Dummies Guide to Pi2AES! Throw away your PC or laptop.

Here is the previous card I was using that was dropping every 10 secs or so: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B073K14CVB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

It has an A1 rating and is a C10. But speed is given as 98mb/s. Doesn't specify if it's read or write or both but it's certainly slower than the new card. Also, I don't know how much impact the speed has on the various OSs. Maybe Volumio is more greedy than Moode or something else...no idea.

 

I have A1's in all my rPi's - I don 't have a drop problem in any of the pi's at home (running Ropiee as a Roon endpoint), but I am experiencing drop every once in awhile with Qobuz at the office running HQplayer embedded (previous setup was Moode and Bubbleupnp, which dropped like crazy)

I always thought the drops were network/internet related and never thought about the card being the problem until @Pancakes post. Now I'm going to get an A2 and see if it makes a difference.

 

I agree with this. Check out third-party independent benchmarks of MicroSD cards as well, instead of focusing solely on class or speed ratings.

I referenced this when purchasing a card for my RPi 3b+: https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/raspberry-pi-microsd-cards

It recommended the SanDisk Extreme Pro for the RPi 3b+, and the benchmarks bear this out. It also links to this article which concludes there is no difference in A2 vs A1 cards with the RPi: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2...ards-offer-no-better-performance-raspberry-pi

I’ve been happy with the SanDisk. None of these cards break the bank so might as well get a good one.

 

Just to be clear, the new card I'm using is also an A1 so that wasn't the difference for me. The new one is just rated as being faster at read/write.

It's a bit confusing though because there are like 5 f'ing standards printed on the cards.

 

maybe your old card was just worn out/EOL? Myself, I tend to use these things forever - they go in phones, tablets, cameras, etc... I just swap them around until I lose them (or need a bigger one).

 

I'm using a card I pulled out of a phone that's been in it since 2016 or so, when I'm pretty sure I bought the cheapest one, and I'm not experiencing card-related glitches...

 

It's a card I bought last year and it's only been used on Pi. Dunno what to tell you. I'm just throwing the card thing out there for peeps who may be experiencing issues as a possible fix. I didn't think it would matter but got tired of pulling my hair out and figured I'd try. Happily listening to interruption-free music for 5 days now.

 

I've been using the same 64gb SanDisk UHS-I/U3 microSD card in my Pi3b since I bought the Pi in 2016, and I've had the card since 2015. Never had a problem with it.

 

A followup on the card thing. I've now been able to differentiate between internet dropouts and card issues. I've had a two or three random drops when the 3 TVs in the house are all streaming at the same time. In this case, there's a momentary silence. Before swapping the card, the silences (happening multiple times on all songs) were accompanied with the DACs clicking (Shiit DACs).

I guess with bandwidth/connection related drops, the Pi/Pi2AES continues sending a signal to the DAC while a card related drop is accompanied by signal stoppage.

Hopefully this is helpful to somebody because it drove me insane.

 

Whatever, I nuked the Ubuntu Server + Spotify streamer and installed Raspbian OS + Tidal streamer. Nuked my Spotify subscription. Tidal works great on Raspbian without any hiccups and any installation complexities. I probably could repeat the whole installation in 10 minutes. Volumio or whatever you are using is not necessary, more mainstream OS does the job.

 

Volumio's the only one I'm able to get working properly with Audirvana via UPnP.

 

Those "mainstream" OSs do not have a headless interface that is easily accessible via a phone/tablet. Sure, you can use remote desktop, but that would be pretty terrible on a phone. At least for me, a headless interface is necessary so I don't have to have my tv on while I'm listening to music.

 

Hello,
I'm willing to buy Pi2aes, but I want to be sure that its I2S output is compatible with the IAS implementation in my DAC.
My DAC is the Musician Pegasus R2R. Its I2S Pin configuration appears at the bottom of this web page.

http://www.musician-audio.com/en/col.jsp?id=122

Thank you for your help.

@Michael Kelly

 

Please read the manual on the pi2aes page.

 

Thank you for your reply.
I see that most of the pins are reversed. For instance, Pin 1 in Pi2AES manual is "Data Plus". In the Pin configuration of Pegasus, it's "Data minus".

My knowledge in these matters is poor, and I can't understand if these differences make the devices compatibles or not.
This was the reason for which I asked for help.

 

You seemed to have missed that your DAC has 8 modes! It looks like Mode 5 will work.

 

Thank you, Michael, for your help.
I'm a real dummy, and I missed it indeed.

EDIT
I just bought PI2AES, and I'm going to join the community of its users.

 

Thanks! This works. But i have about 2s of latency, which sadly makes watching anything impossible.

 

Hm the 2 sec part made me think of this common issue

 

Hi guys, quick question for you digital pros;
If I'm running an iPad w/OTG adapter to my outboard DAC will the pi2aes improve anything with my streaming playback?

Just for background, i had a Cambridge CXN as a streamer only and couldn't hear a difference between it and my iPad directly to the DAC. All i miss is the ability to control the music via the app. This solution will kill two birds in one stone. Just don't know about the sound quality part. I do have the i2s input on my DAC so have that to explore as well.

Also, what do you guys think the level up from pi2aes w/linear power supply would be?

Appreciate you taking the time to read and reply.

Cheers!
Edgar L.