RasPi2 and Hifiberry Digi+ feeding NAD D1050 DAC

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1

All: I continue to play with RasPlex and various streaming alternatives.

I have installed RasPlex and set it’s name (to be different than another one in the house), I have modified the config.txt file to comment out the lirc.rpi line and uncomment the line for the hifiberry digi.

I have it on my network - running on wifi. I have set the audio device to be the Hifiberry.

The result is that I have a connection, but stuttered music playback. 2 or 3 seconds on, then no sound for 2 or 3 seconds, then another couple of seconds of music. Plex is playing the whole song.

I am using the NAD D 1050 DAC (new today). It is showing a sampling rate of 44.1 on its display. I am pretty sure most of the files I am testing are .flac encodings.

For comparison, I have another RasPlex running on a RasPi2 with the Hifiberry Amp and it has no problems running off the same library of .flac files.

Any ideas?

Many thanks for all the work on RasPlex.

2

As far as I’m aware the the HiFiBerry Digi is not compatible with the RPi2, for the RPi2 you need the Digi+.

Regards

3

Assuming you do have a Digi+ for the RPi2, the WiFi is probably the issue for something like FLAC, it can’t get the file with low enough latency to keep the buffer full. Try it on a wired connection and see if the problem persists.

4

@NedtheNerd said:
As far as I’m aware the the HiFiBerry Digi is not compatible with the RPi2, for the RPi2 you need the Digi+.

Regards

I am running the Digi+ (the transformer version), should have had that more clear. I am using the Coax connection from the Digi+ to the DAC.

5

@KnightOrc said:
Assuming you do have a Digi+ for the RPi2, the WiFi is probably the issue for something like FLAC, it can’t get the file with low enough latency to keep the buffer full. Try it on a wired connection and see if the problem persists.

I have been wondering the same thing. I will try again, but the other RasPlex I have running in the house is further away from the router and has no issues. Further, we stream video from the same Plex Media Server wirelessly to laptops and a Chromecast.

I will try to set-up a hardwired connection to see if that is it.

6

Which WiFi dongle are you using, the Edimax ones seem a bit lethargic in the last two releases, on my headless audio system I swapped out to a cheap Ralink chipset adapter (£4) that is rated at 300 not 150 (not that you ever get anything like that speed), little bit longer than a nano but throughput seems better especially with flac and lossless wma files, just a thought. Next release uses latest firmware and drivers so hopefully things may improve.

Regards

7

I am using one of the Realtek 8188 based dongles. Unfortunately, I had a quick look and the other ones I have hanging around here are based on the same chip. I am experimenting a bit more and the .mp3 or .wma files play well, it is the .flac ones that give me trouble.

8

Yup, crappy wireless dongle appears to be the culprit. Changed it to another based on the Realtek chip and it works beautifully.

Can now stream .flac files beautifully. The NAD DAC also does a very nice job. Great sound. Very happy with this setup.

Once again, many thanks to the devs!

9

Glad you got it sorted, can you please mark this topic as answered, thanks.

Regards.

10

I have a RP2, DIgi+ connected to 100Mb UTP. Coax to my DAC. Still 44.1 KHz on my display. What could be the reason for that?

11

@hetbeest said:
I have a RP2, DIgi+ connected to 100Mb UTP. Coax to my DAC. Still 44.1 KHz on my display. What could be the reason for that?

I will play with it tonight. I will post back. I will do some research on the settings within the Plex Media Server to see if it is doing any transcoding before streaming the files.

12

I had another look. One flac24 leads to 44.1KHz, the other (other artist) leads to 96KHz. Both downloaded from Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound. Strange.

13

Must have been the flacs. With other flacs it’s doing 192kHz. Nice!