2. digital
  3. 163506-89618

Is Raspberry Pi 4B that good!

Decided to shake things a bit - in came RPi4. Pretty straight forward flashing of VitOS using Etcher. 

Rest is all standard office equipment - Croft Integrated, Harbeth p3esr, R2R Metrum DAC, Duelund spk cables, Venom USB to HP Roon Core dedicated laptop. 

Sound changed from analog, rich, musical, less fatigue to analytical, instrument separation, quieter background, more digitized. Not sure which one I like better.

RPi4 burn in time approx 4 hours.

Does RPi4 really have what it takes to be a true grade quality audiophile product? 


ghulamr

Showing 2 responses by mlsstl

mlsstl
1,452 posts
 
I've been extremely pleased with my RPi 4B player. It runs Picoreplayer and outputs via USB into my Bifrost DAC (I also have a Topping E-30.) The RPi has a 7" touch screen attached so it can display what's playing and also select and control what's playing.  I have no urge to change.
mlsstl
1,452 posts
 
@ghulamr -- The general lack of write-ups about Raspberry Pis on the audiophile online magazines is probably due to a couple of factors.

A big one is there are no significant advertising dollars to be had from RPi articles, and in fact, any promotion of RPi setups could possibly hurt the sales of products from companies that are currently buying ads.

Second, there is a heavy DIY aspect to setting up a RPI based player and a lot of experimentation required that is a different experience than unboxing and plugging in an assembled product. That likely limits the interest of more traditional audiophiles. Also, with a RPI player assembled by the user, you don’t have anything very fancy to look at in terms of casework.   

That said, there are a number of audio discussion forums (as opposed to online review sites) where there is quite a bit of active discussion about RPI players and setups.
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