed a Pi with 9V, it goes POP, a little smoke comes out and it smells funky. Yup. In that order.
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: HAL on December 16, 2017, 10:41:43 AM
Sorry to hear you let the magic smoke out of the Pi.  :cry:
Title: Re: Raspberry Pi - Keepin It Real
Post by: mfsoa on December 16, 2017, 10:53:52 AM
I've never been so not upset at damaging a critical piece of stereo gear! $35 and two days later everything works again. My Digione remained intact!

The cause: I bought an HDPlex 200W power supply and had some voltages modified. I wanted the 5V output raised to 9V and didn't realize that this would also raise the voltage of the USB output, which I had planned on using to power the Pi. So, Zappo.

To HDPlex's credit they offered to pay for the damaged PI, but all I really want is for them to remind others that the 5V output and the USB output are the same, if they get the 5V modified.

BTW the current 200W units have 2 adjustable outputs (not 1 per the web site) and they are adjusted internally (I wigged out when the pictured adjustment screw was not present on my unit)