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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 13

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13. ONBOARD DISPLAY Commercial streamers traditionally have no form of display, until you get to the higher-priced models such as WiiM Ultra or Eversolo, and it seems to me that newcomers to the world of streaming are attracted to displays(?) It's possible to add an LED or OLED text display, or even a full video display to a Raspberry Pi, though a higher level of setup skill is required. I consider a full video display to be overkill for what is otherwise a miniature device, especially since you are just duplicating the display already available on your smartphone.  But I do think a basic OLED text display is worthwhile, so I made the effort to modify the Geekworm case to accommodate a 2.7 inch 256x64 pixel OLED screen. At the outset I will suggest that if you wish to fit an OLED screen, choose a larger equipment case!  Small cases for the Pi typically have very little free space available, and I had to grind away sections of the Pi's heatsink, as well as a corner of the ...
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 12

12. OK I WANT ONE, WHAT DO I NEED? If you choose the conventional rPi5 and small metal case, here's your shopping list: Raspberry Pi 5 Model B 4GB RAM US$70 Pimoroni NVME base US$15 Pimoroni NVMe base metal case US$16 Geekworm H509 passive heatsink US$6 or Geekworm H505 fan+heatsink (better than official active cooler) US$7 or PiHut 40mm fan+heatsink (similar, but quieter) US$9 27W power supply US$13 32GB microSD, Sandisk Extreme US$15 M.2 drive for storage, say 1TB US$90 (SSD drives have become expensive lately) Total: approx US$195 + delivery where applicable, this includes 1TB storage. Alternatively if you want the larger case with Compute Module 5 (like mine ) this will add another $30. NEXT - 13. ONBOARD DISPLAY
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 11

11. USER INTERFACES To control your Lyrion server/player: From an iPhone - use  iPeng  or  SqueezePad From an Android phone - use  Squeezer  or  SqueezePlayer  or  Orange Squeeze  or  Squeeze Ctrl or F-Droid - available only via direct apk install, or via the F-Droid open source installer - https://f-droid.org/packages/com.craigd.lmsmaterial.app/ From a tablet computer or desktop computer or laptop - use the excellent browser-based "Material Skin" interface - in a web browser go to - http://pcp.local:9000 or http://<IP_address_of_Raspberry_Pi>:9000 NEXT - 12. OK I WANT ONE, WHAT DO I NEED?
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 10

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10. DSD playback - dsf and dff files For DSD playback the DAC atttached (or contained within) your streamer needs to be DSD-capable.  There are 2 methods of DSD playback: - native DSD - DSD-over-PCM (DoP) Which method you use depends on your DAC.  Check the specifications to find which mode your DAC supports. native DSD For native DSD playback there is no configuration change necessary  for Lyrion, and no need to install the "DSDPlayer" plugin. But there is one small configuration change necessary for the player component - squeezelite . In the pCP configuration page, under "Squeezelite Settings" "Device supports DSD/DoP" enter this text - 3:dop This tells squeezelite to delay/mute the audio for 3 milliseconds when Lyrion switches between PCM and DSD sources, to avoid audible clicks. And although this setting is related to DoP, bizarrely it affects native DSD playback as well.  Without this setting squeezelite will transcode DSD audio files to PCM - and in...
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 9

9. ALTERNATIVE MUSIC SERVER SOFTWARE FOR THE RASPBERRY PI At this point I will mention some other software which competes with Lyrion: Volumio and Moode . Bear in mind Volumio and Moode operate only as combined server/player (what I call one-box solution).  They cannot serve audio streams to a separate streamer device, as with the system configuration shown in Part 7. Apart from this, the choice between Lyrion, Volumio and Moode really comes down to user interface.  Volumio and Moode have their own dedicated interfaces.  Lyrion, on the other hand, has a choice of interfaces, some restricted to different operating systems, others browser-based, and thus available across all operating systems. NEXT - 10. DSD playback
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 8

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8. COMBINED SERVER & PLAYER But wait, you don't actually need a separate streamer/endpoint at all!  In addition to being a Lyrion  server , the rPi can be configured to also act as the Lyrion player .  I like to refer to this configuration as a "one box solution". For this you will need to connect the Raspberry Pi to a DAC - it can be a "DAC-hat" attached directly to the rPi's 40 pin header, but I prefer to use a separate DAC, connected to the rPi via USB.  I will be using a Topping E30II lite DAC, but you could use something as small and cheap as the Apple iPhone headphone dongle. Go ahead and connect your DAC to the Raspberry Pi's USB connector. In the pCP configuration page, first enable the USB audio output, then enable "<whatever_DAC_device_is_detected>" Now we must install the player software "squeezelite". Go to the "Squeezelite" tab and select "Install" when complete, select "Start Squeezelit...
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Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 7

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7. READY TO GO We are now fully set up and ready to play music, to a separate streamer/endpoint. This is my rPi5 piCorePlayer-Lyrion server streaming to a WiiM Mini, with optical S/PDIF output to a Topping E30 II lite DAC. As you can see, I can play 192 kHz PCM files to the DAC, which is the highest sample rate the WiiM can handle, and also the highest rate optical S/PDIF can handle. NEXT - 8. COMBINED SERVER & PLAYER
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