FrankenFest Winter 2018 Seminars

This thread is for folks requesting or planning seminars for out March 10th 2018 event in Sutton, MA.

Main Thread:
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index....fest-saturday-march-10-2018-sutton-ma.795147/

 

Raspberry Pi-based Digital Music Server session. This will happen at 1:00PM.

I will put on a short session starting at 1:00 where participants could learn about and maybe even put together and configure a Raspberry Pi-based (RPi) server using (free) Volumio software.

What can it do for you?
- Connect to your wired and/or wireless network(s)
- Stream digital files from a network server or from PC/Mac computers, smart phones, etc.
- Act as an Airplay device to play streams from any Airplay-transmitting devices
- Play a wide variety of streaming radio stations and you can add your own
- Play through a variety of DACs all the way up to DSD128. (The onboard analog out isn't great.)
- Be a high quality signal source for analog components or powered speakers

Up for this? If so, decide whether you want to just watch or if you want to build your own. If you want to build one to take home, bring the following:

- A Raspberry Pi 3B board. These cost $35 or so. Micro Center in Cambridge has them on sale for $30.
The RPi 3B has wired and wireless ports, Bluetooth, 4 USB ports, lots of memory, etc.

- An RPi power supply good for at least 2 amps. $7-11.

- A Class 10 or better MicroSD memory card. 4Gb should do it but play safe and get 8Gb.

- Maybe a case but you'll need one that fits whatever DAC you'll use (see below).

- Optional: An I2S DAC that has good quality and leaves the RPi USB ports dedicated to data.
The HiFiBerry DAC+ is a good choice. See their bundles.
There are many other I2S DACs. See the Volumio shop.

- You can also bring your USB DAC and USB cable.

- Also, please bring an ethernet cable if you can in case we need/want to hard wire during config.

If you go with the RPi 3B, power supply, 8Gb memory, HiFiBerry DAC+ RCA and no case config, the whole show should cost you about $90 or so.

Any takers? Here's my Volumio screen as I write this. I'm listening to Radio Paradise from California.


PS - If 1-2 other people want to do this with me, that would be great.

 

Mac friendly?

 

Sure! You only need something that can connect to the same network and run a browser to configure and use it.

 

Wow that is tempting. I've been wanting to try this. I'm a wiz with the puters, and was just going to figure it out by myself. It's not that hard from what I've read. But to have someone right there to help is very tempting. I wasn't really planning on making it between my crappy car, and having to work. But you are really tempting me.

No commitment yet. But trust me. I'll be thinking about it. I need to do some research first too though. I may just want to build a streamer, and use a DAC I already have. I like the idea of i2s though. And there's one version I've seen that gets great reviews. It's only around $50 too. It certainty wouldn't hurt to try it at that price I guess. Now I just need to stop buying speakers for a week, or two. So I can afford it. Lol

Great idea either way, and I hope others see the potential here too. These are awesome. For me half the motivation is to stop using my expensive laptop as my music machine. It's either listen to music, or use the laptop. I mean it has speakers too, but umm just No. Even if they're Bang and Olufsen. They sound terrible. I definitely need a streamer.

 

Come to Frankenfest! It's good for you!

 

Great!
Look forward to meeting you!
Cheers, Glenn

 

Gentle reminder - This thread is about seminars for the upcoming AK event in Sutton. It has been pulled well off that topic. Can we get back to that?

I haven't heard whether anyone wants me to do the Volumio/Raspberry Pi music server seminar I offered way back in post #2. I'm happy to do it but I'll pull the plug if there is no interest. Thanks.

 

Can this do Google Play, Amazon Music, and/or Tidal? I'm pretty sure it can, but think it takes some doing.

I'd like to do it. Money's so tight right now though, because I'm putting together a SS system for rock /metal which blew my HiFi fund. Then I hit a pothole last night, and blew the tire AND rim.

So fun spending my one day off fixing that let me tell you.

But seriously. I would love to. Can you give it a few more days? I want to see how things go here. I need to scrounge up what I can to do it. And go from there. I need to really hunt my house for a PS. I must have one, but I've only found 1.6 amps so far.

And I have a 32gb micro SD, but I jammed it into my laptop not realizing it's an SD slot. Lol

BTW I can't believe no one else is into this. This is basically the best deal out there right now for a streamer. Heck, and a DAC. This isn't amateur hour. This is top quality digital audio for dirt. To get any better you need to spend 10 times as much.

 

No worries. Sure, let’s see if others are interested. Even if only a few people want to do it, I’m up for it. Thanks.

 

No. Thank you for offering to help man. I really appreciate it, and I sincerely hope I can take advantage of it.
Like I said earlier. I'm a whiz with computers and can figure it out myself in the end. But only a dang fool passes up a helping hand. I've never worked with these, and any help would be very much appreciated. Two minds are ALWAYS better then one!

Should we push this on another section of AK maybe? If that's allowed, that is. Like a reminder thread somewhere maybe? I dunno. I just feel like there's others that would do this if they knew it was being offered. But they're busy doing there thing, and don't know. Because like said. This is the real deal, and for very little money.

 

I'm interested in this.

 

@LexDM3 - What types of files will this play? What streaming services does it support? Can it stream to multiple AirPlay devices? THANKS!

 

GREAT IDEA @LexDM3
I think that it might be a good idea to give a basic overview of the Pi , then a bit of how it relates to and can be incorporated into an Audio setup and then specifically Volumio.
There are so many add on boards (aka HATS) that allows you to do various things with a Rasberry Pi it can be overwhelming. Dan named a couple that are used in Audio projects, including the Hifi Berry which is solid. I use one myself. This is an AWESOME topic for a seminar and alone can be a series but the basics can certainly be covered at Frankenfest and folks can leave with a fully operable Volumio/ PI network streamer.

If you can't make it Microcenter. Newark/Element 14 is a good source for Pi related gear, and as Dan mentioned, Volumio's site, Hifiberry, Allo.com who makes the VOLT+ amp in addition to other units. Amazon.com offers kits from various vendors, Canakit being one of them. - They also make a well regarded power supply for the Pi.

 

Hi. To answer Baco99's question, I refer you to the Volumio website and Forums. You can find answers to those questions and many more. My short answer - You can stream pretty much any type of music file up to DSD512. Obviously it's best to have a DAC that can natively play the files you want to hear BUT Volumio can do an on-the-fly conversion if you want to play a DSD file on a non-DSD DAC. It works.

Volumio supports Tidal and Spotify for sure using easily installed plug-ins. There may be more that you can add. You can also pick from hundreds of web radio stations or add your own.

Bostown - I'm not planning to do a comprehensive intro to all that you can do with a Raspberry Pi. That would take days...

Yes, you can do a ton of different things with a Raspberry Pi but my focus will be on music streamers. I'll discuss, demo and allow you to build your own streamer using free Volumio software on an RPi but there are other streaming software packages out there as well like Rune Audio. You can do your own research. If you decide you'd rather use some other software, you can reload your Micro SD card, boot up and listen away.

There are also music indexers and servers like BubbleUPnPServer. I use that to index and serve up the contents of my NAS but that's beyond the scope of what we will cover in this session. My goal is to allow people to understand and use these things when they leave, not have to check into a local hospital with a pounding migraine! Trying to figure this stuff out from scratch can be puzzling. That's why I thought this approach makes sense.

 

I'm interested

 

Oh ,
If we can shang hai one of the pii savvy guys to the mid Atlantic or NY meets, that would be stellar!

 

Reminder: I'll be doing a Raspberry Pi-based Digital Music Server seminar. This will happen at 1:00PM.

If you want to build your own system there to bring home, you will need to bring, at minimum:

- A Raspberry Pi 3B (recommended) board
- A power supply for the RPi (5 or 5.25 VDC, at least 2 amps, micro USB connector)
- A Micro SD card (at least 8Gb, Class 10 or better)

See the post above for details.

 

Is it ok if I sit in without having a Rpi? I forgot to order one in time and I'd still like to learn how to do it right.