Can I connect two USB DACs to one Rpi running Ropieee? I’ve got two amps, a tube amp and a SS amp, and I want to be able to use both (not at the same time). The tube amp has a Modi MB and the SS amp has an internal DAC. Thanks for the advice.
IIRC, you can, but you would have to go into the RoPieee software and choose the DAC you wanted to use and maybe reboot the RPi. It would be easier just to use two RPi4’s, I think.
I don’t know about RoPieee, but there’s no issue doing this with DietPi or VitOS. In fact, at this very moment, I’m switching between two DACs that are both connected to a RPi4 running VitOS. You do need to make sure that the DACs have adequate power. In my case, both DACs have their own power sources, so they are not drawing excessive power from the USB ports on the RPi.
No special setup was required on the RPi. I just enabled both DACs as outputs on the Audio tab in Roon Settings. I’ve done the same using DietPi, but I’ve found that VitOS sounds nicer in cases where you can use a RPi4 with wired Ethernet connection.
I should add that I’ve also had no problems grouping these two DACs into a zone. They can work together or independently…just like how they would if they were connected to separate RPi’s.
Thanks for the info guys. Looks like I’ll have to try for myself. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
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Yes you can. That works out of the box.
Only thing you need to be careful with is power supply.
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Thanks Harry. Both DACs have external power supplies so it shouldn’t affect the Pi.
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Just tried and it works great. Thanks all.
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Hi David - does this mean you’d be able to adjust the delay of the two outputs separately in Roon? I’m in the midst of planning a conversion from Chromcast to RAAT endpoints, and I have 2 speaker zones right next to each other that play out of sync unless one is very slightly delayed (currently handled via the CC group settings)
Not sure but I think you can do that in DSP.
You would be able to adjust the delay between the two, but with identical DSP settings for the two DACs, I’ve discovered no perceivable difference in timing between them. Not saying that they could not be off a sample or two, but running multiple USB DACs from the same RPi seems to help a lot with synchronization.
Thanks - that’s helpful to know. At the moment, my main zone passes through my AVR’s Audyssey MultEQ room correction, which does a great job, but adds a slight delay compared to the un-processed (and less critical) zone 2.