Cheap temporary streamer

[TheMadButcher]

I can't recommend the raspberry pi 2 running Rune (not to be confused with Roon) enough!
Just the pi running this software will provide usb audio into the devialet reading music stored on a nas drive or hard drives plugged in to the pi.
Plus you get the ability to add Internet radio stations.
Plays everything from redbook up to 24bit 192khz and also dsd64.
Did I mention it costs £30?
I would recommend adding the hifiberry digi+ board which will provide optical and coax outputs. (another 30ish)
I did a head to head test, sarum usb vs sarum coax, and the coax output wins hands down.
A much fuller sound.
Everything my NDX could do for under £100!
It can be controlled through any device that has an Internet browser or you could use a upnp control point.
(I use bubble upnp)
Seriously, great sound can be achieved at a great price.
I think this setup will surprise a lot of people.
(even my hifi dealer was surprised!)

[PhilP]

I can't recommend the raspberry pi 2 running Rune (not to be confused with Roon) enough!
Just the pi running this software will provide usb audio into the devialet reading music stored on a nas drive or hard drives plugged in to the pi.
Plus you get the ability to add Internet radio stations.
Plays everything from redbook up to 24bit 192khz and also dsd64.
Did I mention it costs £30?
I would recommend adding the hifiberry digi+ board which will provide optical and coax outputs. (another 30ish)
I did a head to head test, sarum usb vs sarum coax,  and the coax output wins hands down.
A much fuller sound.
Everything my NDX could do for under £100!
It can be controlled through any device that has an Internet browser or you could use a upnp control point.
(I use bubble upnp)
Seriously, great sound can be achieved at a great price.
I think this setup will surprise a lot of people.
(even my hifi dealer was surprised!)

@TheMadButcher. I find your suggestion really appealing - I mean why should it be necessary to pay thousands of pounds/dollars/euros just to select a file and transfer it from a HDD to a DAC input - it's quite frankly b******s.  Not sure I would use a £750 USB or £1600 coax cable with a Pi though...?? 

How does the sound of the Pi really compare to the NDX? I own one so I'm genuinely interested.

I'm keen to have a go but had been thinking about going down the Cubox route as some others did on here a year or so ago. Did you consider that? If I go for a Pi Would you recommend any particular power supply or just the standard one? Anything else to Be aware of ? Thanks

[TheMadButcher]

I can't recommend the raspberry pi 2 running Rune (not to be confused with Roon) enough!
Just the pi running this software will provide usb audio into the devialet reading music stored on a nas drive or hard drives plugged in to the pi.
Plus you get the ability to add Internet radio stations.
Plays everything from redbook up to 24bit 192khz and also dsd64.
Did I mention it costs £30?
I would recommend adding the hifiberry digi+ board which will provide optical and coax outputs. (another 30ish)
I did a head to head test, sarum usb vs sarum coax,  and the coax output wins hands down.
A much fuller sound.
Everything my NDX could do for under £100!
It can be controlled through any device that has an Internet browser or you could use a upnp control point.
(I use bubble upnp)
Seriously, great sound can be achieved at a great price.
I think this setup will surprise a lot of people.
(even my hifi dealer was surprised!)

@TheMadButcher. I find your suggestion really appealing - I mean why should it be necessary to pay thousands of pounds/dollars/euros just to select a file and transfer it from a HDD to a DAC input - it's quite frankly b******s.  Not sure I would use a £750 USB or £1600 coax cable with a Pi though...?? 

How does the sound of the Pi really compare to the NDX? I own one so I'm genuinely interested.

I'm keen to have a go but had been thinking about going down the Cubox route as some others did on here a year or so ago. Did you consider that? If I go for a Pi Would you recommend any particular power supply or just the standard one? Anything else to Be aware of ? Thanks

Hi PhiliP

It shouldn't be necessary to pay thousands to get your music from one place to another.
(luckily I did the sarum head to head at my dealers and we both thought coax was the way to go. I'm crazy but not that crazy!)
I stumbled on the Pi because of Kodi media centre.
I loved the simplicity of the device and wanted to see what else I could do with it.
I then found out about volumio, rune, and moode/tcsmods
These are different operating systems that can be installed on the pi which will give you all of what I wrote about before.
I found rune to be the most stable.
I'm curious to see what cubox offers now you mention it.
Is the user community quite active?
There are loads of forums/support for all things audio on the pi.

I sold my all of my naim gear as I wanted to reduce the box count and was blown away with what the devialet could do with my speakers.
So much low frequency information I had never heard before!
I can't really compare my NDX to the pi as I didn't do any tests before getting rid of it.
There is someone on the naim forums that was thinking of getting rid of their NDX after trying out the pi (going into a chord Hugo)
http://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/so-is-...ndx?page=1

I haven't tried any special power supplies with it either, just make sure its a 5v 2amp supply.
Initially I had some drop outs and stuttering so I also recommend a slight overclock to the pi (really easy to do)
At £70ish including case and the hifiberry digi + board it's well worth a try.

[PhilP]

@TheMadButcher

Thanks for your detailed reply and the link to the helpful thread on the Chord err, I mean Naim Forum.  

Your reasons for replacing your Naim gear with Devialet are very similar to mine (plus I hated the buzzing transformers).  I held onto my NDX for a while in the hope that Naim would add support for lossless streaming services but there's still no sign of this. The final straw for me was that the Aurender N100 that I borrowed a couple of weeks ago sounded a lot better, supports TIDAL (shame as I prefer Qobuz) and costs £1,000 less...

Cubox
There's a great thread on this forum about using Cubox:

http://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?t...ight=cubox

Pi and Qobuz
I don't know whether you've tried this yet but apparently it is possible to stream Qobuz using a Pi:

https://anklang.wordpress.com/2014/07/11...fi-stream/

[PhilP]

So I bought a Rasberry Pi 2, installed Rune, plugged in USB stick and connected it (not without some trepidation with volume turned down really low) to my 200 and amazingly it worked first time. The control s/w is actually pretty good though It's sometimes a little slow to respond. I only have a Canon printer cable which sounded very flat when tried with an Aurender so it's a little unfair to comment on SQ but it's actually not bad at all. It would certainly be worth trying a USB reclocker or SPDIF card as Mad suggests and I would imagine a better USB cable would also make a significant difference.

Internet radio sounds great on the Pi and it would be a good complement to a streamer that doesn't support that source e.g Aurender, Melco.

And it costs £25....

[PhilP]

@NickB - are you the same NickB as the one on the Room forum who is running Qobuz on a Pi with Roon?

[NickB]

I am the same NickB but not running a pi with Roon, I use Qobuz with Logitech Media Server using Max2Play, I use Roon from an Intel NUC via AIR.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[PhilP]

I am the same NickB but not running a pi with Roon, I use Qobuz with Logitech Media Server using Max2Play, I use Roon from an Intel NUC via AIR.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Ok, great. Thanks for the clarification

[TheMadButcher]

So I bought a Rasberry Pi 2, installed Rune, plugged in USB stick and connected it (not without some trepidation with volume turned down really low) to my 200 and amazingly it worked first time. The control s/w is actually pretty good though It's sometimes a little slow to respond. I only have a Canon printer cable which sounded very flat when tried with an Aurender so it's a little unfair to comment on SQ but it's actually not bad at all. It would certainly be worth trying a USB reclocker or SPDIF card as Mad suggests and I would imagine a better USB cable would also make a significant difference.

Internet radio sounds great on the Pi and it would be a good complement to a streamer that doesn't support that source e.g Aurender, Melco.

And it costs £25....

Glad you took the plunge.
For the money there is nothing out there that even comes close.
For another £30, do give the hifiberry digi+ a try.
The USB shares the same bus as the ethernet so is very noisy, using the digi+ card bypasses this with an i2s connection. 
I kept the USB cable and my coax cable plugged in and switched between the 2 from the MPD menu.
To my surprise there was quite a difference.
I have settled on a chord signature coax cable as I love the smooth character it has.
I'll also be getting the signature power cable to complete my setup.
Nothing to do now except sit back, relax and listen.

The software may be a little slow which is why I overclocked my pi.
One important thing to consider, don't mess with the over voltage setting when overclocking.
This kept stuttering during playback and took me a long time to figure out.
I've set mine to medium preset with force turbo enabled and over voltage set to 1.
All is working perfectly so I am not going to touch a thing from now on.
The other thing you can do is use a upnp control point instead of the rune interface.
Bubbleupnp works brilliantly.

Let us know your thoughts if you get the digi+ board.
Happy listening!

[PhilP]

So I bought a Rasberry Pi 2...

Glad you took the plunge.
For the money there is nothing out there that even comes close.
For another £30, do give the hifiberry digi+ a try.
The USB shares the same bus as the ethernet so is very noisy, using the digi+ card bypasses this with an i2s connection. 
I kept the USB cable and my coax cable plugged in and switched between the 2 from the MPD menu.
To my surprise there was quite a difference.
I have settled on a chord signature coax cable as I love the smooth character it has.
I'll also be getting the signature power cable to complete my setup.
Nothing to do now except sit back, relax and listen.

The software may be a little slow which is why I overclocked my pi.
One important thing to consider, don't mess with the over voltage setting when overclocking.
This kept stuttering during playback and took me a long time to figure out.
I've set mine to medium preset with force turbo enabled and over voltage set to 1.
All is working perfectly so I am not going to touch a thing from now on.
The other thing you can do is use a upnp control point instead of the rune interface.
Bubbleupnp works brilliantly.

Let us know your thoughts if you get the digi+ board.
Happy listening!

Thanks for the tips - there seem to be many options with the Pi and fortunately most of them are cheap to try   

I returned from vacation at the weekend and have just placed an order for a digi+.  Really looking forward to hearing an improvement in SQ 

Top priority for me is a platform to run Qobuz and will probably try LMS/Max2Play as I believe NickB has done.