Finally, a viable Raspberry Pi alternative!

Tinkering
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One more thing I should’ve thought to mention in case anyone else runs into this:

I have an AT&T switch/router/modem and a Google mesh network behind that. I have my Nucleus and miniDSP (Roon endpoint for the listening room) plugged into the router’s ethernet switch and I wanted my Le Potato to be on the routers WiFi, not my Google network.

For some reason, armbin-config was able to discover both WiFi networks, but was not able to connect to the AT&T one.

The symptom was that the Le Potato showed up in Roon on the About tab, but not the Audio tab. That’s because of routing on my network.

The solution was to SSH into the Le Potato on the Google network and run nmcli con delete <SSID> to remove the incorrectly cached AT&T network, followed by nmcli dev wifi connect <SSID> password <password> to add the AT&T network back.

That connected me to the network I wanted and of course dropped the SSH session. That’s OK, my Le Potato showed up in Audio and I was streaming right away.

I’ve seen a lot of people having issues with bridges showing up on About, but not Audio. Hopefully this helps the next person.

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I mean, you could use the Pi 400 to build a Roon endpoint…

Ha, that’d be funny… and bulky, yes.

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CanaKit has 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB models in stock, but no 1GB model. Unfortunately, shipping to the US is a bit expensive at $15.

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Can these builds be used as endpoints rather than bridge? ie instead of USB, will the HDMI or even (dare I ask) the analog audio outputs work?

I am trying to replace a flakey Chromecast.

Thanks.

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I have a number of Raspberry Pi’s that use various DAC, DIGI, and AMP HATs from HiFiBerry, and I’ve been impressed with the results. Orchard Audio sells a couple of even nicer DAC HAT boards, but the cost is an order of magnitude higher, especially including the case.

Unfortunately, the Le Potato board’s GPIO headers are not compatible with audio HAT boards designed for the Raspberry Pi. However, Raspberry Pi boards are starting to become available again. I just purchased a new RPi4 board from pishop.us (4 GB) for the fair retail price of $55.

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Hi David-

Many thanks for posting this. Do you know if the S.M.S.L. SU-1 shows up as a Roon endpoint?

Thanks!
David

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Ah, never mind- thinking on this I realize that I would need some kind of a Roon bridge… Still, the reviews for this DAC are pretty rave.

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Yes, that DAC looks pretty good for $79:

The $149 ($159 with remote) WiiM Pro would pair nicely with it using S/PDIF:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5C9XXD5

I just got one in yesterday, and Roon Ready integration works perfectly.

It looks like the Raspberry Pi 4 boards are back in stock, so that could be a good traditional option if you don’t want to go the Libre Computer route for DIY. Cost with a nice case will be a bit less than the WiiM, but the advantage is format support for up to 32-bit, 768 kHz PCM (not that there’s any significant practical benefit).

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Connected to a Pi Zero 2W it certainly does. I have two of them, the other connected to my Innuos Zenmini which also appears as an endpoint

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I have one. Hoping to pick up a few more when they are available again.

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If you are using a USB DAC, a $35 RPi4 and a $15 dollar case is hard to beat.

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Newsflash: The $35 Raspberry Pi 4 is back (at least for the moment)!

This 1 GB model is perfect for running Roon Bridge.