How to connect RPi with Digi+ to a Quad Pre amp

I have a couple of RPi with Digi+ HATs; I use their toslink outputs to feed into a couple of Unitiqutes. Yesterday I installed Roon onto a friend‘s iMac which connects to a couple of TVs around his house. For the last 8 years he has been using a Beomaster system for his music; now he wants to use his B&O speakers with Roon. He also has a couple of old Quad systems that he would like to use with Roon.
I have an idea that I could RPi to do this, but how do I connect a RPi with or without a HAT to the Quad preamps?

I assume the Quad systems have RCA input? In that case you can use a RPi with a DAC HAT, i.e. from HifiBerry, Justboom or Allo.

That’s what I was thinking; but do I need a spdif to analog converter, or what is the other output socket?
Apologies for such a novice question.

Nope - you need a different HAT on your RPi. One that provides analogue RCA outputs.

1 Like

A DAC HAT does exactly what you want: it converts the digital signal to a analog one and has two RCA outputs for left and right to connect it to an amplifier.

1 Like

Thanks guys - good to know that I don’t need to get a spdif converter.

No, this is incorrect. The Digi+ provides S/PDIF and Toslink not analogue. As @Geoff_Coupe says, a different hat is needed for RCA.

https://www.hifiberry.com/digis

Um - isn’t that what Joost said? A DAC HAT - a Digital to Analogue Converter…

1 Like

Ah, apologies @Joost_Hoogland I read this as “the” DAC hat … @stephen_pritchard1 you’ll need to buy a new hat with RCA outputs.

Like this


To end up as neat or crap as these

1 Like

I’ll keep the two RPis with their Digi+ for my Unitiqutes and recommend my friend gets his Quads serviced then setup a RPi with the RCA outputs.
Any recommendations for software please?

RoPieee is the simplest and best, IMO. I have used DietPi with Roon Bridge before now, but all my RPi endpoints now run RoPieee. I use DietPi on a further RPi to host the Roon Extension Manager of @Jan_Koudijs, and to run PiHole.

Agree, Ropieee.

Excellent - running Ropieee on mine, but wondered if anything handled RCA. Thanks again chaps.

1 Like