Opinions on USB Roon bridge using dietpi

Audio Gear Talk DietPi
1

Here is what I think I know so far.
The Rasbury Pi USB is not up to much as it shares " something"with the ethernet ports.

I am using a Hifiberry digi+ connected optically to my Chord Hugo DAC.

First of all am I correct in thinking that USB would be the preferred transfer Protocol to get to the DAC? This is the impression I get from my time here but I don’t understand how this can be the case sometimes when I see so many tweaks and products included in the chain to clean it up or whatever.

If I am correct in this what options for SBC do I have that can run dietpi as I find it wonderful for the great Linux unwashed?

There Is a list on the diedpi website but I cannot divine from the information there which might be the best product to use for audio.

Thanks

.SJB

2

Indeed the Rpi shares it’s USB bus with the internet interface, having not that much bandwidth. However, with Dietpi I can safely say I can stream up to DSD 64 without any issues.

USB is considered the preferred protocol (although I2S might even be better theoretically) because it’s async and makes the DAC “the boss”: the DAC takes care of the clock. So very simplistically said: it’s pull in stead of push.

And yeah, Dietpi is an fantastic choice with a lot of guys running it here as well.

Are you streaming something higher than DSD 64?

3

I don’t stream DSD at all as I either use Roon bridge streaming my mainly Red book collection or use HQ player to sample to 196PCM as Chord DACs change DSD back to PCM apparently.
I had the NUC connected I up sampled to 384 which is the highest rate the Hugo accepts. I limit it to 196 now as I don’t think optical will handle higher.

.SJB

4

Then a Raspberry Pi will be fine. Combined with Dietpi it works like a charm. Leave a note if you need any assistance!

5

I suppose I can try and and see if I noctice a diffference between optical and USB.

Would the Chord owning the clock give a bigger bang for buck than no electrical interference in the optical signal. I like the idea of optical getting rid of any drudge added by the power supply with the Pi.
When I see the lengths mRendu goes to enhance the USB connection my gut feeling is that the Pi one will be quite inferior from a sound quality perspective.

…and this set of filters poly-sinc-short-mp NS9 192 PCM is sounding very good at the moment with an optical connection.

.SJB

6

I can wholeheartedly recommend the ODROID-C2 as a Roon endpoint running on dietpi.

7

I have zero problems with DSD64 or 24/192 over USB out from my ethernet-connected RPi. I’ve only been using DietPi for a short time, but had similar audio stability with my previous Stretch-based custom install.