An extreme newbie here. I see that the bulk of the conversations here revolve around the Raspberry Pi. I am intrigued by it and by DIY in general. But with two small kids in the house (and with the home stereo in a location that is unfortunately very accessible to them–such are space limitations), I am really looking in the short term for an inexpensive solution that is well enclosed and durable.
I’ve been thinking of trying to start out with:
Cubox-i + Behringer UCA222
(I can use the software for another project) as a very basic inexpensive foray into music streaming so I can demonstrate to my wife how useful it would be to not have to search for CDs, etc., every time we want to play music. [I’ve already made good headway into digitizing a good part of our music library using dBPoweramp.]
Though I have also been intrigued with the Raspberry Pi + Wolfson Audio card option (since I can get a case for it) as that would be an even cheaper entree to Volumio. But I will say that I am leaning more toward the Cubox-i option at the moment with the hope of upgrading the DAC to something like the Schiit Bifrost if budget permits down the road…
The amp I’d be patching everything into is a Musical Fidelity X-T100 driving a nice pair of Wharfdales. The music library is currently stored on a Western Digital MyBook Live single drive NAS (with backups on USB 3.0 standalone drives). The Cubox-i would need to reach the NAS via 802.11n WiFi, but I could also park it in a static fashion on USB drives connected directly to the Cubox-i if performance suffers too much.
Then the goal would be to keep upgrading components as time and budget permit.
Any recommendations on how best to get started as cheaply as possible would be greatly appreciated. Any experiences other can share will be avidly pored over and digested.
And kudos to Michelangelo and the Volumio team for all their hard work on this project!
I can tell you that cubox-i works really well, and the kernel is rockstable.
So if this is the solution you prefer, just go for it. You can use both the i2 or the i4, for audio the i2 is sufficient…
Let me know!
Ned - things may work out differently for you, but it’s my experience that the current version of Volumio on a Cubox-i does not recognize its WiFi. So you might want to wait until thats fixed, or find an alternate way to connect to your tunes. Wired Ethernet works, as does USB.
Overall it works pretty well. A few bugs. But I use it on my Cubox-i4 Pro every day, and really enjoy it. And it should only get better with time.
Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. I am going to proceed, even though the Cubox-i is severely backordered.
WiFi support is important to me–we simply can’t afford to wire our house with Ethernet at the point and the stereo is in a different part of the house from our wireless hub, NAS and Internet connection.
NAS performance over wifi isn’t as much of an issue because I can always buy a USB 3.0 or eSATA external drive. But we need to be able to access the web interface in order to play our music.
In the short term, I can use something like the Linksys WUMC710 Wireless AC Universal Media Connector as a way of connecting the Cubox-i to our wireless network. It is an added expense but a modest one and might take some load off the processor of the Cubox-i. But in the long run it would be great to have working wireless on the Cubox-i.
Not to knock Michelangelo, though–it take a lot of work to put something like this together so it is understandable that core features will (hopefully) work in the earlier releases and that added functionality will get folded into the image as he (and others) have time to fiddle with problems and omissions. I just wish that I had more of a Linux background in order to be able to contribute and perhaps find the WiFi solution myself, but alas, my skills are a bit rusty. But part of the goal of this project is to get my hand back into working with Linux (which I first played with back in 1993 or 94) so who knows. Maybe I will find a way to help.
I’ll let you know how things go once I can get my hands on the equipment!
And it my be just as easy to get wifi working. It’s worth tinkering with before buying any network gear. Also, a WiFi USB dongle might be an alternative to consider also. But I assume you’d need to hook it to a wired network first to apply the fix I referenced above to get USB working.
And finally, if you are in the States, it’s been my experience that you can get a backordered box MUCH faster from Newegg than ordering direct from Solid-Run. A few weeks vs. several months.
Hi nedster,
I ordered my Cubox-i4 Pro directly from SolidRun, received my order after 3 months after several reminders. But that’s OK, I knew that I will have to wait.
A short summary after one week of playing with CuBox-i4 Pro & Volumio beta 1.2:
I use optical SPDIF connection to my Pioneer amplifier.
The problem with the Cubox-i is, that the optical SPDIF connector is located too deep, it is actually located 2-3 mm under the cover of the box.
I’ve checked all the optical SPDIF cables in the store, their connectors looked all the same. I have got a cable for 20 EUR with a plastic connector casing, they got some better optical cables also for 70 EUR with metal casing, they all have the same dimensions. So the cable is not a problem.
I had to cut off the plastic casing of the cable’s connector with a very sharp knife, otherwise the connector could not be pushed deep enough into Cubox-i. The connectors on my Pioneer amplifier as well as on my PC are made differently, the cable’s connector fits perfectly. So be aware of this HW issue.
I use Ethernet connection, the WiFi needs to be activated in a network config file using SSH, as I found out in some forum thread. WiFi setup over the Volumio’s WebGUI does not work. I did not test WiFi yet.
I can start shairport (AirPlay) manualy over SSH using a script. Shairport does not start automatically at the boot. I understood that there is some bug that has to be fixed. I tried to upgrade the shairport, but did not succeed. You will find some forum threads about it.
I play audio from my samba NAS and internet radios without any problems.
That’s it so far, I’m quite happy with this solution.
Yesterday my CuBoc-14pro came in. It took a long time to get here, and was a happy surprise when it showed up.
The wifi didn’t work, but found someone else with the same issue and downloaded a Volumio image, with the wifi driver installed.
My CM6631a USB audio didn’t worked, so I had to modify ALSA to recognize it.
I use a NAS samba share from my network, via wifi. Two connections to the CuBox, USB and power. No other issues, or problems.
I set the CM6631 fix, to stop the transitional click from one sample rate to another 44.1 to 192k.
It sounded great.
Some annoying things:
Wifi and USB should have functioned from the download img.
No VI or VIM, I hate nano
I only spent about two hours on it so far
If yes, can you please give me a hint how you proceeded to have you USB DAC working with the modified Volumio version ? What did you change with Alsa. ? I’m not a Linux guru but i’m not affraid of ssh and i like to tweak for solutions
We are a few in the post above to look for a solution with Volumio plus Wifi and USB DAC. if you could share your solution you would make a bunch of people happy.
thank you for your quick reply. I have tried your solution but unfortunately it does not seem to work
I have followed your instructions then i have rebooted the cubox-i (several times) but no luck. I still can’t see a third Audio Output in MPD Configuration (“Playback” entry in the menu).
Here is the content of /etc/modprobe.d/ that shows the result of the cp commands.
volumio@volumio:~$ ls -la /etc/modprobe.d/
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 4 20:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 75 root root 4096 May 4 21:15 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 234 Jan 1 1970 alsa-base-blacklist.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1297 May 4 21:14 alsa-base.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1297 May 4 20:47 alsa.audio
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1265 May 4 20:46 alsa.orig
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 456 Apr 28 2013 fbdev-blacklist.conf
and here is the content of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf that shows the last line added.
Keep snd-pcsp from beeing loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
Keep snd-usb-audio from beeing loaded as first soundcard
#options snd-usb-audio index=-2
Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
options snd-usb-audio index=0
options snd-usb-audio nrpacks=2[/code]
I just would like to add that my USB DAC is recognized with Volumio 1.2 on a Raspberry Pi, and on some other Linux distributions.
I checked my files and made sure they were correct. I made many changes in my attempt to make the USB interface work, so I back tracked to insure I gave you the correct adjustments. It looks like the fix for me was just the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. Here is my copy. Since the SPDIF was index #0 and the HDMI was index #1, I told the alas to make the USB index #2 . I cleaned everything else I did and rebooted and this was the only thing I needed to correct this issue.
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
# autoloader aliases
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1
install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2
install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3
install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4
install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5
install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6
install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7
Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules
install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-ioctl32 ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq ; : ; }
install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-seq-midi ; : ; }
install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet snd-emu10k1-synth ; : ; }
#options snd slots=snd-usb-audio,snd-soc-vt1613
# Keep snd-pcsp from beeing loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
# Keep snd-usb-audio from beeing loaded as first sound card **** REM this line for the Cubox-i *****
#options snd-usb-audio index=-2
# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
# ***Added so snd-usb-audio function with Cubox-i ***
options snd-usb-audio index=2
It finally works with your last detailed explanation.
It was indeed just a matter of Alsa index.
I have updated the other post to let know the people like me who were looking for a solution.
Thanks a lot for your time and support
You are very welcome, it was my pleasure to help others in our community. I am sure, I will need assistance too.
Testing the Volumio started last night, after I let it play for sometime. I started to ABX it with synched songs and compared it to a Toslink connected A&K100 with 192K@24 bit audio. The Volumio CuboxI did very well, and I was surprised by how good the SQ was.
My setup:
Samba-NAS audio file source > Wifi-n > VolumioBeta12-kernal_3.1.0 w/wifi driver on a CuboxI-4pro > USB Ultraviolet cable > CM6133a with low jitter clocks, impedance match isolated SPDIF> silver conductor 75ohm coax > Corda Stage DAC (reclocked and caped)> silver conductor RCA cables > Corda Classic > HD800/ HD650/ ERS-4 (Headphones)
I am not going to provide colorful adjectives to how well it sounded, but will say that it sounded much better then I expected. Frequency responses, stage, separation and tonal quality was very good. It was much better then the Raspi, for the CuboxI didn’t create any pops or clicks. I like bit perfect, so I don’t alter the originals in anyway. I think the CuboxI provided a very clean single. Occasionally, I would get some odd skips and other things, but I will need to verify, if the issues were file corruption, network, or the CuboxI. All and all, it is a lot of fun, and will be looking to expand this project more, just for the fun of it.
This makes for a very nice listen station in my family room. The small CuboxI has only one USB cable and PS connection, nothing more. It is connected to a DAC and Headphone amp. Very clean, simple, and enjoyable. Controlled via the Web BUI on an iPad. A real Wife friendly setup, with only 3 power cords.
Now that i can enjoy the music streamed from my NAS over Wifi to the little Cubox-i plugged via USB into my DAC, i have to admit that this setup sounds really good !
But i’m wondering, am i the only one having problems with VolumioBeta12-kernal_3.1.0 w/wifi driver on a CuboxI-4pro ?
The wifi keeps getting lost if i don’t use it (it seems as i didn’t have the chance to test it that much until now).
I did used the upgrade script that someone posted, I don’t remember the URL, but it works for the Cubox too, it upgraded my system to Beta1.3. Thank you to those who wrote this, and my apologies for not giving them proper credit, but the script is exquisite.
simply create the file, upgrade.ssh then chmod 755 upgrade.ssh and then run it as root, sudo upgrade.ssh
Is your PM Inbox full? Have tried a number of times to PM you, but they aren’t going through. The last one is just sitting in my outbox. Kinda odd. Thought a full inbox on your side might explain it.