Best hardware for Volumio 3

Does anyone know which hardware volumio 3 will sound better on? RasPi 4 or x86 Intel Nuc?

Unsure which to run it on…

Thanks in advance!

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I am quite sure the DAC is more important. Pi4 with this separated USB ports is fine.

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For RasPi 4, anyone have strong feelings on the amount of memory to run V3 well? 2 GB RAM models are the only ones that are relatively easy to find; 4GB/8GBs are sold out everywhere.

I found that my old pi3B was faster and more robust with Volumio than my pi4 4GB. Volumio isn’t resource hungry on a Pi, 1GB ram is plenty.

Edit 16 Jan 22: now that I have multiple systems up and stable, I’ve changed my mind.
The Pi4s are:

  • quicker with the UI (but only marginally)
  • just as reliable in every aspect, except wifi …
  • but most importantly, the Pi4s have almost no wifi problems, but my 3Bs need a daily restart to keep connected reliably (but that might be my wifi network).

Pi4s of course run hotter, but mine sit naked behind a screen (gosh!), without fan or heatsink, and stay at a cool ~50C.

Overall, I’ll keep my Pi3bs, but any new ones will be Pi4 2GB.

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Sorry I meant with an external DAC.

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As most of noted, if you are using USB to DAC Pi is fine. If your DAC accepts i2S i would recommend Odroid C4. It has 7 pin connector that gives you direct access to I2S signals and just need wire to a sending unit of choice to work with your DAC. I find i2s to be superior to USB.

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Note, the 7-pin connector is only supported for either the Odroid HiFi Shield (pcm5102a) or the HiFi Shield2 (pcm5142) DAC or simple DACs which can use the HiFi Shield’s generic i2s driver with the pcm5102a codec.

Not necessarily, you can use it on HDMI or RJ-45 adapters to connect to compatible DAC’s.

http://audio-gd.com/Pro/diy/I2Skits/I2SEN.htm

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Yes, I’m aware of that, but it still means it will only work if you can use the generic driver with the pcm5102a codec.

using Rpi4 with USB as well - great stuff!
no fancy hats of faffing around, cheap and great sounds → RME Adi2 FS