HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro vs. IQaudIO DAC+

Audio Gear Talk Raspberry Pi
1

Hi,

Any experience or opinion which of these DACs provide better audio quality?
HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro

  • Two different clocks on board seem very important for accurate processing: one for 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz sample rates and another for 48/96/192kHz.
    IQaudIO DAC+
  • Is Texas Instruments PCM5122 DAC good, and how is it clocked?

Janis

2

I only have experience from HifiBerry DAC+ but I doubt you would hear much difference, if any.
IMWHO, the boards are cheap enough for you too try both so you can see it for yourself.

3

Both are using the TI PCM5122 DAC, which is pretty good. Mixer options (alsamixer/amixer) after loading the overlay are the same.

The dual oscillators of the Dac+ Pro offer a theoretical advantage, while the PiDAC+ has a nice little headphone amp built in.

I have used both in my headphone setup – haven’t done any explicit comparative listening, but both are nice and punch way above their weight. Right now I’m using the DAC+ Pro and don’t feel compelled to change it around anytime soon.

Please note that there is an incompatibility with the DAC+ Pro and the Pi3’s built-in WiFi that is yet unresolved, so if you are planning on using Pi3 Wifi you may want to steer clear of the DAC+ Pro for a bit.

4

regarding the last remark: there is a workaround for that. I use a Raspberry 3 Digi+ with Openelec (no Roon, it is in a different system), Had the problem in the beginning but with the workaround it works flawless. It is doing so some time now, I don’t know the solution by heart (just change a setting in some system file) but it should be easy to google.

5

This is of rather recent vintage and not related to the early problems just after the Pi 3 launch:

https://www.hifiberry.com/2016/08/wlan-driver-bug-in-raspberry-pi-kernel/

AFAIK, there is no solution and/or workaround (with Raspbian, at least) as of yet, but of course I’d be happily wrong. :slight_smile:

6

Now the problem has a known reason - the frequencies from the oscillators from the DAC+ pro are interfering with the wifi on the pi. But it is only some of the wifi frequencies. So an interim solution can be to fix the wifi channel (10 seems to work). Now Hifiberry also seems to be able to deal with it, they sent a message two days ago that they have found new oscillators.

1 Like
7

Is the wifi issue resolved with this? Is there a Roon image for it and is it considered RoonReady?

8

I couldn’t find an easy way of enabling wifi with the image from Hifiberry. I can however recommend Dietpi, works like a charm and it is easy to setup wifi. If the wifi don’t work, complain to Hifiberry, they apparently have solved the problem with other oscillators, not that they are very open about it, but read the message in the GitHub above.

9

Does it work with wired Ethernet?

10

Yes, it does.

11

Works fine with Pi3 WiFi forced to Channel 10 on both router and DAC+ Pro / Pi3 node.