Greetings,
I’m a long time RuneAudio user, running on a Pi 3B and using a HiFiBerry Digi+ to get coax to my DAC. It worked well but has started to show its age and development has somewhat slowed. I was also waiting for the planned x86 version for a long time that never materialized. Not knocking RuneAudio, the folks over there are great, it was just time for me to move on.
Decided to try Volumio. My music library is all ripped FLACs on a Synology NAS that also hosts the files for my Plex server, which provides my on the go streaming from the house via Plexamp, either standalone on my phone, via the Windows app, or in the car via Android Auto. I’m just nto a huge fan of the interface, being used to RuneAudio.
At work, I pulled an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini out of the electronics recycling bin. i7-7700, 16GB RAM, 250Gb SSD. Perfect. Got Volumio on it, worked great. But, my DAC (Audio-GD NOS1704) doesn’t have a USB input, only TOSLINK and coax. So I grabbed a USB-> SPDIF converter from Amazon:
Long story short, it works great. Volumio picked it up on the fly as a “HIFI DSD” device. BOOM, off and running. I’ve run CD rips and 24/192 LP rips at it and nary a glitch. I’m really happy with it.
I’m also happy with Volumio. I also listen to a lot of prog rock streaming stations and the Absolute Radio streaming stations. While RuneAudio did a decent job, management is better with Volumio by far.
Count me in as a fan. Going to activate the trial of Premium to check it out (was waiting on the USB → SPDIF to get here and work).
Thanks to the Volumio team for a great product. You’ve made me a believer.