hello guys and gals
my name is mario and i just registered on this forum
i discovered the enchantments of raspberry pi a few days ago, and i'm hooked up with the possibility of assembling a really nice piece of hardware from bits and peaces. and also cheap :)
i've read a lot, and learned even more in the last few days. i had never heard about GPIO's before, and this is just an example LOL
i had my mind set on a media center/retrogaming console until yesterday... thats when i heard about hifiberry and it changed my mind...
now what i would like to do is this:
- raspberry pi 2 model b connected to my lcd TV
- hifiberry amp+ connected to some nice (cheap) speakers (havent really looked into it...)
- mainly to use wired over ethernet cable (100mbps connection)
- OSMC, Retropie and Volumio/Rune/Audio on multiboot sd card
my questions are:
- is a triple boot sd card overkill, probably reducing the life of the already short living microsd card even more?
- is it even possible to triple boot?
- Volumio or RuneAudio? Which is better suited for the Hifiberry Amp+. I'm mainly concerned about ease to setup and use and sound quality.
- is it better to make a Pi2 setup for gaming/multimedia and lets say a Pi B+ for HiFi?
- are the DAC capabilities of the hifiberry AMP+ the same as an hifiberry DAC+ and a separate amplifier?
- if i wanted to use fan cooling in my setup, how could i do it knowing that the AMP+ is using the Pi 2's GPIO pins?
sorry if not all questions are hifiberry related
cheers to all. cya around :)
Date
Votes
8 comments
-
MMeirolas i forgot to ask:
- the hifiberry dac+ supports up to 24bit/192khz... the dac+ only 48khz??? -
Stuart MacLean Hi
To try and answer your questions as best as I can:
– is a triple boot sd card overkill, probably reducing the life of the already short living microsd card even more?
Considering that each Linux installation will be stored in a separate partition and SD Cards lifespan depends on how many times the data is changed then I really don't think the lifespan of the mircosd card would be reduced further. And once your Linux distros are written they don't really change the contents of the card much after that. If your worried about this then ensure you use a reliable SD card (rather than the cheapest) and backup your SD card once you have it all setup.
– is it even possible to triple boot?
I've never tried doing a multi boot SD Card, but I see that there are instructions for how to go about it here
http://www.howtogeek.com/141325/how-to-multi-boot-your-raspberry-pi-with-berryboot/
– Volumio or RuneAudio? Which is better suited for the Hifiberry Amp+. I’m mainly concerned about ease to setup and use and sound quality.
Volumio would be choice. Its the configuration I like to use with my Amp+.
If you want try our new installer for writing installations to SD Card with everything preconfigured for your hardware and this includes Volumio.
Windows one is
http://downloads.hifiberry.com/HiFiBerry_Installer.exe
Mac one is
http://downloads.hifiberry.com/HiFiBerry_Installer.dmg
– is it better to make a Pi2 setup for gaming/multimedia and lets say a Pi B+ for HiFi?
The Pi2 is better as you've got a quadcore processor and more memory. If you already have both then Pi2 for gaming/multimedia and Pi B+ for HiFi as you suggest.
– are the DAC capabilities of the hifiberry AMP+ the same as an hifiberry DAC+ and a separate amplifier?
As far as I am aware they are, but Daniel could give you a definitive answer on this one.
– if i wanted to use fan cooling in my setup, how could i do it knowing that the AMP+ is using the Pi 2’s GPIO pins?
I haven't tried fan cooling setup, so I can't really give you an answer on this one either. Again Daniel could give you a better answer, but I would look at which pins the AMP+ is using (for I2S signal and for providing power).
Hope this helps,
Stuart -
HiFiBerry team Hi,
the Amp+ only support 44/48kHz. We never saw a use case, were additional cooling of the CPU is needed. The RPI works well without additional cooling. Especially with the HAT concept it is designed to work this way.
Best regards
Daniel -
MMeirolas hello again,
first of all let me say that this forum lives up to its credits, really a nice support :)
i will buy the samsung evo 16 or even 32gb microsd card. it has the best random write/read speeds and is manufactured by a good brand. seems like a good choice.
multiboot is my first choice since i want hifi audio for the media center too... having two different setups (media center/games and another for hifi audio) would make me have to buy 2 hifiberry dac+...
btw i said OSMC in my first post, but what i really meant was Openelec - the stripped down environment.
i will go for the dac+. as Daniel said it supports higher audio bitrates. then i'll buy a standalone amp afterwards
If i'd use the Pi only for audio, i wouldnt need cooling for it. but since i plan to watch tv channels and full hd content, the setup will be on all the time. i heard they can get hot especially when watching full hd content.
That whole GPIO thing scares me tho.... i'm not sure if i have the ability to mess with it without ruining everything :/
Volumio really seems like a nice choice Stuart :) but i've seen people praising Max2Play... is this a distro or just a software? i dont understand what they mean by "web environment" on their site...
cheers and keep up the work. you are doing an amazing job
Mario -
HiFiBerry team Hi Mario,
I use the Raspberry Pi personally for full-HD playback. There is no need for additional cooling. The CPU is designed for this.
Max2Play is a distribution. While it was originally designed as a squeezebox client, it has more features today. If you have questions about their features, I recommend to contact the developers directly.
Best regards
Daniel -
MMeirolas thanx again for the fast and direct answers
after this conversation and researching more on the internet, i think i'll go for a Raspberry Pi 2 paired with an Hifiberry Amp+.
as for the OS i will use 2 microsd cards: 1 for media center/retropie, the other for Volumio. its probably the best option since i dont stream music that often anyway, so switching microsd cards wont happen too often :)
i' will try the case with just the coolers that come with it. if i should overclock the system then i can search for maybe a compatible fan.
just one last question: what would be some good budget speakers to pair with my setup?
thx and keep up the good work.
Mario -
MMeirolas just one more thing:
is there some problem with your site on Android? i can't seem to login to post on the forum.
tried both the mobile and the full version...
cheers -
HiFiBerry team Hi,
we haven't heard about any problems with Android. Do you get an error message?
Best regards
Daniel
Please sign in to leave a comment.