Test derbraadwurst Rasberry Pi and Moode Audio

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Rasberry pi with Moode Audio

The Rasberry pi is a Single Board Computer for € 39, – Ideal for the audiophile on a budget. But can it also warm the heart of the discerning audiophile?  

Have you saved up for that expensive speaker, and ditto amplifier. But no budget left for the streaming front end? Or are you in dire need for a high-end streaming solution? Maybe you’re a tweak geek or perhaps a streaming novice? Look no further. This ‘could be’ streaming device is here to the rescue.

To say you can do a lot with a rasberry pi is an understatement. I want to tell you about the streaming bit, specifically with Moode Audio. There are several other renderers available. But if you want to have good sound look no further then Moode Audio. I was and still am very amazed.

The Pillars for streaming with a Rasberrry Pi

  • Rasberry Pi 3b/4
  • power supply 5v with micro usb
  • SD Card class 10 minimum 8 gb
  • LAN cable connection with Rasberry Pi. Or if you have stellar wifi, go ahead
  • software: Moode Audio/Volumio/Picoreplayer are the most famious
  • Library with music/and or a subscription to a streaming service (Tidal/Spotify/Qobuz/Deezer etc)
  • PC/mobile phone/tablet to play your music

Rasberry Pi

For starters. What are we talking about? The Rasberry Pi is a Single Board Computer of credit card size which among a multitude of things you can use with specialized software on a SD Card to make it function as an audio streamer. Like a computer it has several inputs and outputs. Some specs for the Rasberry Pi 3b:

  • SoC: Broadcom BCM2837B0 quad-core A53 (ARMv8) 64-bit @ 1.4GHz
  • GPU: Broadcom Videocore-IV
  • RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
  • Networking: Gigabit Ethernet (via USB channel), 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.2, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) (you need an bluetooth usb adapter)
  • Storage: Micro-SD
  • GPIO: 40-pin GPIO header, populated
  • Ports: HDMI, 3.5mm analogue audio-video jack, 4x USB 2.0, Ethernet, Camera Serial Interface (CSI), Display Serial Interface (DSI)
  • Dimensions: 82mm x 56mm x 19.5mm, 50g

Background and the Gist of it

My quest began for something convenient in 2015 to listen music too. I began with a Logitech Squeezebox Touch. The Touch was great. It had a screen with artwork, a remote control, but it was also controlable with an ipad or phone. I had a Spotify account and it was great. Espcially when i installed Tidal via USB. But even then i began to summerize that the software was holding my musical experience back.

Probably around 2016 i switched over to the Rasberry Pi and I haven’t looked back. There some

 

On it’s own the Rasberry Pi is not a great streaming renderer. You can hook up a 3.5mm jack to your hifi system, or via the USB. But the sound will be mediocre at best. One of the aces up it’s sleeve are the HAT boards (Hardware Attached on Top). These boards are specifically made for audio use and circumvent the crappyness of the Rasberry Pi on it’s own. They are attached via 40 GPIO pins onto the Rasberry Pi and if you buy more boards, you can stack them upon each other. The boards vary from manufacturer in price, functionality (other functions than DA conversion).

My own starter board was the Digi+ Pro board from hifiberry for € 34.90 What you get with this board is an output for Toslink, Coaxial RCA or BNC. Because my dac doesn’t have USB this is a great board. And it sounded amazing!  + add feeling…….emotions text

If you want an all-in-one solution with a 153 watt amp like the loco dac amp V2 (amp + dac + streaming in one) from Dion Audio is a great choice. You can also forget the add-on boards and stream via usb asynchronous (from the Rasberry Pi USB) to a USB SPDIF converter, or direct to your USB dac.

There are a couple of manufacturers that have a specific case for a Rasberry pi + some add-on boards. But nobody is stopping you to buy a standard hifi component metal case and fit the Rasberry + add-on boards into that. Remember that not all HAT boards combination have cases! Most do not. So the end result can look pretty DIY, although it’s pretty small and light weight. Excellent for in a cabinet.  Less so for a hifirack.

  • Hifiberry
  • Digione
  • Ian Canada
  • IQaudIO
  • Dion Audio
  • Audiophonics

Are some companies/manufacturers that make these add-on boards.

What i like about the Rasberry Pi eco system is that it is so versatile for the audio lover. You can have it anyway you want. And the boards are fairly cheap, plus new boards are always on the horizon.

Clean Power

The Rasberry pi greatly likes clean 5v lineair power supplies. This the 2nd ace up it’s sleeve. I myself started out with your old Nokia style phone charger with micro usb. It sounded meh. Upgraded to some other smps power supply. But it was soldered directly to the Rasberry Pi 3b. Defintive a uptick in sound quality. Then tried a 5 volts Sbooster ECO lineair power supply with micro usb (the normal way to connect the Rasberry Pi). Wow! is my only reaction. It sounded very very good. This is the way to listen to music.

 

 

 

The Rasberry Pi greatly loves good clean power. You can power it up with a wall wart 5v micro usb adapter. Those old phone chargers are sufficient to start with.

 

 

I chose a Rasberry pi 3b with  a hifiberry digi+ pro add-on board

 

You can have among others:

  • a decent dedicated dac
  • several
  • Rasberry pi connected i2S directly to your dac

 

You can turn this very small computer of credit card size into a streaming goliath via a very simple procedure. You need to flash an sd card and, log into the pi with your browser on your laptop. Change