Volumio and CD / turntable playback via USB

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#1

Hello,
Since 2014, I have been designing and building tube amplifiers and passive boxes again, music reproduction is the common thread through my life. I am retired and of course I now have the time :wink:
The only thing I was missing was a ā€œpreamplifierā€ containing an internet radio (over WIFI or LAN) and music from a NAS, CD player and USB connection to play music from a stick.
Last week I saw that my son had provided the EL34 amplifier, which he had received from me, with a network music player on which he had installed Volumio.
Further investigation revealed that it was a Raspberry Pi 4b with a BOSS I2S DAC V 1.2.

For about half that price, I can also put that together myself: Raspberry Pi 4 B, 4x 1.5 GHz, 2 GB RAM + Raspberry Pi Shield - HiFiBerry DAC + RCA, the standard 5.1V / 3A prescribed as power supply.

In several articles I have become a lot wiser about Volumio: most desires are fulfilled, including the integration of Spotify.
The only question I still have is: can I play music via USB from the RPi with an external CD player from, for example, a laptop?
Same question for my DUAL turntable with a USB port (for ripping music).

In the future I can still equip this with a 7 ā€œtouchscreen, built into a housingā€ SmartiPi Touch 2 ā€œ+ā€ SmartiPi Touch 2 back cover - 35mm ".

#2

Iā€™m also intrigued about this but I havenā€™t dug into it further than the R part of R&D.

You would think that USB analogue to digital converters like the ones used to connect instruments to computers would be able to be used as the source.

A different take is to turn your turntable into a shoutcast stream and let volumio consume it as though it is an Internet radio station. Here is a discussion on that. Is this the easiest way to connect an analogue turntable?

Cheers,
Andrew

#3

The USB signal, from both the CD player and the turntable, is digital I think. The turntable also has a USB output to rip music from LPs to MP3 on the PC.
So would I expect an app on the RPi to be able to handle that, just like on PC or android?

Greetings,
Willy

#4

You can add a Hifiberry Adc DAC board an play Vinyl like that. I tried various USB inputs but it did not work. Currently you can only rip CDs via USB. More might be on the wayā€¦ (like Hdmi inputā€¦)

#5

Thanks Joachim, now I know enough to buy all the components with confidence.
I only doubt between the DAC + ADC and the DAC + ADC Pro. The Pro can also hardware control the input volume + capability for microphone (I donā€™t need that).
Is there a lot of difference in the volume level of the ADC input compared to the regular sound source? If not, the Pro is not necessary for me.

#6

I first hijacking an analog HDMI converter by feeding it with an analog sound and a unrelated video. That sounded awful. Then I bought a 50ā‚¬ ADC from Amazon, that was a bit less awful. Then I invested in the Adc pro thingy from Hifiberry - that sounds great. I tend to believe that ADCs are more critical than DACs (or the market is smaller and the prize higher) and that every ADC ā‚¬ countsā€¦

#7

Then it becomes the ADC-Pro.
Did you have to install an extra plug-in in Volumio?

#8

No. Initially there was a problem, that you needed to select the ADC DAC board as I2S device in order to use it as input, but then you could only use the boardā€˜s analog port as output which makes it quite useless. Volumio send me a fix which is, I believe (?), included in the current distribution. Now you can select HDMI as output and use the ADC as input. You do need the Superio subscription for it to workā€¦ That makes the whole thing a pretty expensive ADC, I would imagine that Volumio makers may want to give that a second thoughtā€¦
You can select the ADC input level via the Alsa interface, it is set rather low and should be Ok in all cases.

#9

ā€¦ that does not sound well ā€¦
Anyway, Iā€™m going for the ā€œVolumio Freeā€ distribution. I also start to doubt whether the detour with a DAC ADC-Pro is necessary:

  • I just figured out that I can link the turntable directly to my amps through the input selector. The turntable has a built-in RIAA / phono preamp.
  • I also read that the Nanosound plug-in can handle the playback and extraction of CDs. I need to get some more information about that first.