What exactly do you mean by USB here? Do you use some USB-to-I2S adapter board?
usb input of a dac, i would guess the same for usb to i2s boards tho since its not much different from what is inside most dacs
i heared some ddc or expesive dacs have quite good usb input circuitry but these begin from like 1k€ as far i saw and i didnt try those (for example with PLL and stuff)
@Ghoostknight I read in another post that Moode is your preferred OS. Have you had a chance to test any of the things that Blitz is testing in Moode? Does it give you access to everything you need to tweak?
you can do in moode everything you can do in a general purpose linux distro (its based on raspbian if remember correctly) with the command line beside maybe a few things which will be harder to modify since moode manages some of the stuff itself
but im not that much of an linux expert, i mainly concentrated on underclocking and isolating cores for mpd (for both you can find quite a few posts from a few years ago where people report the same sq changes disccussed by Blitz, unfortunaly its mainly older posts) and it certainly makes a difference but i havnt really touched the settings for nearly a year, maybe i will pick it up again in some time, one goal i tried which i wasnt able to achieve with my limited linux knowledge was to isolate camillaDSP to its own cores too
would be kinda fun to have a few people that work together on some optimized distro/settings but it takes a huge amount of time to test everything etc, thats why i posted here after i saw the thread
When I said that you should do your own testing I was referring to listening tests. Play some music with a Windows machine as a transport, then do the same using a Linux machine. Both systems are bit-perfect, yet they sound quite different. That is when you realize that there is a point in tuning the OS / software. Added bonus: it's free to do and relatively easy.
Some time ago I designed my own motherboard for the CM3 module. I used components that were already well supported by the RPi community, since they were used on the RPi3. But I paid a lot of attention to the on-board power supplies. Only top-shelf, ultra low noise components.
The end result was 100% software compatible with the RPi3 and sounded considerably better than a 10K commercial network streamer that happened to pass by my house.
I would call that a good investment of time and relatively little money. Total cost for the board with components was ~200€.
Only problem is, all of its components are SMD, plus a lot of them are of size 0402. Not a problem for me, but big problem for most DIYers.
So this is definitely doable, even though it's not for everyone. The only problem these days is that CM3s are in extremely short supply, pretty much only available on the gray market at extraordinary prices. But the supply situation is bound to improve as time passes.
I have done exactly that. I used my own USB-I2S board and DACs. Only difference I noticed was with using different player apps and resamplers. OS did not play any role. I also took measurements. No differences in those either.
Kudos for the nice looking board!
would it be possible to adapt it for CM4 modules? those are also unobtanium, but are possible to order.
also this would be perfect streamer, that providing all RPI 4b can provide, with good clocks and LDO regs.
maybe you can arrange GB to check people's interest; boards could be SMD presoldered by local company and TH elements to solder by DIYers
?In my experience with these SoCs less is more. You don't need the greatest performance - you need a dead quiet system, that is powerful enough for the task at hand.
I remember when the RPi 4 first came out I did a comparison between that and the RPi 3. Both boards were running the same software (or at least as close as I could get them..) and had the same power supply.
The RPi 3 sounded a little bit better / cleaner.
So I could do a CM4 variant, but it may in fact sound worse than the one that I currently use.
Plus there is the issue of powering the CM4.. I believe that it has on-board a number of switching mode power supplies, that can not be bypassed without some serious microsurgery (if at all).
The CM3 only has one SMPS on-board, for the Vcore. The rest of the power supplies can be powered by off board linear LDO regulators.
Regarding a GB, it may be a possibility. But it doesn't make sense right now since the CM3s are unobtanium.
I remember when the RPi 4 first came out I did a comparison between that and the RPi 3. Both boards were running the same software (or at least as close as I could get them..) and had the same power supply.
The RPi 3 sounded a little bit better / cleaner.
So I could do a CM4 variant, but it may in fact sound worse than the one that I currently use.
Plus there is the issue of powering the CM4.. I believe that it has on-board a number of switching mode power supplies, that can not be bypassed without some serious microsurgery (if at all).
The CM3 only has one SMPS on-board, for the Vcore. The rest of the power supplies can be powered by off board linear LDO regulators.
Regarding a GB, it may be a possibility. But it doesn't make sense right now since the CM3s are unobtanium.
I'm curious where does "Pipewire" versus Pulseaudio fit into this? I'm using a Linux distro based on Ubuntu 22.04 which it seems defaults to Pipewire installed. Until recently I had never heard of Pipewire and didn't know what it was for. Is it a good step in the right direction for audio reproduction quality?
Would it be possible to do a redesign using available components? Don't bother DIY soldering, just have the board stuffed and soldered at the factory.
Removing the power supplies from the board is a huge first step to remove noise. One of the advantages of smart phone/tablet design is that they indicate a DC power input with the switching done off at the end of a long cable. Maybe I ought to try putting some ferrite cores on the cable?
How about IP issues? Will you run afoul of the lawyers?
Q7 installed(original Clock,for now Reflektor D),For me the contribution is considerable,The voices are magnificent, the medium opens So logically more details stand out,
The construction of a good streamer begins well.
Even if I were to have the board professionally built and tested, that would not help with the availability of parts.
Right now it is near impossible to find any of the processors used in any of the RPis. That is the main reason that the RPis are unobtanium.
And doing an SBC design from scratch, using literally any available microprocessor, including doing the software, would be way above my pay grade.
So, CM3 it is for me for the foreseeable future.
@Blitz I've been quiet but having fun playing around. I've stumbled across many of your posts on assorted linux forums and they've been helpful. I've got a couple of new SBC's in route to play around with, and purely based on specs I'm most excited about the Beaglebone products. It seems like they're a little more focused on clean power management than their competitors. Would you mind sharing what Distro you're using for your beaglebone?
i wonder if anyone tried gentooplayer? it looks kinda ugly setting it up (i think moode is really great for its easy of use interface, tho it also kinda restricts things you can do)
gentooplayers offer different kernels including RT ones to play around with, you can load the complete OS into ram if you want to and i think other stuff you can tweak in regards of OSnoise, its a "audiophile" distro but since 3.0 it will cost you a little
the main thing that kept me away was the setup of it, there is no unified interface you can interact with, you have a basic settings webinterface and "modules" you can load which mainly (if i understood it right) have there own interface (mpd for example) but im kinda curious how it sounds
gentooplayers offer different kernels including RT ones to play around with, you can load the complete OS into ram if you want to and i think other stuff you can tweak in regards of OSnoise, its a "audiophile" distro but since 3.0 it will cost you a little
the main thing that kept me away was the setup of it, there is no unified interface you can interact with, you have a basic settings webinterface and "modules" you can load which mainly (if i understood it right) have there own interface (mpd for example) but im kinda curious how it sounds
Looks like a solid option, especially if you're on a Pi. I'm trying to decide if the benefits of the Beagle Bone Black outweigh the negatives of generally requiring more linux knowledge in getting things to work. Optimizing Gentooplayer on a Pi looks very straight forward. You seem interested in sticking with Moode. Specifically what features are you looking to hang onto? Maybe there's a workaround?
hmm i think what keeps me at moode is just how easy it is to use and im used to it, tho i really should try gentooplayer since im curious how it compares soundwise and like you said, it looks like a good option for a pi
the main thing that worrys me a bit that there is no "one" interface to interact with but a few, this doesnt look very straightforward in daily use imo, moode just works where gentooplayer needs also some setup since you need to install the modules yourself but maybe i think its more complicated than it actually is
and if we compare looks moode looks really great where gentoo and the "generic" interfaces looks kinda ugly, thats also one of the reasons why i kept away from LMS, it just looks outdated
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Not necessarily,You can use a DLNA player,JRiver For example,With all gentoo options Many interfaces are available.
Good news, Eben Upton announced on his blog today the pi situation is getting better and by Q3 of 2023 he expects it to be fully normalized. He also said several hundred thousand units have been allocated to single retail customers, so hopefully I can get my hands on a pi-4 sometime next quarter!