Tag: hifi

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Raspberry Pi Streaming Music Player – Built!

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For a long time I have been meaning to get a Raspberry Pi and create a dedicated streaming music player that I can connect to my surround sound system. With lockdown 3.0 I finally bit the bullet and ordered the kit from HiFiBerry.com and got it done.

Step 1 – Building the kit.

This was really straight forward. It took around 30 minutes. It didn’t come with any instructions so took some figuring out but I got it worked out in the end.

Step 2 –  Loading the PiCorePlayer software

I was going to use this to connect to the Logitech Media Server. It’s a low key piece of software running on the Pi Core OS and implementing the Squeezelite software all bundled together and running as one.

I used the Raspberry Pi Imager software which made the job of loading the OS onto the SD card super simple. You can download that from the Raspberry Pi site: https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

You can read more about the player software at https://www.picoreplayer.org/

3 –  Enabling WiFi on the Pi

WiFi isn’t enabled by default so I had to load a file onto the SD card with SSID details for our network. The Pi loads this on boot and voila. I used this guide to configure: https://docs.picoreplayer.org/how-to/setup_wifi_on_pcp_without_ethernet/

4 – Playing some music

I am using the device as a headless unit, ie without being connected to a screen… so was looking for a nice and free way of doing this. You can use iPeng but that’s costly so I did some hunting!

I found the following plugin for Logitech Media Server: https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material

This plugin, called Material, uses HTML5 to give you a nice layout for playing music from a webbrowser.

You can watch me putting it together in the video below:

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Has Streaming Killed Blu-Ray?

Blue-ray

When DVD first came along it was a revelation… streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime et al weren’t really such a big thing. I mean when Netflix first started, you used to get a DVD in the post.  It was great, you could get a higher than normal definition film (720p) on a disk that would take up less space than a VHS and be at a higher quality. All the old films could be remastered and made available for the new series of flat screen TVs.  I remember when DVD first came about, it was a BIG thing. All the tech firms were making players, and the combo VHS/DVD player recorders, that allowed you to rip your old tapes onto DVD.

Then the year 2000 came and went and Internet around 2003 really starting picking up. YouTube started in 2005 and the world of online video really started to kick off. Since then, no one has really looked back… I guess though, that DVD was also a greater format due to the increased amount of storage, but also as a natural evolution from the CD and a form of general data storage.

BluRay came at a tricky time as PCs were coming down in price and availability was increasing but at the same time USB storage was also coming down in price and if you wanted data backup you’d use an external disk and not a DVD or the upcoming Blu-Ray.

By this stage streaming services and fast broadband were becoming more widely available and more people were buying into it.  It was cheaper to pay for a streaming service where you can watch a full HD (1080p) film, and older films, in full HD.  If you compare the quality of an older DVD film and a full HD film, it’s like chalk and cheese 🙂

I’m a big fan of catalouging software MyMovies (esentially the film equivalent of Discogs), but they do need to introduce a streaming film / digital collection option as buying and renting full HD films online is now cheaper than buying the disk equivalent, even for 4K and higher films.

Blu-Ray come at a difficult time, when fast Internet and ease of access to streaming services go hand in hand!

What are your thoughts? Do you collect Blu-Rays or like to have the disks in your collection and the physical media or is the only thing you worry about, the fact you can watch full 1080p or higher films wherever you are?

Blu-Ray costs a lot to print and put out, whereas making the same available for streaming services is a lot less.

For those that don’t know, the  original film stock media that cinema films are filmed on, can be remastered massively. At the time, the good old VHS was the only technology; then they could make it higher quality on DVD and then the Blu-Ray made it possible to load up the highest quality possible from a film that came out over half a century ago! And of course, now many films are filmed in 4K or higher in digital directly….. and of course the audo tracks could also be remastered (which takes up more space), and surround channels with 5.1 or higher channels.

More reading: A ZDnet articlet from 2014

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How to retro Hi-Fi on a Budget!

I’ve wanted to write something on this for a little while, so I am excited to be able to post something to help others reach their listening goals…

In this day of age, lots of people all over listen to music on their phone, or iPod or via smart home devices such as Amazon Echo or Sonos and Apple equivalents, and although these are improving greatly, their vastly overpriced and not specifically designed for listening to music.

You can do all of this without spending a lot. If you want to get a great sounding stereo setup follow these steps.

  1. You need an amplifier. If you want retro, eBay is your best bet and I have a Sony TA-F400 (Spec here). I’ve had a few others but this has been the most reliable. You can get one for around £70, and I would recommend not spending anything over £80 on this. If the exact model is not available, similar models in the “TA” range will do as good a job. This particular model is from 1988. The beauty of this amplifier, is that it also has a phono stage. For you millenials, that’ll allow you to hook up a record deck without using a separate pre-amp.
Sony TA-F400

2. You need some speakers. Now on this part you may want to spend a little more as you don’t necessarily want to be replacing speaker cones due to someone blowing the speakers, but more than anything if you buy older speakers they tend to cost a lot more, and you don’t know how people have treated them.

Richer Sounds have an absolutely cracking deal on some Wharfedale 9.0 speakers. Newer models have replaced them but they are critically acclaimed, and are currently for sale for only £39 (including 6 year warranty). You really can’t get anything better new for that price. Grab a pair here: http://bit.ly/2FfZmKW

Pair of Wharfedale 9.0s

3. You need some RCA cables. These will allow you to connect anything with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The following will work, here.

This is the basics, but it’s a good starting point to get you up and running on a budget.

If there’s any interest I can follow up with additional separates such as CD player and so on. If you want to see my personal setup you can take a look here

Enjoy and happy listening 🙂