For the Ropieee image i use only SD. There have never been any problems.
Just for some context I am using a headless RPi 3B+ with an Allo DigiOne transport into my amplifier and everything works fine, play FLAC 24 etc no issues
24/96? Or 24/44.1-48?
The bit rate typically doubles on linear PCM; less depending on FLAC compression.
Thanks again merm92: and on your 24/382 tests, I assume you were streaming for a reasonable time period. (Even if this is not your standard playback material.)
This really contradicts the OttoKerner comments; and my own anecdotal experiences with SD cards. Yes of course on SD, buyer beware… and performance can be dramitically different. Do your research… and for OttoKerner: I get where you are coming from on the SD comments… all good.
So in summary: Pi 4 can handle my requirements of 24/96 stereo - including on USB. This gives me the option of a USB DAC system, instead of a coax/Toslink SPDIF.
From what I can tell, 4GB memory is fine even for Pi 5 - unless you are running Roon on a Ropieee of course… then minimum 8GB - which I would favor anyway.
Thanks all for responding and educating… I will add my own comments after the build is done and tested.
Cheers!
24/96
some additional notes as you work on your build …
network speed needs to at least keep up with your max bitrate audio files, but beyond that, playback can sometimes glitch when the disk can’t keep up with what’s coming in over the network (since headless plexamp pre-fetches entire files in advance) … not unusual with a combination of very large files + wired network + SD card
options to avoid this type of glitching include faster storage (nvme ssd as system disk on a pi5, for example), separate storage dedicated to plexamp headless caching (fast usb thumb drive mounted at ~/Library, for example), or limiting the network speed with the headless plexamp setting (under playback > caching)
good luck with your build 
Also, check and test out different cache and pre-cache setting as well. My experience, can’t speak for others, I was getting stutters and pauses in playback, I was using a high quality SD card, and changing up the cache settings made the difference for me.
Thanks again to all that have participated here.
I am curious abou the pros/cons of getting an NVidia Shield instead of a RPi5 as a Headless Plex Amp… so I can stream to my AV Receiver.
I was shocked to realize that they are about the same price. What happened to RPi as an inexpensive platform?
Just learned that perhaps Shield is not the best approach. (Thanks @OttoKerner)
With Shield, a Google/Chromecast stream from a mobile device, will be likely be Opus from server to mobile and then AGAIN from mobile to Shield. Thats two paths on Wi-Fi; audio degradation and latency due to transcodes and of course associated Google issues.
With R Pi - assuming a good build - my mobile is sending only commands via Wi-Fi. The R Pi Headless PlexAmp will fetch original 24/96 audio files from my server on a wired GigE connection and output to a DAC connected to my AVR.
I love my Shields but R Pi wins in this use-case.
Here’s a little shoddy but repeatable empiricism WRT playing high bitrate flacs on headless plexamp pi’s.
I have two separate rpi plexamp players / systems in different rooms. One is an rpi 3 and one is an rpi 4. Here’s what dmesg says about the SD cards in each (i think they are both sandisk cards).
rpi3: mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address aaaa
rpi4: mmc0: new ultra high speed DDR50 SDXC card at address aaaa
Both of these pi’s are connected to my LAN via wifi.
Playing the same 24/192 FLAC album on each pi (at the full resolution - my DACs show me the bitrate), the pi4 plays it flawlessly and the pi3 has constant frequent, silent interruptions of 1-2 seconds.
These are different classes of SD cards.
That they are from the same brand doesn’t mean much.
But your test gives an indication what to use for high bitrate files: RasPi>=4 and SDXC cards.
Which speed class is printed on the SDXC card? A Guide to Speed Classes for SD and microSD Cards - Kingston Technology
If I was willing to be more than a “shoddy” empiricist, I’d replace the slower card in the pi3 and repeat the experiment to see if it’s the card or the pi that is bottlenecking things in my environment.
I may do that at some point, but at the moment, I’m about to (as soon as a USB B → USB C cable arrives) experiment with using an old, unused pixel 6a running android plexamp as a replacement for the pi3.
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