Think about you’re dwelling within the mid-naughts and also you’ve managed to construct a big assortment of digital music. You need a option to take heed to that music in any room in your house. What do you do? A well-liked answer on the time was a Logitech Media Server (LMS), which may stream music to receiver gadgets over an area community. Redditor Smashtheplant nonetheless makes use of an LMS and needed a brand new participant with out the excessive price of a client machine. So, they used a Raspberry Pi to construct their very own LMS audio streamer.
An LMS (now “Lyrion Media Server”) is much less interesting right now than it was 20 years in the past, as a result of web music streaming companies, like Spotify and Apple Music, are so sensible. However there are nonetheless lots of people with in depth digital music libraries — notably audiophiles that care quite a bit about sound high quality. Storage is reasonable now and it might be doable to repeat the library to particular person gadgets, however then library administration turns into a chore. For these causes, an LMS can nonetheless present worth to the suitable customers. Nonetheless, Logitech discontinued their Squeezebox line of streamers a number of years in the past, making DIY gadgets like this a horny choice.
This appears implausible and takes benefit of comparatively inexpensive {hardware}. The three most essential parts are a Raspberry Pi, a HiFiBerry Digi+, and a 5” touchscreen from BIGTREETECH. The Raspberry Pi runs the LMS consumer software program (piCorePlayer), which the consumer can work together with by way of the touchscreen. There are additionally two buttons and rotary encoder on prime for tactile management. The Pi connects to the community by way of built-in Ethernet port or a USB WiFi dongle. These parts all match into a ravishing 3D-printed enclosure.
You could have seen that the record of parts above didn’t embody an amplifier or audio system. That’s as a result of the HiFiBerry Digi+ gives an S/PDIF digital audio output by way of an RCA-style coaxial connection on the again of the machine. Smashtheplant connects that to an exterior DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) with its personal amplifier. This ensures top-notch audio high quality, because the Digi+ helps as much as 192kHz/24-bit. With lossless recordsdata, the expertise must be excellent.
If you wish to construct this your self, Smashtheplant was sort sufficient to add the STL recordsdata to Printables.