Any way to make Raspberry Pi sound better?

Hey all! after getting my receiver recently, Ive decided to use my raspberry pi 3 as a music player. For those that dont know what a raspberry pi is, NO it is NOT food! Its a tiny-affordable computer. Currently have Kodi running on it. Does anyone know if there are maybe modules for it to make it sound even better? Ive heard you can buy an external sound board for it, but cant seem to find one.

Thanks!

 

You can look hifiberry website, they have modules to improve the sound.

 

I'll have to try a USB sound card I have

 

Cool site. Looks like for $22.90 you can plug in a standard DAC with analog RCA out.

 

Definitely, but i guess the digital output card and external dac would give the best result if you already own a good dac.

External usb soundcard should actually work, i guess it's the same result in the end !

 

There's an add-on board that gets you spdif out. Makes it one little beast of a music streamer. I've been meaning to set one up myself but I'm waiting to upgrade my DAC first

 

(@Tartifless cited this site already) --> You may check out HiFiberry : HiFiBerry DAC+ - high quality 192kHz/24bit audio output for the Raspberry Pi | HiFiBerry
Or IQAudIO :Pi-DAC Pro I2S audiophile sound card for Raspberry Pi

As already mentioned, you can add on a board to the Pi and get a better sound. A little research and you will find what you want.
Maybe you only want to make the Pi a digital streamer?
Or you want to make it into a DAC and serve your amplifier.

 

only thing i wished for was a regular power adapter.

 

What's wrong with it ?

 

just don't like having to unplug and replug it in to reboot.

 

Check out this site:
MCM Electronics.
I bought my PI and a few things from that site. I know I've seen a power switch on that site that you plug into your PI, then plug the power supply into. Problem solved.
I also hope you are doing the proper shutdown before you unplug to reboot? I've just unplugged to reboot before & fried an SD card.

 

yeah. the lack of a switch plus the potential for destroying an sd card is what annoys me about the pi. hard to argue tho with the value proposition

 

Also just remembered, if you just need to reboot, you can do it from the menu, just like any other computer. No need to power off & back on just for a reboot.

 

You should never reboot by pulling the power cable. You could cor rupture the sdhc card it boots from.

 

I own a HiFiBerry dac+ but I saw "phat dac" at the local microcenter a few days ago.

 

If your interested, I found the power supply on their site. $18.99

If you need to shutdown or reboot, go to the menu in the upper left, and select Shutdown (In the pixel desktop). You can then select reboot or shutdown. If you are using the command line, just type sudo reboot or sudo shutdown. If you're actually shutting down, wait about 10 seconds before unplugging. The lights should stop flashing.
Just a public service announcement, because like I said above, I've fried a card with an improper shutdown.

 

When I had one i got a bundle that specifically included a power cable with an integral on/off switch half way along it. Don't have it now , but could see the problem upfront. Not going to search for it but they must still be available it's such an obvious problem/solution.

 

I have one of these to power the unit on and off, since ocassionally I lose connectivity via wifi (my unit is headless):
Amazon.com: JBtek Raspberry Pi Micro USB Cable with ON / OFF Switch - Easy Start / Reboot !: Computers & Accessories

Using picoreplayer to make the unit run as a a squeezebox player, after boot everything runs in memory, so if you pull the power, there is no sd card corruption possible...

If you use the HDMI as your audio, there isnt much to do. If you dont you can get a usb dac (I have), or there are expansion boards avaiable cheap to make an onboard dac... but I suggest USB because you can use it on different devices in the future, if you need/want.

 

I bought the HifiBerry DAC+. Well, I can't get it to work with OSMC. I select the DAC+ as soundcard overlay and then select the ALSA output. The green led lights but no sound out. If i go to HDMI out, I do get analog out the RCA jacks but is it using the Hifiberry dac or not?

 

Are you sure the volume is up on the dac in alsamixer?

 

And better yet, is there a box to check to bypass software volume control all together? It seems that's what you'd want with a HiFiberry.

 

I've got this setup feeding my Rega Dac-r and it's great. I run Rune player via my iPad to control it. Use it mainly for hi-def as my sonos won't process that.

 

You close the OS in a tablet and then pull the plug after it shuts down and you don't screw up the instalation on the card. You wouldn't screw up the card at all, anyway, just the installation on it.

 

DietPi runs entirely off a RAM disk, so there is nothing to worry about when you lose power. Very easy to set up and works with Roon and NAA end points. You should check it out.

 

What is that? I am using OSMC Kodi