Does anyone use a Raspberry PI with Active Speakers and a HiFi Berry HAT or similar? I wanted to but my issue is that I need a sturdy/heavy case as I notice the PI I use for another project is very lightweight and it tends to get easily knocked. I want to keep it out of the way and safe.
I have a set of Edifier speakers I’d love to use with a PI and Roon. Any recommendations, which PI and is HiFi Berry a good choice?
Why do you need the HiFi Berry HAT with active speakers? Am I missing something?
Surely it depends on the inputs on offer, if the Active speakers have USB then that should be all good. But if they only have XLR, SPDIF or RCA then a hat will be required.
I have a couple of HiFiBerry devices that have Ropieee on and they have worked great. I feed them into DACs & power amps but the devices linked to Ropieee should see you heading in the right direction, if the above matches your needs. If the speakers have an unused USB input then a straight Po running Ropieee is probably a better fit for you
If your main concern is making sure the Pi doesn’t get moved around, you can mount it in anything you like. Get yourself a hobby box or repurpose an old CD player and gut it so you can mount the Pi in the case. Depending on the speakers you have you can even mount the Pi to the speakers or even inside the speakers.
I have not used a Raspberry PI for a while but last I checked they don’t have RCA outs. The speakers have RCA inputs so I’d need a HAT for the correct connections.
They have RCA inputs so I’d need a hat. Never used RoPee before. I did look at HiFi Berry’s own OS as an option.
I looked at a steel case in the hope its heavy enough.
Sounds like an idea. I’ll look into it
That makes no sense to me. How are you supposed to get a digital signal to your active speakers? Is there no USB input?
EDIT: Maybe they have amps but no DAC??
Not all active speakers have a digital input.
That’s what I said 
I have tried both OS’s and I have much prefer Ropiee as it was much more reliable when I tried them both for a time.
I have an RCA HAT version and a Digital HAT version, both in steel cases. Not used the RCA version for a while though as it is in a storage box. I would expect the solution to work pretty well.
One comment is that the steel case reduces the quality of the WiFi signal
There is a problem with at least some Hi Fi Berry HATs and Ropieee, that causes the device volume to reset itself to zero.
You can work round it, by using one roon remote to hold device volume on max, which switching to roon digital volume with another - which you only need to do on initial install.
The Hi Fi Berry OS doesn’t have this issue.
In my case I ended up selling my DAC2 HDs (with Hi Fi Berry OS installed) although I’d used them with Roopiee and the workaround.
It’s probably some sort of driver issue.
Allo HATs are available again so that’s one possibility, or you could use a USB DAC attached to Ropieee.
A WiiM is another alternative.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the heads up on that. I think if I do go ahead with it I’ll use HiFi Berry as the OS. I’m 99% sure I used it previously (around 2016) whilst living in rented accommodation. The landlord had installed an Opus multi-room speaker system and a RP/HiFi Berry combo made perfect sense to use. Now 10 years later I’m looking at using it again!
i’m using;
Raspberry pi-4 running rasbian Os
(you can save some money and downgrade the Pi)
(also tried both Ropieee & Hifiberry Os’s but they are both overly controlly of everything and rasbian lets me tinker)
Hifiberry dac+pro
That looks great tbh. What case is that? I tried to install software on a MicroSD card but for some reason the card could not be recognised by Windows, not sure if it’s the Card, the USB adapter or what. I was getting so frustrated I gave up for today. I have an old Pi 2b V1.1 which I’ll see if it works and then upgrade to a 4 probably.
got all three, Pi, case and hifi hat off amazon.
Ah cool, I’ll keep you posted on my progress!
not exact same one but close..
This sounds promising and hoping to hear how progress goes! I wasn’t sure if Raspberry Pi would work.
