Hello,
I have an old Android TV Box based on the Amlogic g02ref customer platform with AML8726-MX SOC. Originally, I had it running LibreELEC (Kodi) which worked rather well given the low-specs of the device (Dual-Core, 1GB RAM).
I would like to repurpose this box as a dedicated audio player since it has a coax digital output which I could connect directly to my amp. With LibreELEC (Kodi), navigating through the audio files, web radio and Youtube streams proved to be a bit cumbersome and the only real way to do it is through a screen connected to the device. Kodi’s web interface is sluggish and sometimes freezes the device, and there are a lot of things you cannot access through it (such as Audio Settings).
I needed something to play music files off my DLNA server, Youtube streams and web radio - all controllable through a responsive web interface so the device can run headless. I decided to give Volumio a try.
So in case anyone else is interested, here it is: Volumio image for Amlogic g02ref devices (version 2.657)
Note that this build is by no means perfect, mainly due to the outdated kernel used (and the partially broken Amlogic m6 PCM driver that came with it). It is important that you check the README on the repo for an overview of what issues you might encounter:
https://github.com/patrickkfkan/volumio-platform-aml/tree/master/g02ref
So far it’s working well enough for me. I am using the coax digital audio output and have set Audio Resampling to 16-bit + Very High quality while keeping sampling rate “Native”. Most of my audio files are 44.1khz and 48khz, with the occasional 96khz and a few 192khz. Since I intend to run Volumio for 24/7, I’ll see how it goes in terms of stability.
The web interface is, by the way, snappy. Way snappier than Kodi’s
I have taken the liberty to fork the platform-aml repo started by @balbes150 and placed my g02ref platform files there. I should mention I learnt a lot from @balbes150’s builds for other Amlogic SOCs. Credits also go to those at the LibreELEC team for the Amlogic kernel, @emanuel4you for his g02ref kernel patches and @adilinden-oss for the OverlayFS kernel patch.