pi based systems

[Grumpy Bob]

A bit of a rushed picture, but here is my current main setup.

Raspberry pi running piCorePlayer into an All Boss DAC which then feeds an Onkyo 9010 amplifier out to KEF LS50 speakers.

So far very happy with the setup.

Attachment 24483

How do you find the Kef LS50 speakers? I was toying with the idea of replacing my floorstanding Missions which take up rather too much space with some smaller speakers. Was thinking of giving the LS50 speakers an audition. Aesthetically I rather like the rose gold cones!

Robert

[Paul Webster]

I've gone for what looks to be a slightly different route from the rest of the photos on here. I've gone for a completely hidden install and in-ceiling speakers.

This is one of the ugly monster stacks I've built. This one includes:

• Two pi's
• 2 relays
• 2 100w mini amps
• Shared power supply for the amps

It may not look pretty, but it doesn't matter as it's all hidden away discretely. They are connected to in ceiling speakers in the various rooms, and configured so the various amps turn on/off with the players.

All in all I have 10 separate zones running smoothly.

Was that single "ugly monster stack" for 2 zones or more?

[edwin2006]

Why 2 pi's?

[atca]

maybe because

That means 5 squeezelite sessions on each rpi.
10 zones might be overkill but using two devices for that is imho a good idea..

But how do you get 10 zones from two amps? And two pi's with two line outs?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[odw199]

How do you find the Kef LS50 speakers?

Robert

Love them, they are my first proper speakers and they sound amazing.

[Fahzz]

How do you find the Kef LS50 speakers? I was toying with the idea of replacing my floorstanding Missions which take up rather too much space with some smaller speakers. Was thinking of giving the LS50 speakers an audition. Aesthetically I rather like the rose gold cones!

Robert

I really like these speakers too. Beware that the online price from KEF Direct fluctuates periodically. They were down to $999 around the holidays last year, but that might have been a one time deal.

[wl1]

A case that I cut out of a 2.5" thick block of wood using my CNC. This is v2 which took just over 5 minutes total to cut.

Using Official 7" display, Pi 2, HiFiBerry Amp+ and a couple of 2.5" speakers.

Attachment 23082

Thanks for the inspiration for my Garage Boom2....


Raspberry Pi 3 with HifiBrrry Amp2+ piggy backed, with a Meanwell PSU. PiCorePlayer running as SqueezeLite player and Server.

The speakers were Pioneer car speakers left over from years ago....along with 9mm plywood left from lining my shed.

[s2kiwi]

But how do you get 10 zones from two amps? And two pi's with two line outs?

Ok, let me give a little more info on the system. This is only one small example part of it.

I generally have each pi doing two things. That may be 2 squeeze players or 1 player and some other function. I found reliability dropped if I had more than 2 players on a single Pi.

The stack you see here as an example has:

1. Pi 1 = running 1 player (i2c dac) and also my home VPN
2. Pi 2 = 1 player (i2c Dac) + other monitoring scripts, web server etc.

The rest of the house set up is:

• Another stack has 2 pi, 4 players (one i2c DAC and one USB DAC on each pi) and 4 amps.
• Another pi3 runs outside speakers with another amp + it runs kodi for the TV.
• A laptop software player does the 8th zone (another mini amp). I have a pi/dac to swap this to when I get time

Lastly I have 2 portable speakers I use for the 9th and 10th zones. I'm quite proud of these as they use a great quality Arcam Cube portable speaker with a small pi/dac combo on the back running of the USB power out of the cube - the sound is brilliant and they have about 7-8 hours battery life. These serve a main room, and can also get moved around when I'm working in un-speakered rooms (like the garage, front garden etc)





Actually, I've missed an 11th zone that's used on/off. I run squeeze player on my android to play through noise blocking headphones when doing the lawns/hedge mowing etc.

Everything is controlled by an ipad mounted on the kitchen pantry, a pair of jogglers around the house, or via phone client. I'm working on hardware switches for it at the moment, but it's a work in progress.

[deadushka]

This is awesome amp. I built it just to try this board and it just floored me. Very easy to assemble.

[wtnh]

Inspired by Pascal's designs from last year, I got around to finishing a similar unit. Originally, I was going to put the power supply in the same box as the player, but things got too cramped. So I built a separate box for the linear power supply.

The player consists of a Raspberry Pi 3B, official Raspberry Pi touchscreen, Allo Boss DAC and an Allo I2S isolator.

Finished unit looks like this:



Since I had room in the power supply chassis, I decided to add batteries for the I2S isolator and the DAC. This required a switching relay to connect the LiPo cells in parallel (for charging) and in series for running the DAC. The toroid is a 25VA dual 9 volt secondary unit connected to a dual LT1083 linear regulator, outputting 5 volts for the Pi and 7 volts for the charging circuits. The batteries will run the DAC for about 20 hours - but go into charge mode when I power off the Pi:



Here are the two units side by side:



Here is a closeup of the Pi stack. The Pi is on the bottom, the I2S isolator is in the middle, and the Boss is on the top.



How does it sound? To my ears, pretty darn good, particularly on hi-rez tracks like 24-bit downloads from HD Tracks. On batteries, it is dead silent (ear to speaker, max gain). I will probably upgrade to the new Boss DAC sometime soon sonce most reviewers find it sounding even better.

Thanks to Pascal for the design ideas.

Whit