piCorePlayer Jivelite with Rpi 7inch Touchscreen

[all4music]

@premoddev yes and thanks!
Finally installed Volumio on a spare SD card - to say least it works like charm! And I really love this UI over piCorePlayer.

And for the Volumio Account I just selected Free Version - and still Spotiy / USB DAC all are working just fine! Planning to plug this player into my car as an alternate player - if this works out well, will upgrade my USB DAC [right now using a spare MUSE dac in my car].

Next steps - will add rotary encoder and will try to get the IR Remote working.

 

[premoddev]

How sound quality between picoreplayer and Volumio? Have you ever tried Moode Audio? Iam a fan of Moode over Volumio, using it with a BOSS DAC on an RPi 4B. But never tried Picoreplayer.

 

[all4music]

How sound quality between picoreplayer and Volumio?

Still listening and forming impressions. One apparent thing with Volumio - volume level is much higher compared to piCorePlayer for the same set-up. Not sure if there is a 'master volume' control or something on piCore but it never sounded this loud. Right now on MUSE DAC I can't really make out much difference - probably Volumio sounds more 'sharper' and piCore is a bit laid back.

Have you ever tried Moode Audio?

Not yet. Also for my application I would need a player that loads/operates entirely on RAM.

Probably one drawback compared to piCore is Volumio takes longer to boot up to the touch screen. But UI is so much 'slick' compared to piCore.

 

[Kannan]

If you have large libraries then Volumio can have issues.
MoOde is better at it.
LMS has upper hand with respect to plugins.

With so much RAM at disposal, it will not be an issue. All these are light distros and will not strain the processor.

 

[all4music]

If you have large libraries then Volumio can have issues.

oh ok.. right now I'm using Spotify and 32 GB pen drive. It seems to work just fine for car audio at the moment. I might not be able to shutdown the system each time in car.

 

[premoddev]

I am using Moode with a 64GB micro SD card, all my music files are copied to the SD Card.. I too face frequent power failure and unexpected shutdown, but it never crashed. I have been using it from last 4 months. The reason I think, any database corruption due to unexpected shutdown are more prone when there is 'write' happens. But in our case the 'write' operation will be very less (write happens mostly when the system do indexing for addition or deletion of music file) compared to 'read' which happens all the time when you play.

 

[Kannan]

I am using Moode with a 64GB micro SD card, all my music files are copied to the SD Card.. I too face frequent power failure and unexpected shutdown, but it never crashed. I have been using it from last 4 months. The reason I think, any database corruption due to unexpected shutdown are more prone when there is 'write' happens. But in our case the 'write' operation will be very less (write happens mostly when the system do indexing for addition or deletion of music file) compared to 'read' which happens all the time when you play.

How are you powering the raspberry pi? And are you using any HAT based DAC or boards like digione etc over the rpi i2s slot?

 

[premoddev]

Yes, I am using BOSS v1.2 DAC and using a mobile phone charger (5V, 4A) to power both DAC and RPi4 together.

 

[Kannan]

Yes, I am using BOSS v1.2 DAC and using a mobile phone charger (5V, 4A) to power both DAC and RPi4 together.

ok. 4 amps should be good enough. Do try though with the ALLO wall wart which is around 600 bucks. I have not faced these crashing issues when I used the wall wart, though now I have a dedicated LPS for ny digione Signature.
Also see if the rpi and the DAC boards can be powered independently.

 

[premoddev]

I know power makes difference in SQ, I have actually tried 2 mobile chargers and then settled with the current one. Other one was a Samsung charger (5.3V, 3A), I could find a significant quality change between these two with the current one (5V,4A Oppo charger) gives more tight in the bass department and more clean sounds than the Samsung charger.

Do you think, the Allo's wall wart will be of better quality as compared to the mobile chargers? Infact the original psu of raspberry pi4B (15Watts) was out of stock, when I bought the Pi, so settled on mobile chargers.

 

[all4music]

A step closer to making this as replacement media player in car. Added rotary encoders for Volume Control and Track next/prev selections.
[Excuse the crude carton box screen is screwed to - still awaiting the delivery of official rpi touch-screen case]

Started with selecting correct pins. In this example, I'm feeding 5 volt to voltage pin. Second 5 volt pin is feeding power to touch screen.


For the second encoder, I had 3.3Volt pin available : all other pins are general GPIO pins. Rest is self explanatory:





I'm stuck with one strange issue though. I can not increase volume beyond 58 using the encoder. But using the phone or touch screen I can increase the volume as required. Encoder can decrease the volume from 100, or increase from 0 to 58. But after that I can not use it to increase it further.
Also, I couldn't get any of the 'push' functionality to work. I had assigned them to be Pause and Mute buttons.

Plugin settings screen shot:





Other than that, track next/previous selection works fine.

 

[all4music]

Volume control issue has magically sorted itself after toying around with play back settings. But I still can't get it to recognize the push/long-push actions on the encoder. Now need to get couple of nice looking control knobs!

 

[all4music]

Spotify Stuttering issue on Volumio:

All of a sudden today Spotify playback started stuttering on Volumio - even when played directly from Volumio. Tried multiple of options uninstalling/installing Spotify plugins [both main and connect ones]. Even used a different Class 10 SD card with new image of Volumio - same issue.
Other Internet radios and music from USB drive play just fine.

When searched online, many have faced this issue - but there is no single solution for this problem. So at this moment, still looking for solution.

 

[all4music]

Just an update: Volumio player has been working just fine. Stuttering issue got resolved on it's own. I created a short video of the build here:

 

[premoddev]

Nice video ..

 

[sand87ch]

Just an update: Volumio player has been working just fine. Stuttering issue got resolved on it's own. I created a short video of the build here:

Hi,

I too plan to set up a player using Boss dac and rpi4+ rpi touchscren and case.

Since u have already set up one i have some questions.

If i buy boss 2 dac and RPI4B and attach both to the back of the rpi touchscreen

https://robu.in/product/7-official-raspberry-pi-display-with-capacitive-touchscreen/

Will it be possible to enclose this in the below case

https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-touchscreen-7-inch-display-case-abs-red/

Any idea?

 

[premoddev]

Probably it will not work as you expect. Boss2 compared to earlier version bigger than the rpi4 itself in dimension. It need a separate case of its own to have pi and the dac module together.

 

[Yogesh]

Hi,

I too plan to set up a player using Boss dac and rpi4+ rpi touchscren and case.

Since u have already set up one i have some questions.

If i buy boss 2 dac and RPI4B and attach both to the back of the rpi touchscreen

https://robu.in/product/7-official-raspberry-pi-display-with-capacitive-touchscreen/

Will it be possible to enclose this in the below case

https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-touchscreen-7-inch-display-case-abs-red/

Any idea?

You will not be able to fit DAC into that enclosure, Just Pi & Display. But if you were use a portable USB DAC or an Earmen Donald DAC, You could find a way to fix it behind the enclosure. You could power them with Pi USB.

 

[all4music]

Hi,

I too plan to set up a player using Boss dac and rpi4+ rpi touchscren and case.

Since u have already set up one i have some questions.

If i buy boss 2 dac and RPI4B and attach both to the back of the rpi touchscreen

https://robu.in/product/7-official-raspberry-pi-display-with-capacitive-touchscreen/

Will it be possible to enclose this in the below case

https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-touchscreen-7-inch-display-case-abs-red/

Any idea?

I've not seen the boss 2 dimensions but you can experiment with rpi pin jumpers if there any issue with clearance. IMO, at 1k INR for the enclosure, it's better check it out before restoring to custom housing which would anyway be much more expensive.

 

[sand87ch]

I've not seen the boss 2 dimensions but you can experiment with rpi pin jumpers if there any issue with clearance. IMO, at 1k INR for the enclosure, it's better check it out before restoring to custom housing which would anyway be much more expensive.

Well i thought later and yes it may not work as the ports for BOSS 2 will be missing in the case obviously.Have to find some other custom housing