HIFI with the Raspberry Pi 3

Photo : Alexandre PERETJATKO

Photo : Alexandre PERETJATKO

HIFI with the Raspberry Pi 3

The Raspberry Pi 3 is powerful, but the audio output has a very low quality.
As I plane to use my Raspberry as a multimedia center and as I'm a music lover, I need more quality.

Il faut

  • Raspberry Pi 3
  • HifiBerry
100% Complete

I look for a good solution to output a nice music quality from my Raspberry Pi 3. So I don't want a software correction or something similar, I realy need an hardware solution.

On this page I describe the solution I tried (?) and the other I've found on the web.

HIFIBerry : Digi+

Standard version : €24.90

The HiFiBerry Digi+ is a high-quality S/PDIF output board for the Raspberry Pi model A+/B+, Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.

  • Dedicated S/PDIF interface chip supports up to 192kHz/24bit resolution
  • Optical (Toslink) and electrical outputs
  • Bit-perfect output, audio data stream will not be modified in any way
  • Connects directly to the Raspberry Pi, no additional cables needed
  • No soldering. The Digi+ comes as a pre-fabricated kit. You just plug it onto the Raspberry Pi B+. The board conform to the Raspberry Pi hardware-attached-on-top (HAT) specification. That means it perfectly fits your Raspberry Pi B+.
  • Directly powered from the Raspberry Pi, no additional power supply
  • Optional: high-bandwidth output transformer provides full galvanic isolation of the electrical output (not in the standard version)
  • Integrated EEPROM for automatic configuration (with write-protection).
    Note that this feature is still in development by the Raspberry Pi foundation. You will be able to upgrade your HiFiBerry DAC+ when it is officially available. The sound card already works without this feature.
  • Comes with all components required to mount it. We include 4 M2.5x12mm spacers to fix the board onto the Raspberry Pi.

Mamboberry HiFi DAC

€89.90

The MAMBOBERRY HiFi DAC+ is a high-resolution digital-to-analog converter(DAC) for the Raspberry Pi models A+/B+ and 2B/Zero/Pi 3.

Specially designed to deliver the best audio playback quality, and also an ultra low power supply ! with 1A power ability, for the Raspberry Pi models.

My choice

I didn't test the Mamboberry as it is a DAC, but the HifiBerry is a very good solution and give me the quality I was looking for.

Configuration

The HifiBerry is very simple to plug and comes with all the screws you need to be attach on the Raspberry card. By default the HifiBerry card use all the Gpio ports, so if you need some, you have to extends the card for that.

Under OSMC, you have to specify the new output card.

  • In System > "My OSMC" > PI config > hardware support > soudcard overlay : hifiberry-digital-overlay
  • w1gpio : none
  • Reboot
  • Done

Le projet en images

Photo from collybia.com
HiFiBerry Digi+

The HiFiBerry Digi+ is a high-quality S/PDIF output board for the Raspberry Pi model A+/B+, Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.

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