All-in-one alleater streamer with HDD for Xmas

[A64]

Dear Forum Members,

this is the 1st time I use this forum because after 2 days of seaching, googling and crawling on the web I’m still confused, how to proceed to my goal. Which is actually very simple: I’d like to build a RPi based quality player device for my father, he has a reasonably good hifi at home, medium sized (rather big) 3-way stereo, good-old Technics amp with RCA inputs - and his good-old Technics CD player.

But he plays the piano, he’s very musical and has excellent hearing so I’d like to build him an audiophile player device in form of a flat set-top-box (or like a CD player, dac, etc).

My problem is not the solution itself - the RASPDAC Mini from Audiophonics would just fit my needs perfectly - if it had some more space for a 2.5" or even 3.5" NAS hard drive. (1-4 TB, connected via SATA3 - USB adapter and then connected to the Pi internally).

• So now I’m looking for somewhat bigger cases but then what kind of back panel do I use for the appliance ? There’re tons of great aluminum cases out there, even mITX compatible ones, but the back panel is an issue then, I assume I would need something unique for that.

• I don’t want to use the RASPDAC case with an external separate USB HDD, that’s just not the same. I need 1 piece of do-everything device. However, the RASPDAC solution itself is very appealing to me, with the ES9038Q2M. Maybe I can put a reclocker (IANCANADA or Kali) between the Pi and the DAC hat, too (I need to check).

How would you proceed ?

Shall I maybe get all the Pi stack, put it into a good looking basic case from Aliexpress, get a back panel for the Pi itself and re-solder the DAC RCA outs onto that new back panel ? + of course a little PSU inside the whole stack, with proper shielding, separate PSU for the Pi, the 3.5" HDD and all that stuff and at the end I have the final solution…

I could also use a flat nice passive cooled mini ITX case and make all that happen on x86 platform, but such motherboards don’t have I2S pins sadly so I cannot use this little 9038Q2M DAC board with that.

I just want to pack everything into one case so that my father doesn’t have to deal with a DIY cable mess.

Many thanks

[chsims1]

You seem to answered your original question yourself here . Decide what you want to enclose, find a nice case, and customise the back panel for outputs. I’d just be a bit wary of how warm it gets though, especially if using a RPi 4 (along with power supplies and HDD).

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

[Bigguy2018]

You’ll have to make a back panel to suit - mark up, drill, file and spray paint.
There are lots of nice cases on Ebay.
Use short extension cables from RPi to back panel and a 2.5" USB HDD.
RPi4 will need a decent heatsink and a fan - this can be powered from a USB port (I use a 12V fan on the 5V USB supply, it’s very quiet)

Here’s one I made earlier…
https://forum.volumio.org/volumio-build-t9833.html

[A64]

@chsims1

You seem to answered your original question yourself here . Decide what you want to enclose, find a nice case, and customise the back panel for outputs. I’d just be a bit wary of how warm it gets though, especially if using a RPi 4 (along with power supplies and HDD).

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

I just got my Pi4/4G yesterday, works like a charm, now still standalone via Jack into my PC’s Logitech 2.1, but I’m really surprised how decent the SQ is despite being on a relatively lo-fi hardware.

Then came my 32-Ohm Takstar Pro82 headphone, well, not that bad at all as most people are claiming… I don’t say I got tears in my eyes but hey, not bad from a little small noisy caseless minicomputer. I can absolutely enjoy it now without separate DAC as a casual listening device and I wouldn’t say my Honor 20 phone performs much better here.

Anyway, here it is and after some WiFi issues I’m just experimenting with it and enjoying my music collection

(Strangely the Pi connects to my little Huawei mini hotspot but it’s fully unreachable, no matter what settings I use on the hotspot. On my phone’s hotspot it works like a charm, just like on my ASUS WiFi router).

[A64]

@Bigguy2018

You’ll have to make a back panel to suit - mark up, drill, file and spray paint.
There are lots of nice cases on Ebay.
Use short extension cables from RPi to back panel and a 2.5" USB HDD.
RPi4 will need a decent heatsink and a fan - this can be powered from a USB port (I use a 12V fan on the 5V USB supply, it’s very quiet)

Here’s one I made earlier…
https://forum.volumio.org/volumio-build-t9833.html

• Yeah, that hardware work for a back panel, uh… Maybe I’m just waiting a bit 'til ecosystem builds around the Pi4 as well and someone offers a back panel for a standalone Pi.

• For cooling I’m going to ‘push’ the Pi against a wall of the amp case. Pretty thick aluminum wall, it will spread that little heat easily I think. Like a transistor, or a Class D amp block. Alternatively I might use the Pi as usual and cool it with a passive cooler like this: https://www.amazon.com/RICHEN-Raspberry-Enclosure-Dissipation-Compatible/dp/B07XZ1QBQY?psc=1&SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B07XZ1QBQY
  … and then put a silent PC fan at low RPMs into the case.

• For GPIO extension a normal 40-pin (not 80-pin) IDE cable is enough, right ? A short one. I read that should work just fine, has anybody tried it already ?

Well, so far I’m enjoying my little device, hanging on it’s own now in the air on the USB-C and jack cable (don’t shoot me) :mrgreen: , playing Gabriela Anders’ Wanted album, and I really like the experimental v3 UI

[A64]

@Bigguy2018

You’ll have to make a back panel to suit - mark up, drill, file and spray paint.
Here’s one I made earlier…
https://forum.volumio.org/volumio-build-t9833.html

Nice build, exactly something what I’m going for too…
BTW my Pi’s HDD now is the very same 500GB WD toy in an external case via USB3.