What is it?

The Orange Pi Home Media Center is a compact and neatly designed hardware project that combines the power of the Orange Pi One board and the Hi-Fi audio capabilities of the dual MAX98357A DAC. This versatile media center provides a customizable and fully open-source hardware platform for home entertainment.

With a minimalistic but functional design inspired by commercial audio gear, it offers a seamless user experience. It aimed to support Volumio, Mopidy, or any custom firmware you may come up with.

Motivation

I did a few audio projects in the past, some using ESP32, some using popular Raspberry Pi devices. Each has its pros and cons, and with each iteration, I'm trying to focus on the details that were working best for me, while using them myself on a daily basis.

What is special about the Orange Pi is the amount of hardware power that you get for your buck. Surely, the ecosystem is not as rich as Raspberry Pi, and the community is not so vast. But Armbian is still a Debian-based system and most of the things you'd want to run, just work!

Loud Orange Pi Media Center

Loud Orange Pi uses a dual MAX98357 HiFi DAC with a built-in highly efficient D-class amp to deliver 3 to 5W of music power directly to your speakers. It's capable and reasonably priced, and great value for money. In terms of audio quality, it is no compromise, and that is what matters most.

Key features

	HiFi Orange Pi Media Center	Loud Orange Pi Media Center (this device)	Louder Orange Pi Media Center (work in progress)
Image			WIP
DAC	PCM5100A 32bit Stereo DAC	Dual I2S DAC MAX98357 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 3W (8Ω); 2x 5W (4Ω)	2x 22W (8Ω, 1% THD+N); 2x 32W (4Ω, 1% THD+N)
IR reader	yes	yes	yes
RGB LED	yes	yes	yes
External relay driver	yes	no	yes
Ethernet	built-in	built-in	built-in
Powers from	5V USB-C power adapter / Triple LP5907 3.3 V Ultra-Low-Noise LDO	25W+ USB-C PD power adapter	65W USB-C PD power adapter (25W/45W with limited power)
Mechanical dimensions (WxHxD)	88mm x 38mm x 100mm	88mm x 38mm x 100mm	88mm x 38mm x 100mm

Board Pinout

Audio

Peripheral (built-in)

Peripheral (optional TFT screen)

Peripheral (optional rotary encoder)

How to use

Being a Debian-based Orange Pi Media Center is a vast space for experimentation. First things first, for any OS you need to configure DAC. The below instruction is based on Armbian experience, that supports the current kernel (thus already having DAC kernel modules).

The linked Github repository provides detailed instructions on how to configure and test DAC in a few bash commands.

Automated software deployment using Ansible

Ansible is an automation suite that allows you to configure systems remotely using redistributable configurations called playbooks.

A few playbooks were created to allow 2-clicks deployment for Hi-Fi Orange Pi. The same can be done manually by pulling necessary packages from the vast Debian software store.

Hardware

Front	Back	PCB

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.

Power considerations

According to manufacturer Orange Pi One requires at least 2 Amps of 5V line, and each DAC needs at least 1 Amp extra. With the total budget requirement of 5 Amps, it is not reasonable to count on a USB-C 5V power line alone. I've decided to use a USB-PD over a type-C cable. Pretty much any 9V/12V/20V PD-enabled power adapter will work, most typically phone chargers with a quick charge option. The smallest of the family is 25W models, which is plenty enough for both Orange Pi and DACs.