Max2Play on Raspberry Pi 3 and HiFiBerry Amp2 with Airplay
The Build
Hardware:
- Circa 1930’s Ultimate Radio ($50 from trademe)
- Two Warfdale Diamond 9.1 bookshelf speakers with drivers repaired ($80)
- USB LED Strip light string 2m long with changeable colour ($9.90)
- DC Female Barrel Connector with screw terminals
The old radio chassis was stripped out and an MDF floor to sit the wharfdale speakers on was fixed to the base of the radio cabinet. The original speaker hole in the front of the radio cabinet was only small which muffled the sound quality. I therefore cut a larger hole in the front of the speaker cabinet and replaced the speaker cloth which was fixed in place with staples.
I wanted to be able to switch the power on/off to the HiFi Berry via one of the old switch knobs on the radio. To do this I purchased a DC barrel connector and hard wired to the switch, then to the HiFi Berry power inputs. Note, it’s probably not recommended to switch the power on/off in this way without properly shutting down the Raspberry Pi as you are likely to end up corrupting the software on the SD card. I therefore tend to leave the Raspberry Pi switched on at all times.
Lastly, I installed the LED lights around the old display and plugged the lights USB into the Rasberry Pi. I then changed the LED’s colour to an orange to give it that authentic look. It turns out that the green LED light on the Toshiba power supply replicated the green glow of the old ‘Magic Eye’ quite nicely.
All that remains is to tidy up the wires and to fix the Raspberry Pi/HiFi Berry and the speakers in place. The sound is terrific, I have to say.
Notes:
Finding the right power supply turned out to be a bit of a mission, in particular sourcing one with the correct barrel connector size. In the end a replacement power adaptor for a Toshiba Laptop seems to work well. Model No: PA-1700-02. Getting this setup to work via the Max2Play local internet browser took a few attempts and there was a bit of trial and error. However, I found the Wifi configuration with WPS via the router was the method that was the most successful.
I have taken the time and put together an install guide for those whom maybe interested. In particular around how to setup the Max2Play as the Wifi configuration proved not to be all that straight forward...although, I have to say, I'm not that tech savvy.
Cheers,
Mark