Hi, I am relatively new (3 weeks) in Raspberry PI and audio streaming. I recently bought the RPi4B (2GB) thinking to use Volumio to stream Spotify/Airplay to my PSB Alpha AM3 powered speakers via the RPi4B USB port. Although the installation of Volumio and RPi went well but I could not get Spotify to work. Even though I can see Spotify is playing but there is no sound output to the speaker. I searched the forum and tweaked the settings in Volumio as some suggested but it never worked. I then tried Moode, the same outcome. So, basically I gave up trying to make this work with USB.
Instead of turning the RPi4 into an expensive paper weight, I thought I shall invest in an audio HAT to resurrect this project.
My question is should I get an audio HAT with digital outputs to connect to the optical port on my PSB Alpha AM3 speakers (via optical splitter since the speaker has only 1 optical port which is used for the TV) or should I get one with analog outputs to connect to the 3.5mm aux port in the speaker?
The PSB speaker from what I read is a powered speaker that have a single amplifier for each channel, and passive crossovers that come after the amplifier in the signal path and built-in DSP - all analog input signals are first digitized.
Given the signal path of the speaker, my question is which HAT (analog or digital) will yield a better sound quality? Or is there even an audible difference?
Thanks for your comments and suggestions in advance.