Home Media Center powered by Raspberry Pi and two PCM5100 DACs
Designed by Sonocotta in Poland
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What is it? The Raspberry Pi Home Media Center is a compact and neatly designed hardware project that combines the power of the Raspberry Pi SBC and the Hi-Fi audio capabilities of the TI’s PCM5100 3…
Read More…The Raspberry Pi Home Media Center is a compact and neatly designed hardware project that combines the power of the Raspberry Pi SBC and the Hi-Fi audio capabilities of the TI’s PCM5100 32-bit DAC. This versatile media center provides a customizable and fully open-source hardware platform for home entertainment.
Raspberry Pi HiFi Hat introduces two of those DACs in a Hat shape. You can use it with any Raspberry Pi board, not only Zero. Raspberry Pi 5 users can use both outputs independently, while other Pis will produce the same audio on both outputs.
I did few audio projects in the past, some using ESP32, some using larger Orange Pi and Raspberry Pi devices. Each has its pros and cons, and each iteration I'm trying to focus on the details that were working best for me, while actually using them.
What is special about the Raspberry eco-system is of course its community support. Being a not-so-strong software developer, I often have to rely on the work that other people did and baked into the base Raspbian image. Attaching a DAC, Ethernet, and IR reader is as simple as adding 3 lines into config.txt
file. All the device tree definitions, kernel drivers, and dependency packages are already in place, believe it or not.
Sure, compared to the ESP32 platform it is not as lightweight. It requires more power, it takes some time to boot. But when it comes to rapid development, there is nothing like the Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi HiFi is a first-in-line product that uses the legendary PCM5100 series DAC with supreme audio quality. It exposes 2.1V RMS level output that you can plug into a stereo amplifier. Spend as much as you need on the external amp to deliver the sound you like (personally I prefer late 80's audio gear).
HiFi Raspberry Media Center | HiFi Raspberry Hat | HiFi-Plus Raspberry Hat (coming soon) | Loud Raspberry Media Center | Loud Raspberry Hat | Louder Raspberry Media Center | Louder Raspberry Hat | |
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DAC | Single PCM5100A 32bit Stereo DAC | Dual PCM5100A 32bit Stereo DAC | Dual PCM5100A 32bit Stereo DAC working with TPA3110D2 D-Class amp | Dual I2S DAC MAX98357 with built in D-Class amp | Quadruple I2S DAC MAX98357 with built in D-Class amp | Stereo I2S DAC TAS5805M with built in D-Class amp | Stereo I2S DAC TAS5805M with built in D-Class amp |
Output | 2.1 VRMS Line level output -100 dB typical noise level | 2x 2.1 VRMS Line level output -100 dB typical noise level | 4x 25W (8Ω, 1% THD+N) at 22V; 4x 22W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 16V 2x 40W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V | 2x 3W (8Ω); 2x 5W (4Ω) | 4x 3W (8Ω); 4x 5W (4Ω) | 2x 22W (8Ω, 1% THD+N); 2x 32W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V 1x 45W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V | 2x 32W (8Ω, 1% THD+N) at 24V 1x 55W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 24V |
RGB LED | yes | none | none | yes | none | yes | none |
IR input | yes | header only | none | yes | none | yes | header only |
External relay driver | yes | none | none | no | none | yes | none |
Onboard Serial Bridge | yes | none | none | yes | none | yes | none |
Ethernet | Wiznet W5500 SPI Ethernet | none | none | Wiznet W5500 SPI Ethernet | none | Wiznet W5500 SPI Ethernet | none |
Powers from | 5V USB-C power adapter (up to 1 A) Triple LP5907 3.3 V Ultra-Low-Noise LDO | 5V from the host 5x LP5907 3.3 V Ultra-Low-Noise LDO | 8..26V from external sourcepowering host (up to 3A cont.) | 5V USB-C power adapter (up to 3 A) | 5V from the host (up to 4A) or 5V from screw connector (powering host) | 65W USB-C PD power adapter (25W/45W with limited power) | 7..28V from external sourcepowering host (up to 3A cont.) |
Mechanical dimensions (WxHxD) | 88mm x 38mm x 100mm | 65mm x 30mm x 15mm | 70mm x 61mm x 20mm | 88mm x 38mm x 100mm | 65mm x 30mm x 20mm | 88mm x 38mm x 100mm | 65mm x 56mm x 20mm |
I2S CLK | I2S DATA | I2S WS | IR INPUT | |
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Raspberry Pi Zero | 18 | 21 | 19 | 17 |
Raspberry Pi 2,3,4 | 18 | 21 | 19 | 17 |
Raspberry Pi 5 | 18 | 21, 23, 25, 27 | 19 | 17 |
You need nothing more than an SD-CARD with a Raspbian image and USB-C power brick. You can use any distribution you like. The only change you need to make to enable hardware is to add 3 lines to the /boot/config.txt
dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=23
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac
Project repository provides a few examples with build instructions, including Volumio setup instructions, among others.
Please visit the hardware section of the project repo for board schematics and PCB designs. Note that PCBs are shared as multi-layer PDFs as well as Gerber archives.
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Please follow this guide to configure an IR reader
Raspberry Pi 5 is the first one that allows to drive multiple I2S data lines using the same interface. What it means in practice, is that while all older Pis have just 3 I2S lines (CLK, WS, DATA), Pi5 support up to 4 Data lines (CLK, WS, D0, D1, D2, D3), capable of driving 4 independent audio interfaces.
All Raspberry Pi hats have experimental support for alternative data lines. You need to short some solder bridge to use it though. In theory, it allows to configure Hats to use different pins and stack them together to create 4 individual stereo interfaces (8 channels in total) using the same device.
HiFi Hat |
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Configuration value that allows this is quite simply
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac8x
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