ASR Open Source Streamer Project

[somebodyelse]

I use the HifiBerry DAC + DSP to get more channels. It works pretty well, but obviously, you cannot do more than two channels of software filtering on the PI. The DSP is quite capable however, as long as you don't need any high tap count FIR it will do for most people. Also would love to see one or two extra SPDIF output (they can be hacked on though).

I've got one too, and there are several other SigmaDSP options out there - 3E (as measured here), Auverdion/FreeDSP, Sure/Wondom/Dayton, and odd dev boards from ebay, ali and the like. My biggest problem is that, like hypex, SigmaStudio needs Windows if you want to do low level stuff. HifiBerry and Auverdion have done some good work in providing a lot of control without SigmaStudio, but they need a DSP program for a fixed hardware interface to do it.

Custom firmware for the Tone Board to make use of its I2S/TDM expansion connector is another option...

Yeah, blame the manufacturers Some of the Pro interfaces have proprietary drivers and do not offer Linux support. It would definitely be good to have a list of such devices!

To be fair it's at least partly incomplete implementation in the kernel UAC2 drivers too - 5.12 has just seen some patches to improve implicit feedback support, including some from a MOTU employee which might be a first. Unfortunately that's related to the M series interfaces, not the AVB ones which would be more suitable - but perhaps they'll move on to sorting out their compatibility next?

Even if the drivers were sorted we come back to the price - there aren't many interfaces with 6 or 8 output channels that cost much less than a pair of FA123s. The ESI Gigaport eX is worth a look, but I'd like balanced outputs. If only there was an 8 channel version of the D10nda or the Tone2...

Tidal integration is poor. On line streaming is the only music source for some members.

We're into the 'proprietary compatibility' issue again - if companies won't share APIs we're left with reverse engineering, closed solutions or less convenient workarounds.

 

[abdo123]

I'm really surprised why anyone would want this. The advantage of a headless device is that it can be accessed on any device on your network: pc, telephone, iPad etc. A box with a touch screen would inevitably be tethered to the hifi by a physical cable so you would have to get up off your chair to access the touch screen. All the disadvantages of vinyl without even the euphonious distortion ... ;-)

A lot of people would rather have no screen time at all during their 'music time'. This is a trend mostly with the more older demographic of this forum.

there is like a several pages long thread about volume knobs on this forum .

 

[m_g_s_g]

But, what I'm really missing from this Raspberry/DIY scene are nice boxes with nice (capacitive) screens

I recently built a streamer based on this box with a HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro.



Now I’ve uninstalled Volumio and I use it as a screen for HA. Too many bugs for me.

 

[ronwan]

Software guy here..if I can help, count me in!

 

[m_g_s_g]

Is there something that rules out improving an existing project rather than starting from scratch?

I suppose not. I would just fork one. The question is which one.

 

[buz]

Been thinking about this for a while. Moode delivers most of it (especially once CamillaDSP lands) but several challenges remain:

• Seamless upgrades are hard and require a lot of ongoing maintenance unless it is possible to leverage an existing distro that can do it - personally I could do without but understand why people would want them
• Opensource Chromecast does and presumably can not exist, Roon I don't know about (also cant say I care)
• More than two DAC channels are very hard to get. Existing solutions are mediocre (miniDSP) or expensive (Octo) which makes me think maybe one could develop a PI CM4 carrier board with the proper features (using PCI-E if needed) but that would obviously would need quite a bit of work. I do wonder why none of out Chinese suspects tries their hand on that...
• Another option might be to hitch on HDMI into an AVR but we all know well those perform...

 

[m_g_s_g]

Overall, the RPi4 running volumio is exactly what is described in the first post.
[...]
What is missing at this setup?

Don’t get me wrong, I kind of liked Volumio, but:

- It is tied to Debian stretch. Updating it is painful. Bad starting point to fork it and incrementally improving it (using ansible or another automation tool).
- It focuses too much in a HTML UI for media control. Not very responsive. Yes you can just use it as a Spotify connect endpoint, but it is buggy.
- Support for EQ / BruteFIR can be improved.

But having a commercial tier makes me suspect that all the effort to improve it goes to that version.

 

[notabenem]

I am VERY much looking forward to this project.

After reading around here and having seen the Audioholics video comparison of some 8" powered monitors I started to realize that my current AV receiver+passive speaker setup may have long become suboptimal from a price/performance ratio and just a sign of outdated construction patterns overdue to be replaced.

In terms of components, I have had very good results with JConvolver instead of BruteFIR. It's faster and with lower latency. A simple setup for PipeWire (or JACK) on Arch Linux is described here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Simple-audio-post-processing

I am a SW engineer by profession doing some low-latency projects from time to time mostly in JAVA, but I also keep an eye on vlang.io and started to wonder if it would not be the perfect fit to this project? If there's something I can help with, count me in.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Hey you all. I was wondering if I can get the community to help define, implement and grow an open-source, budget streamer. There are commercial solutions out there but I think we can do better than those.

Here are some aspects I am thinking of:

1. Built on a low cost, readily available hardware platform like RPi. Ethernet and Wifi support of course.

2. End-point support for Roon and Airplay. You call can suggest others.

3. Ability to download parametric EQ or FIR filters for speaker and room EQ. Integration with other tools should be provided for automatic Room EQ.

4. Support for active speakers using software crossovers and multiple external DACs. Support for sub-woofer outputs using independent DAC or whatever is in RPi if it is any good. If not, some kind of low cost HAT DAC.

5. GUI in a web-browser for configuration of above.

6. Support of optional display for cool animations/VU meters. I like explore very low latency implementation of this to keep better sync with music.

7. Cloud/automatic firmware update service with proper security fixes and implementation.

8. Availability of a complete solution in a case ready to go (sans DACs of course).

9. No need for internal UI to browse music and such. All of that will be driven by the client app elsewhere. Indeed the device should run headless out of the box. Per #5, web UI should be there for configuration.

I like us to organize this properly with a project leader and master decision maker in accepting changes, revisions, proper testing process and of course developers to work on these bits. I have one capable member (@StefaanE) volunteering to lead the project and some other bits but may need more development resources. I can be the marketing/product planning person.

This will be an adjunct to project @Rick Sykora is running on open-source ASR speaker design. I look to him to be the high level keeper of all of these sub-projects but need a "butt on the line" for this subsystem.

I don't have a name for this project so feel free to suggest some.

Some parts of the above are easy to do but the rest may present some challenges. Let's put all of our energy and resources toward it as I think we badly need such a simple, reliable, yet highly functional product. I know I need one as I am tired of maintaining my Windows PC based server for this use.

To get things started, let's have a discussion on above feature list and define it. Plus see who all can volunteer to help with what part of it.

Thank you all.

Thanks Amir and welcome Stefaan!

My next action will be to have the Directiva project thread to DIY Audio for better synergy with the streamer effort. Stefaan has some great experience to bring to the project, but just as with Directiva, committed volunteers are needed. It may be a short commitment, but know many of you have valued experience that will help these projects come to fruition. Notably, Amir has been helping out with hardware, but the overall effort could use a hardware volunteer or two! As you all know, Amir has plenty on his plate.

As for the streamer, I have a few additional requirements to add:

1. It needs a well-defined target cost (or costs) as I foresee that it likely a range of solutions. Today I use an Echo Link, which does most of what I need for under $200. It does require a DAC for higher quality sound...
2. Voice control should be an option or, at the very least, a remote (app).
3. A higher end model, should have resources to automate room correction (may be another project on its own).
4. Would like to see a connection to a USB drive for music that may not be available online or when network services are down. This may be a departure from Amir's #9, but as long as a remote app works without Internet, can forgo a built-in UI.

Will establish an overall thread for potential requirements/discussions that may not fit in either project.

Enjoy and contribute however you can. Thanks!

 

[Raindog123]

Why would not we ”dream big” and - in addition to an end-point with some extra [DSP] functionality - will get on the entire free open streaming ecosystem? A server, remote control apps, end-points? Like Roon, but open and free? That would be something to write home about!

 

[somebodyelse]

Why would not we ”dream big” and - in addition to an end-point with some extra [DSP] functionality - will get on the entire free open streaming ecosystem? A server, remote control apps, end-points? Like Roon, but open and free? That would be something to write home about!

We already have that, or very close to that, in several slightly different incarnations. That's why some of us are asking why we can't identify and fill in the gaps in one of the existing ones rather than build everything from the ground up.

 

[Reed]

This is a great project. I’m using a C658 because a streamer like this wasn’t available to put in front of my Schiit Saga+ And Modi3. My requirements would include eq that equals that available in Roon. Sources should include Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect and Airplay. I’d like the ability to upload filters. I used Home Audio Fidelity to create a set of filters and was completely satisfied. The drawback was that it locked me into Roon. I want a source agnostic eq solution and I don’t want to use a PC to get it. I have an Allo DigiOne Signature that I love but with to power sources, the Wall warts and cords took as much space as my entire rig.

 

[m_g_s_g]

Why would not we ”dream big” and - in addition to an end-point with some extra [DSP] functionality - will get on the entire free open streaming ecosystem? A server, remote control apps, end-points? Like Roon, but open and free? That would be something to write home about!

AES67 working using WiFi 6 / 802.11ax would be great.

 

[bluefuzz]

Some random thoughts ...

As others have pointed out there already exist several open source music streamer distros that tick almost all Amir's boxes – most popular being Moode and Volumio – many of which are based on MPD (Music Player Dæmon) and LMS (Logitec Media Server) or combinations therof. If there are concrete issues with either the underlying music players or the distros themselves then I would think it would be more productive for those with the necessary skills to send PRs (pull requests) to the respective repositories that could benefit all the different distros rather than starting yet another competing distro.

There is also the hugely popular Kodi media center available on many platforms. In my experience it is in many ways at least as good a music streamer as some of the 'dedicated' music distros. Again, I'm sure PRs would be welcomed that improve its music streamer capabilities.

The elephant in the room is the proprietary streaming services, Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon, Google/Youtube, Apple, etc that many will expect to work on a streamer. None of these services play nice with open source software and, at best are available only via binary blobs and added licensing fees / contracts. Spotify is the only service that mostly works on open source distros due to Raspotify. But even this is not, I believe 'officially condoned' by Spotify and may cease to work at anytime. Roon is equally antithetical to open source distribution.

 

[Phorize]

That's Open Source in a nutshell, unfortunately.

Is there any reason to initiate a new project rather than try and support an existing one? FLOSS suffers a bit from ‘not invented here syndrome’ with the resultant fragmentation-the alternative could be to work with a project like moode to add value to that.

 

[Phorize]

Some random thoughts ...

As others have pointed out there already exist several open source music streamer distros that tick almost all Amir's boxes – most popular being Moode and Volumio – many of which are based on MPD (Music Player Dæmon) and LMS (Logitec Media Server) or combinations therof. If there are concrete issues with either the underlying music players or the distros themselves then I would think it would be more productive for those with the necessary skills to send PRs (pull requests) to the respective repositories that could benefit all the different distros rather than starting yet another competing distro.

There is also the hugely popular Kodi media center available on many platforms. In my experience it is in many ways at least as good a music streamer as some of the 'dedicated' music distros. Again, I'm sure PRs would be welcomed that improve its music streamer capabilities.

The elephant in the room is the proprietary streaming services, Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon, Google/Youtube, Apple, etc that many will expect to work on a streamer. None of these services play nice with open source software and, at best are available only via binary blobs and added licensing fees / contracts. Spotify is the only service that mostly works on open source distros due to Raspotify. But even this is not, I believe 'officially condoned' by Spotify and may cease to work at anytime. Roon is equally antithetical to open source distribution.

Yep, there’s a reason why proprietary streaming is nearly always Heath Robinson on floss systems. We need to set up a streaming service that plays nicely with floss, thereby opening up the possibility of a good streaming service on an open stack.

 

[somebodyelse]

AES67 working using WiFi 6 / 802.11ax would be great.

Hmm...multiple wireless endpoints in tight time sync. Can we do that? Does WiFi6 bring something that allows PTP to work over wireless? From what I could tell reading up on potential options in the past, gstreamer's old sync method was more reliable over WiFi than PTP which didn't like the more variable latency than was typical on wired networks.

Much as I'd like to see something like this, we're getting a bit into feature creep!

 

[StefaanE]

Is there any reason to initiate a new project rather than try and support an existing one? FLOSS suffers a bit from ‘not invented here syndrome’ with the resultant fragmentation-the alternative could be to work with a project like moode to add value to that.

Good question. Many of the FLOSS projects are OSINO (Open Source In Name Only), a bait and switch to sell the augmented version. I understand bills need to be paid, but it's not the kind of project I would contribute to for free. But everyone is of course free to contribute to their favourite project .

Hmm...multiple wireless endpoints in tight time sync. Can we do that? Does WiFi6 bring something that allows PTP to work over wireless? From what I could tell reading up on potential options in the past, gstreamer's old sync method was more reliable over WiFi than PTP which didn't like the more variable latency than was typical on wired networks.

Much as I'd like to see something like this, we're getting a bit into feature creep!

Future directions and suchlike. For the project to succeed, we need to define the smallest set of functions that meets the requirements, but keep in mind how we'd like the product to evolve. Once we have that list of functions and a vision of the future, it will become clearer wether or not there are projects out there that just need a little bit of help to get us what we want.

 

[Kervel]

Fantastic idea! Could I make a donation dedicated to this project?

Since we are still in brainstorm phase, I would request digital inputs. Many of us have other sources (like TV) which also benefit from dsp/ sub integration. The unit then becomes a hub.

Lastly, want to mention that the Minidsp studio ticks many (all?) of the boxes.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

https://github.com/Ottercast/OtterCastAudioV2