ROCK, Raspberry Pi and Hifiberry DAC card

Audio Gear Talk
1

Hi,

As usual I am confused

I am using a ROCK which streams to a Raspberry pi with Roon Bridge on it. I plug my headphones directly into the pi and have great sound

I am considering adding a Hifiberry DAC card to the pi in the hope that it will improve the quality even more

Support at Hifiberry tell me that it wouldn’t work without another amp, which I don’t understand as it’s working now, am I missing something?

Thanks

2

The circuitry on the DAC card is different from the Pi’s built-in DAC and amp, so yes, you’d need a headphone amp to take the output from the DAC and produce sufficient voltage to drive your headphones. But if you’re happy with what you have now, why bother? This would be the first step down an endless path of equipment upgrades in pursuit of “better” sound.

3

Depending on headphone sensitivity, you could use an alternative DAC hat with headphone output. The IQaudiO Pi-DAC+ includes headphone output but I’m sure there are others.

4

You could work your way down this list:

https://www.tech-knowhow.com/2017/06/raspberry-pi-audio-hats-hardware-attached-top-definitive-list/

A bit outdated. I for one would love to have one of these:

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5

Thanks Bill and Martin - understand the point about an endless search for the holy grail but Roon is turning me into a real geek

Great advice, thanks

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