Hey,
As I have a huge collection of old records. I was wondering if I could use an Hifiberry/ raspberry pi to listen to all of my old records if I connect an USB record player? Is there a support on the HifiBerry for that kind of input? And what kind of software should I have to install? Thanks John
You don't need a HiFiBerry board to use a USB turntable. USB turntables just present themselves as USB Audio Codec sound cards. The Pi should pick it up automatically.
I have a Roberts RT100 turntable feeding into a Pi 4. The Pi 4 also happens to have a Digi+ I/O but this is for the coaxial input from my CD player.
I then use darkice to feed the two inputs into Icecast2. This creates 2 "internet radio stations" that can be added to your home setup. This could just be VLC on your phone that you can then send wherever you like (headphones, bluetooth, airplay whatever)
Personally I added the stations to TuneIn on my Sonos system and can therefore listen to them on any of my Sonos speakers throughout the house.
What Richard says is correct. However, don't expect this to work with HiFiBerryOS. There is no support for this in HBOS. You need to setup the software by yourself.
Just to bump this on a slightly different subject. Whilst darkice/icecast is not available on HBOC can a sound card input such as a USB turntable (which is just a PCM sound card input as far as alsa is concerned) be used as an input on HBOS? Presumably it could and use alsaloop to copy it to the output but is this/could this be supported. I ask as I have changed my setup from Raspian to HBOS and would like to have my turntable as an input.
As the previous posting says: "There is no support for this in HBOS"
Thanks for that. I thought you were referring to the setup I had and was describing that rather than playing a USB turntable at all.
Just to round this thread off for the benefit of the original poster. There is the capability within HBOS without additionall software to listen to a USB turntable. Unfortunately that capability is not present from the WebUI. You do have to use the command line. I use an SSH session myself (ssh root@whateveripaddress password hifiberry). Then just run alsaloop which is included in the default instal.
alsaloop -C hw:1,0 -P hw:0,0 -t 50000 -T 1 -d
This just copies the input to the output. In my case hw:1,0 is my turntable and hw:0,0 is my DAC+ DSP output. The -d flag daemonises it so it runs in the background.
Maybe the developers would consider adding physical inputs to the WebUI in a future version?
No, we do not consider this because it does conflict in all kinds of ways with the HifiBerryOS architecture. We also can't guarantee that this will work in future versions.
Okay - once again thanks. So - again to try to help the original poster answer his/her question about using a turntable with their system.
If you have the DAC+ ADC you can just run a cable from the RCA outputs on the turntable to the analog input on the Pi. Your turntable will need either a pre-amp built (highly likely if it is a USB model) in or a separate one. You will need a stereo RCA to 3.5mm cable.
If you have the DAC+ DSP as I do then you can use the optical input of this which is supported as an input on HBOS. You can either get a turntable with on optical output such as the Pro-Ject Digital Essential II. Or if you want to stick to your USB turntable which presumably still has RCA outputs you can get a cheap analog to digital converter. I use this one from Amazon as my turntable has a pre-amp built in.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DHPHIJQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I still have the USB cable plugged in on mine and use the alsaloop "hack" because for some reason the USB output pre-amplification is better than the level coming out of the RCA outputs on my turntable.
Anyway best of luck getting your turntable incorporated into your system
