Hi guys,
After reading Toni’s post, I bought the ES9018K2M DAC board from DIYINHK, together with the required 12v and 3.3v power supplies. However, I can’t get it to work though with a Raspberry Pi B+ and Volumio.
Problem: I get extremely distorted sound when trying to play back most files. Noise first appeared to be completely random, but after careful listening I now believe there is some relation to the noise pattern and the rhythm of the song being ‘played’. When playing back a 24bit 96 kHz file and cranking up the volume of my amp, I can hear the song faintly playing, overlayed with noise and cracks.
Obviously, that is not what I was hoping to get from the ES9018K2M DAC!
Here is what I have done so far to try to get the DAC to work:
-
I need to use the Volumio 1.55 image, as the RPi firmware that comes with the previous versions does not work with the RPi B+ and I do not have an RPi A or B to use rpi-update. First step was to downgrade to kernel 3.12.35, so that I have ethernet connectivity on the RPi B+.
-
After that, I followed the steps described here (es9018k2m-based-streaming-solution-t2087.html) i.e. connected the I2S pins to the DAC; modified /etc/modules; /etc/asound.conf and /etc/mpd.conf as described:
/etc/modules:
#snd_bcm2835
snd_soc_core
snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s
bcm2708_dmaengine
snd_soc_pcm1794a
snd_soc_rpi_dac
/etc/asound.conf:
pcm.!default {
type hw card 0
}
ctl.!default {
type hw card 0
}
/etc/mpd.conf:
[code]follow_outside_symlinks “yes”
follow_inside_symlinks “yes”
db_file “/var/lib/mpd/tag_cache”
sticker_file “/var/lib/mpd/sticker.sql”
log_file “/var/log/mpd/mpd.log”
pid_file “/var/run/mpd/pid”
music_directory “/var/lib/mpd/music”
playlist_directory “/var/lib/mpd/playlists”
state_file “/var/lib/mpd/state”
user “mpd”
bind_to_address “any”
port “6600”
zeroconf_enabled “yes”
zeroconf_name “volumio”
samplerate_converter “Fastest Sinc Interpolator”
volume_normalization “no”
audio_buffer_size “2048”
buffer_before_play “20%”
filesystem_charset “UTF-8”
id3v1_encoding “UTF-8”
gapless_mp3_playback “yes”
auto_update “no”
group “audio”
max_connections “20”
decoder {
plugin “ffmpeg”
enabled “yes”
}
input {
plugin “curl”
}
audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "Output"
device "hw:0,0"
mixer_control "Playback Digital"
mixer_device "hw:0"
mixer_index "0"
dsd_usb "yes"
dop "yes"
}[/code]
- The RPi-DAC I2S driver is used and sndrpirpidac is selected as audio output device in the mpd GUI. Resampling is disabled. Aplay -l shows:
-
On paper, everything seems fine. I shortened the I2S jumper wires to 2-3cms (although user Toni described using 10cm jumper wires with no problems), but that did not have any effect.
-
To rule out a bad soldering connection, I checked all the soldering points on the DAC board and they look as they should.
-
The voltage outputs of the PSUs for the DAC are as specified.
-
After reading https://volumio.org/forum/failed-open-audio-output-t1417.html, I measured the SMD resistors on the DAC board and they are up to spec (i.e. 20k)
-
I tried to get the DAC to work in Runeaudio and get exactly the same noise problems.
-
I rechecked (and rechecked again) that I connected the correct pins of the RPi to the DAC:
Right now I am really at a loss and do not know what else I can try to get the DAC to work. As a few users on these forums have reported to get the ES9018K2M DAC to work with an RPi B+ and Volumio, I really hope someone can chime in and point me in the right direction!
Thanks a lot in advance!
