Hi. I have 3 Logitech Squeezebox Players which I use to stream music around my flat. One player connects to Logitech Media Server using Ethernet & the other 2 use wifi. I recently moved LMS from my NAS to a Raspberry Pi because some plugins are no longer supported for the old NAS OS. However I found out that one of my Players no longer works (one of the wifi connected ones) so I need a replacement. Maybe the others are on their last legs too. Is the Hifiberry suitable for replacing these old Players? It would need to be able to connect to my LMS server over wifi and output audio to analogue sockets or in one case through an optical connection. If this subject has been covered before I would appreciate someone pointing me to the answer. Cheers, Tony
12 comments
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HiFiBerry team A Raspberry Pi with squeezelite can act as a player for LMS. HiFIBerryOS comes with Squeezelite as a service and supports all HiFIBerry sound cards.
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HiFiBerry team BTW: There are also other distributions that include squeezelite if you don't like HiFiBerryOS.
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Sergiu Burian Whereas I for sure prefer HiFiBerry OS on the newest Hardware, I have used RPi 1 with HiFiBerry DACs and piCorePlayer with Squeezelite in 3 rooms for many years and I have been quite happy with the way they worked. My server was a NAS with LMS. IMHO it is worth considering this option if you have older RPi boards where HiFiBerry OS is not officially supported.
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Tony Sammut Hi thanks all. I think you have cleared up my misunderstanding - I thought the Hifiberry DAC might be a standalone piece of h/w/ but it's clear that it works in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi. My understanding now is that I would need 3 Raspberry Pi's to replace the 3 Logitech Squeezebox Players that I have been using until now?
Also, would I be right in saying that the Hifiberry exists to improve the quality of the DAC available to RPi users? If this is the case, would you say that a Hifiberry is needed to match the quality of the Logitech Squeezebox Players or would a standalone Raspberry Pi running the appropriate s/w do the job? Do the more recent RPi's have a better inbuilt quality compared to the RPi 1?
Cheers, Tony
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HiFiBerry team Yes, you will need 3 Pi's
> If this is the case, would you say that a Hifiberry is needed to match the quality of the Logitech Squeezebox Players or would a standalone Raspberry Pi running the appropriate s/w do the job? Do the more recent RPi's have a better inbuilt quality compared to the RPi 1?
You defnitely need sound card to match the quality of your Squeezebox. The onboard sound isn't using an audio DAC, but a very trivial PWM circuit. If you're looking for quality sound, don't even try. If you're on a small budget, even the cheapest HiFiBerry sound cards offer a good sound quality. -
Tony Sammut Super! Thanks. I've just ordered one Hifiberry Lite (will get 2 more at some point but it's not easy finding RPi v3s it seems) . I guess I'll need a new case for my RPi. More importantly, Sergiu earlier said that the Hifiberry DAC will work over the PiCorePlayer. Is there an online resource that will tell me what to do to install Hifiberrry onto an RPi3 with pCP OS?
Cheers, Tony
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HiFiBerry team I guess, you should find this on the PiCorePlayer web site. However, I recommend to check out HiFiBerryOS. You don't need to configure the card on this, it will just be detected automatically.
BTW: We still have a few Pi4 on stock in our bundles. -
Tony Sammut Thanks. Sounds interesting. How much is the bundle? At the moment I can see RPi3 on eBay for £50 but would need a case, & SD Card & Hifiberry to accompany, so probably looking at 2 x £100 for 2 streaming receivers (Player replacement) in 2 rooms.
I'm also running Logitech Media Server on my RPi with PiCorePlayer. Does Hifiberry OS also support LMS and all of the associated plugins (e.g. Spotify, BBC Sounds etc.)?
Cheers, Tony
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HiFiBerry team Prices can vary based on what components you use and exchange rates, just check it out in the shop:
https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/bundles/hifiberry-dac-bundle-4/
HiFiBerryOS does not support LMS. Some users installed it in a docker container, but I would only recommend this to advanced Linux administrators. -
Tony Sammut Perfect. I have just ordered a Hifiberry RPi4 bundle plus an extra RPi3 case for my current RPi3 with pCP & the DAC I've also just ordered. I hink I can probably get away with having RPi receivers in only 2 rooms and use one of the existing 2 Logitech ones in the 3rd room. Excellent, many thanks. Also Sergiu Burian I hope you will be able to help me with any questions on configging the Hifiberry DAC over pCP as I think this is the setup that you have. Many thanks in advance.
Cheers, Tony
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Sergiu Burian Hi, sure! You can find an overview here: https://www.hifiberry.com/docs/software/picoreplayer-installation-and-configuration/ . I can also confirm as a user that the quality of the HiFiBerry DAC output is significantly better than the output of the RPi audio. We talk about high quality BurrBrown DACs ;) . One comment though: I did not run the LMS (server) on RPi, but only the clients (squeezebox players). My only challenge was to run AirPlay in parallel with SqueezeLite, but I did manage :) . Also, I had older HiFiBerry cards. So it will not be exactly your new set-up, however happy to share my experience and advice if it helps :)
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Tony Sammut Many thanks Sergiu Burian, I already have Squeezelite Player on my RPi 3, when I get the DAC through I'll set it up with that to see how it plays. Cheers!