Raspberry Pi 5 as network storage, music server, and player - PART 8

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 Squeezelite"

Go the the "Squeezelite Settings" tab.

From the drop-down menu > Autodetected Hat or USB audio > Save > Reboot

After reboot, for "Output setting" click on one of the options which starts with "hw..."

Leave most other fields blank for default settings, except

"Device supports DSD/DoP" "3:dop" - this ensures DSD compatibility, which I will discuss later.

This is my rPi5 Lyrion server & player, connected via USB to my DAC.

As before, I'm playing a 192 kHz PCM file, and in fact this DAC will support up to 32-bit 768 kHz (via USB).

NEXT - 9. ALTERNATIVE MUSIC SERVER SOFTWARE FOR THE RASPBERRY PI

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