Building a Raspberry Pi-based streamer - a guide for the nervous

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Kattefjaes, Feb 19, 2017.

  1. bigbear1997

    bigbear1997 Acquaintance

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    Howto turn off hdmi? Thx.
     
  2. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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    Just a quick update on my previous post.

    Please note that my goals were the following:
    1. Headless streaming
    2. Spotify integration
    3. Remote control by iOS (iPhone and iPad)
    4. Eitr compatibility with coaxial output to a vintage R2R DAC


    I was able to get runeaudio running on my the Pi, much thanks to @Kattefjaes for the great instructions. I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to programming, but the instructions were easy enough to follow that I was able to set up the Pi. Eventually, I was able to get Spotify working only via AirPlay (not ideal, but the best I can do at the moment). Some notes:

    1. Wifi on the Pi was a bit slow, I had a difficult time getting songs to play all the way through without lag. Solved this by using Ethernet, but since my home isn't wired, I bought one of those devices that outputs Ethernet through your outlets for $20. Since then, no issues with connecting and streaming. Sounds great.

    2. Using Spotify via AirPlay isn't perfect, but it comes close. There's a noticeable 4-5 second lag between my phone and what's being played. I don't really mind it, because it doesn't ever really lose connection. Eventually, I want to find a way to not use airplay and truly stream Spotify from the Pi. I'll try to experiment with other clients later.

    3. Speaking of which, what exactly is AirPlay? Is it a glorified Bluetooth where I'm actually streaming from my phone?

    4. Overall I'm happy, having accomplished the goals I set. Using the eitr was simple, it was simply plug and play. And I had no issues with my vintage DAC, except that it spazzes a little before it locks onto the bitrate provided by the Pi/Eitr. If anyone could recommend a good client that plays Spotify that works well with iOS, I'm all ears (I think that bubbleupnp is android only, but I saw mentions of moode, volumnio...)
     
  3. bigbear1997

    bigbear1997 Acquaintance

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  4. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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  5. mcninja9

    mcninja9 New

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    I just got my Raspberry Pi going with Rune thanks to the instructions here! I can confirm that Spotify does work on Rune. It's a little bit awkward. When I clicked on Spotify, there are many undefined (undefined) items on the playlist. I have to scroll down a little bit to the bottom of all that to see my saved playlist on Spotify. Once I get past that part, it plays flawlessly.
     
  6. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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    Actually my bad, I got it to work. Also, I got the Rune UI to work on my iPhone too. A little clunky, so right now I'm playing with Volumio, which is very similar to Rune, but easier to use and more aesthetic.
     
  7. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    Volumio has a free app on the App Store you might want to check out but I only used it briefly so couldn't say how well it works. Soundirok is decent and pretty full featured (and what I use with moode, which I also recommend though it's $10 with a new paid upgrade due around the end of the year) but has a few problems. I tried an earlier version of mpdremote and it's faster than soundirok but doesn't have the feature set. If you're ok with the web ui you can press the share button in Safari and select "add to home screen" which creates a standalone instance of the web ui accessible from an icon on the home screen that might be more convenient than using it in the browser.
     
  8. HiFiRobot

    HiFiRobot New

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  9. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    There is a great plugin for Volumio that allows you to use Spotify connect which will complete your original goal.
    It is called volspotconnect just download the zip file and then from volumio go to install plugin and point it to the zip file.

    Edit: looks like I got beat to the punch.
     
  10. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    Despite @Kattefjaes wonderful tutorial, I'm lost on this. I bought a RP3 and Digi+ about a year ago, tried to quickly set it up and didn't finish. Then I got busy and left it. Now that my schedule permits I would like to get this running so I have it for when the weather gets cold.

    I don't have a NAS. I've got some USB hard drives loaded with music that I wanted to try first after getting this running, then eventually I'll do a NAS. My plan was to run it headless and control it with an iPad or my phone and then run the digital output to my Yggdrasil.

    This is what I've done so far. I loaded Rune Audio on a micro sdhc and when I hook an HDMI to a monitor, I can see the rune interface. I hooked a wireless keyboard to the RP3 and tried to explore the menu but the keyboard/mouse is unresponsive except for letting me highlight a few buttons on the application. That's when I realized I needed to read up on this some more and came back to this thread, not having read it for a while. Because I started this a year ago, I'm assuming I still need to update the kernel to work with the Digi+. I connected it to my Mac Mini via ethernet so I could detect the IP and do the terminal stuff, but it either shows the RP3 as disconnected or connected but no internet, where it assigns a manual address. It usually just settles to disconnected after a minute or two.

    So what do I need to do here? I may be misunderstanding what I can do with this thing, but at least for now I'm stuck with Rune loaded, but no way to control it or make any necessary setup modifications with my Mac terminal.

    Thanks.
     
  11. Xen

    Xen Friend

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    Hmmm... Keyboard/mouse issues, network connect issues... Those should all be handled by the operating system automagically. Is your Rune image the newest available?

    I know wireless keyboards may have issues with older kernels. My little wireless keyboard was not recognized by the 3.x series kernel in an old, free version of MoOde. I upgraded it to a recent 4.x and the keyboard was recognized. Not sure why the wireless was not working as that part is pretty old and standardized.

    Interesting...the display is for touch use only... see this post: http://www.runeaudio.com/forum/keyboard-doesn-t-work-enough-to-do-anything-useful-t5635.html#p22743

    I am guess WiFi Access Point from the RPI3 should be on by default with a Rune. See if a laptop or a smartphone can see a Rune-like access Wi-Fi access point.
     
  12. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    Thanks Xen. The Rune image is NOT the latest. I can try a re-do on that. With the current one I tried 3 different wireless keyboards. I don't have a wired one laying around.

    So I think that I have at least got the right idea of how this is supposed to work at least. I'll report back when I get the latest version of Rune. I looked at some other boards for info on the keyboard problem. You'd think if that is a possibility I would have found it in some other thread.

    Thanks again!
     
  13. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    So I've realized that a 4-5 second lag from input on iPad to Pi wasn't just limited to Airplay, it also happens with Roon as well...

    Is this normal or some settings I need to change?
     
  14. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    These distributions are generally meant to be run headless - not connected to mouse, keyboard or monitor. You do everything through a web-based ui. How you do it with wifi is:

    1) flash the card with latest version.
    2) transfer it to the Pi and start it up.
    3) wait a minute or two and you should see a new wifi network available to join, do so.
    4) point your browser to the Pi's address (for example moode.local for moode) or IP address, the interface will then load.
    5) configure the Pi to use your wifi network.
    6) switch back to your network, reload browser.
    7) configure the rest.

    The one thing to watch out for with your intended setup is the Pi might have trouble supplying enough juice for a bus-powered hard drive.

    @msommers check the size of the mpd audio buffer maybe?
     
  15. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    You connect the ethernet not to your Mac mini but your switch/router.
     
  16. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    So where can I find this 0.4 version? I went to the Rune website and it still has 0.3 from March 2016 which is what I already had. I think the problem was that I wasn't connected to the router to get things configured. I'll play with that a bit in the next few days.

    Thanks all.
     
  17. DigMe

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    @crazychile I just connected Ethernet to router to keep it quick and simple. Type http://runeaudio/ in your browser and it will show you the rune interface where you can see the play screen and control all the Rune settings. Aside from setting it up I rarely use this interface. Mostly I use BubbleUPnP for android on an old Kindle Fire for controlling Tidal. I can also play stuff from my computer music collection through Bubble (I don't have a NAS either. I just serve the files straight from my PC) but typically if I'm listening at my computer I just use the windows "Cast to device" function for a given album from the file explorer (right click on a folder for that album and click Cast to Rune). Possibly something similar on Mac. I was using Foobar as the interface but then I started having an issue where it would not play albums continuously. It would stop after every song and I couldn't figure out why.
     
  18. Xen

    Xen Friend

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    When I wrote, "4.x kernel" I meant that I upgraded the underlying operating system. Rune, MoOde, Volumio, etc are a nice user interfaces that run on top of an operating system. Rune is based off of ArchLinux, while MoOde and Volumio are based off of Raspbian. Both have roots in Debian. Running off of Linux is why all of these music players use MPD to manage music playback.

    I literally upgraded the underlying operating system, but had to modify a couple of MoOde files to fix some hard coded library links (I think, it was obvious from log files that something couldn't be found).

    To configure through a router using a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer:
    Connect the Pi running Rune to a router.
    Use your computer that is hooked up to the same router/AccessPoint or uses the same DNS and open a browser of your choice.
    Goto http://runeudio or http://runeaudio.local. Thanks to mDNS/Bonjour/ZeroConf/Avahi you should see the Rune Interface in the browser.
    Setup Rune
     
  19. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    The Rune 0.4 version I was referring to was mentioned by @Kattefjaes in his starting post as a way to not have to dick around with potential compatibility issues with the Digi+.

    The more I think about this, the more likely I am to just start off using this to access Tidal. That's what I listen to 95% of the time anyway. Then I can work on building a NAS as a follow on project if I like it. I also noticed that I can add a BNC to the Digi+, which would let me use BNC on the Yggdrasil and free up the coax for something else.

    I thank everyone for clarifying the setup for this.
     
  20. silvrr

    silvrr New

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    Has anyone come across a really short SPDIF cable?

    I like just having my pi on top of my modi and a Schitt PYST style cable would be awesome for connecting the two. A short Optical cable would work to. Minimum I can find is 1 foot, not bad but ~6 inches would be great.
     

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