IQaudIO Pi-DAC

[rst1]

Hi,
just in case someone is interested.. the IQaudIO Pi-DAC works quite well with some minor tweaks within Rune.

You just have to update the system with

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pacman -Syu

reboot, then edit your /etc/modules-load.d/raspberrypi.conf that it looks like

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bcm2708-rng
#snd-bcm2835
snd_soc_pcm512x
snd_soc_iqaudio_dac

reboot (again), execute

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aplay -l

and from the output, which looks something like

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[root@runeaudio /]# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 2: sndrpiiqaudioda [snd_rpi_iqaudio_dac], device 0: IQaudIO DAC HiFi pcm512x-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

the numbers after card: (in this case 2) and device: (here 0) are important, because you have to edit /etc/mpd.conf and create there an extry like

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audio_output {
enabled         "yes"
type            "alsa"
name            "iqaudio_dac"
device          "hw:2,0"
dsd_usb         "yes"
}

However, Mixer doesn't work, so you can put in /etc/mpd.conf as mixer_type whatever you want, "hardware" throws some errors, but the sound output works anyway.

Then reboot a last time and enjoy.

(this is basically the same procedure as with the HifiBerry card (as mentioned here and here, just with different modules.)

-Ralf

[nic]

I have a PiDac languishing next to my PC just waiting for the header to be soldered I'm a bit thick when it comes to Linux etc , are you able to provide more detailed instructions regarding setting hardware volume control via SSH ? I need to use this as I have power amps with no gain controls

cheers

Nic

[ACX]

Hi rst1, thank you for the feedback. We got 3 DAC samples from IQaudIO and we are going to test them soon. I'm also interested in the hardware volume configuration.

[rst1]

Hi,
unfortunately I haven't managed to get the Volume thing on the Playback tab working last night, neither with the HifiBerry or the Pi-Dac, both end up giving "cannot open mixer: No such file or directory" when I run "alsamixer" from the commandline, regardless which mixer_type I choose. I'll try to investigate deeper when I'm at home tonight.

-Ralf

[nic]

ACX : Hifiberry and Pidac have different gender 8-pin headers , you will need to use a fresh Pi if you have already soldered headers in for Hifiberry and want to use PiDac and vice-versa. Looks a bit tricky to desolder the pin header in PiDac , PCB tracks look like a solder-sucker may do some damage

Looking forward to seeing I2S support in future releases

cheers

Nic

[ACX]

ACX : Hifiberry and Pidac have different gender 8-pin headers , you will need to use a fresh Pi if you have already soldered headers in for Hifiberry and want to use PiDac and vice-versa. Looks a bit tricky to desolder the pin header in PiDac , PCB tracks look like a solder-sucker may do some damage

I know, that's why we haven't had a listen to it yet. Orion tried to unsolder the pin header in Pi-DAC today, but yes, it's quite tricky, so we decided to use it on a different Rpi.

Looking forward to seeing I2S support in future releases

We are going to support all the I2S DACs that appeared in this forum (RaspyPlay3, HiFiBerry DAC and Digi, BerryNOS, IQaudIO Pi-DAC and the freshly announced BerryNOS mini) in the next 0.3-beta release.

[gswg]

I am playing around with volume control. You need to use the correct mixer name in mpd.conf which then gets it all working however there appears to be an issue between the MPD volume and the ALSA volume so you hear nothing until around 70% volume. I am assuming this is a linear / logarithmic issue between MPD and ALSA - investigation continues.

To "make it work" but with limited control as described above...

first find the hw number assigned to the IQaudIO Pi-DAC...
pi@raspberrypi /etc $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpiiqaudioda [snd_rpi_iqaudio_dac], device 0: IQaudIO DAC HiFi pcm512x-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0



in /etc/mpd.conf (change the hw numbers below to correspond to your "aplay -l" results)

audio_output {

type "alsa"
name "Output"
device "hw:0,0"
mixer_control "Playback Digital"
mixer_device "hw:0"
mixer_index "0"
dsd_usb "yes"

}



Gordon@IQaudIO.com
twitter @IQ_Audio

[Peter]

Why not try one of these to changer header gender? Or am I missing something (as usual)?

ide-cable.jpg (68.45 KiB) Viewed 6778 times

Male-To-Male-Gender-Changer.jpg (23.81 KiB) Viewed 6778 times

[rst1]

Hi Gordon,
that doesn't work as expected..

mixer_control "Playback Digital"
mixer_device "hw:0"
mixer_index "0"

gives errors like

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Apr 08 19:24 : config: option 'mixer_control' on line 51 was not recognized
Apr 08 19:24 : config: option 'mixer_device' on line 52 was not recognized
Apr 08 19:24 : config: option 'mixer_index' on line 53 was not recognized

(if I don't put them into the audio_output section but in the more general section on top then mpd doesn't start at all)

-Ralf
(btw, HifiBerry works without additional lines, but as you mentioned pretty much only from volume at 70% until the end)

[rst1]

Hi Peter,

Why not try one of these to changer header gender? Or am I missing something (as usual)?

Kind of
On the HiFiBerry the male part of the I2S connection is soldered on the RaspberryPI (with the female part on the extension board) while on the Pi-DAC it is exactly the other way, the female connector has to be soldered onto the RaspberryPI and the male connector is already on the extension board. This make easy swapping between those DACs a bit complicated.

I have resoldered my Pi-DAC to easily change them as I'm still not sure which will be my final DAC setup, in the end I need 4 of them for different rooms. I've heard both now and found little to no difference, they all sound pretty exactly like the Sonos (using a Naim Uniti with Linn Majik for listening) but I will look (hear..) closer in the next weeks, maybe with my headphones... but that's a different story.

-Ralf