[SOLVED]Hifime Sabre 9018 USB DAC Raspebrry Pi 3 and Volumio

Audio Gear DACs
1

I have a functional Volumio version 2.141 (last available) .

When you start it without the DAC you get normal answer trough the P2 terminal.

If you introduce the DAC above on any of the four USB you have your RPi recognizing that there´s a DAC but it doesn´t recognize it as Hifime. After fiddling with as many possibilities as possible in two fields (none of them identifying as Hifime and the word/serie Sabre or 9018) I´m lost.

Can you point me which h is the right combination to have some kind of life via the DAC? I hear absolutely nothing through the P2 of the DAC.

I bought it directly from Amazon because Volumio is selling the same DAC as compatible. Volumio says it is native supported. I wish I can figure what´s wrong on my setup.

Can someone point me what am I missing?

TIA

PS: Problem is not on DAC. Plugged it to my W10 and it shows as “Audio Inputs and Outputs > Interface SPDIF (HIFiIME SABRE 9810)”. good improvement on audio, by the way.

2

Hi,
what names do you see in output devices in playback options?

What is the output of

aplay -l ?

3

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA] Subdevices: 8/8 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Subdevice #1: subdevice #1 Subdevice #2: subdevice #2 Subdevice #3: subdevice #3 Subdevice #4: subdevice #4 Subdevice #5: subdevice #5 Subdevice #6: subdevice #6 Subdevice #7: subdevice #7 card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 [] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 5: Audio [SA9023 USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 5: Audio [SA9023 USB Audio], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

By the way it´s solved but just with some hard sweat and fiddling, easy done when you achieve this dongle performing accordingly:

  1. Put just in output device Audio:USB and reboot
  2. After reboot I could read: Hifiberry DAC as output device.
  3. Put the same name @ DAC model
    $. Another reboot

After that my Volumio is singing like a bird, A mere 11% of the total volume is needed for good quality and level of hearing in Classical Music (Shoutcast).
By the way, I have one to complain , my Spotify it´s not the same as in older versions. it logs OK but I can´t get my personal List for the Week and other goodies I used to on prior versions. But this doesn´t have to do with this topic.

HTH

4

When originally installed this fix, once you point the “USB:Audio” option, after reboot you got “Hifiberry DAC” as previously reported. All working 100%, no brain.
Today, despite the small glitch on installing Spotify (already fixed) after the reboot I read “503HTA Hybrid Tube Amp” so I needed to manually instruct Output Device and DAC Model into the same DAC previously known to work with the Hifime Sabre 9018 USB DAC, as written in post #1.
So I needed to perform an extra reboot.
As I´ve some contacts with Hifime´s Help Desk (?) and have been told that they don´t have anyone able to answer how to configure their product in Linux, I publish here how it was done.
I don´t think this is a good reference but I have all the e-mail exchange in my files, which I regret.
Actually I don´t think they will publish any driver for this DAC other than someone can publish it, at least from the person who (kind of) assisted me. They didn´t have answers and I don´t want to expose his arguments.
Alas!

5

This is because you’ve activated I2S DAC, which you don’t need to (since you’re using a USB DAC).
Deselect I2S, reboot and select the device called Audio and everything will work

6

Now it makes sense.
Did again the command:

aplay -l

Got this answer:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA] Subdevices: 8/8 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Subdevice #1: subdevice #1 Subdevice #2: subdevice #2 Subdevice #3: subdevice #3 Subdevice #4: subdevice #4 Subdevice #5: subdevice #5 Subdevice #6: subdevice #6 Subdevice #7: subdevice #7 card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 5: Audio [SA9023 USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 5: Audio [SA9023 USB Audio], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I considere this issue SOLVED

7

:wink: