My project (and a couple small questions)

[njp]

Hello fellow members.

I am now a proud user of Runeaudio 0.3 alpha on a Raspberry PI Model B and the IQaudiO PI-DAC.

The audiophiles already know this but I've just realised first hand - thanks to the PI hardware, i2s dac's and the runeaudio software, it's again possible to listen to hi-fi music in a quiet room with my Nad amp and Mission speakers from digital formats, WITHOUT the ambient noise of fans from nearby laptops or computers providing the music. SO good to be able to listen to music in a quiet room again. Been using a laptop otherwise to provide music to the amp and speakers but my favourite days were the really old days (1994 when I purchased this Hi-Fi setup) - the Marantz CD player was silent and I was able to listen to music in silence. We've all gotten used to hearing fan noises from computers and laptops, it's nice to go back to some kind of tranquil silence.

Will post pictures of the setup I am working on but to give you an idea: I've found a nice switch-mode 5V 5A power brick (from a Netgear appliance, PSU is made by Delta) providing 5.18V and giving the PI a nice 5.01V (before the picofuse). This PSU isn't creating a buzz on the amp either - had troubles with some other supplies with bad emc creating a buzz through the amp.

So we've got the PI and the IQaudiO connected together. The PI has had the Composite port removed, Audio jack removed, and USB socket removed. My level of expertise dealing with boards and soldering skill I'd consider to be high and I also have the proper tools for the job (Pace machines and endless assortment of tip sizes). The removals were fast, clean, no damage, and all sockets are intact for use again or to resolder back for any reason. Amen to vacuum pump desoldering stations! This whole system will be going into a custom made case of some kind and so the fewer ports there are the less issues there will be when it comes to integration. Either way, they can be soldered onto a wire loom and mounted for use regardless.

Also I have a D-Link DUB-H7 Black hub mutilated, USB-B socket removed and the 2.5mm power socket removed and soldered onto a wire look (preparation to allow flexibility of placement when I get around to making my own custom case). Raspberry PI has had the double USB port removed also, and both PI and hub board are connected together via a good quality shielded piece of USB wire with some good soldering and cable retention using holes on the boards. I have also connected power wires from the hub's power input pads (essentially where the power socket was) to the PI before the pico fuse (protection is still there). Therefore bypassing the current limitations of the USB hub not being in fast charge mode.

** By the way if people had issues with using this hub for general use on a computer, the power supply it comes with is s**t. 4.93V output and further dropping once connected. This will probably be the cause of people's USB troubles. Shame really as the hub itself is good!

And finally we have an Edimax EW-7711USn WiFi dongle with detachable antenna - yes you know what's coming - this will also be integrated in the enclosure with the antenna connector relocated with a small male to female cable or the dongle mounted itself and wired to the USB via a small usb extender cable. This will be easier actually than mutilating the dongle. I'm a wires man and would like the PI connected via ethernet but got an Asus RT-N66U serving the house with good quality WiFi signals and all seems to be running nice whilst bench testing, so may stick with WiFI for primary use.

In the end the whole device will look nice, have accessible ports and also have a wireless antenna sticking out of it to add to the look. Still need to design an enclosure and make an integration plan for the PCB boards.

My questions are as follows. I'm fairly experienced when it comes to dealing with electronics and my practical skills I'd say are very good, however dealing with Linux and coding is definitely not a strong point - in fact it's non existent.

1) I have a Synology NAS setup in another room with a big music library (few hundred gb). The PI is taking a long while (3 hours or so) to finish the first-time databasing within runeaudio. Now when I switch the PI device off and on (proper shut down, not a pull), and remount the SMB share, it equally takes quite a long while to check the database for changes. Of course the automatic changes option is disabled and I understand the PI isn't a powerhouse of a processor. Eventually the system will stay on 24/7 so it's not a prob but would like the database refresh to happen faster if possible. Would an overclock help the matter and if so, how can I employ a small overclock? Also are there other factors causing this such as SD card speed or networking speed? SD is a Lexar 16GB SDHC UHS-1 200x class 10, and the initial databasing was done with the Edimax dongle. Will mounting the share in NFS improve things, It's currently mounted in SMB/CIFS mode.

2) The network location doesn't seem to automount on boot of the PI device - have to go into Sources, click the mount and click okay again. There's an error at the top saying network unreachable - is it trying to mount it a few seconds before the wifi connects itself to the router?

3) Since i'll be integrating this system I'd like to put the best wifi component in. Aside from the Edimax WiFi (Ralink based) I purchased a TP-Link TL-WN722N (detable antenna also - this is based on the Atheros chipset I believe). Edimax connects and stays at roughly 65mbit/s and the tp-link at 72mbit/s. Stock antennas. This isn't the be all end all as we know, and is there a way I can easily test wireless throughput with some kind of distro or app (got another SD to load up) and simple commands? This is my downfall. Want to integrate the best dongle of the two unless anyone here has knowledge and experience, and can safely say yes one chipset will be better than the other regardless of the speed.

4) An extension from the above, is there any point getting a N300 wireless device? I struggled to find anything decent and with detachable antennas. Got the router for it but I don't think the extra throughput will be of benefit as the current N speeds are coping with all manners of audio streaming right now. What do you guys think and are there any recommendations? Even the wifi dongle sold by ModMyPi with a detachable antenna is only N150 and they don't sell a N300 one.

Many thanks in advance to anyone that can help with some advice!

[Aquarius]

[njp]

Hello Aquarius, you've been a huge help.

I'm going to remount via NFS instead fresh and see if things are better. Hoping my NAS doesn't bottleneck things too much, it is a fairly decent one - Synology DS213+ with 2 x 3TB WD Red mirrored, connected via Gigabit Ethernet straight to the RT-N66U.

You're right and I wouldn't really want to overclock either - the processor is more than enough for the task in hand. Reliability is the number one factor.

The Lexar card seems good for purpose, it's UHS-1 but if anyone has a good card recommendation with good random IO performance, please suggest!

Shame about the remounting but this device eventually will be staying on 24/7 I think so it won't be an issue for the time being. Who knows, they may work this out in a future version of runeaudio.

Thanks very much for the info on checking throughput - the method seems so obvious now after you mention it.

You're right the speeds that a N300 dongle will provide are not something the PI will make use of. I've had some brilliant speeds via N600 on my laptops but not like we're streaming Full HD content or transferring large files on the PI! N150 it is then.

I'll take some pics of the work so far, I live in Leicester (UK) so if anyone local needs any help with soldering or wants things desoldered or soldered properly with a proper Pace station (rather than using cheap nasty irons, wick or soldersuckers - all bad things to use for clean reliable work) then I'm here and available to help anyone. You can even have a go yourself, it's a pleasure to desolder using a Pace vacuum station, it's fun to just pull ports off boards for no reason at all! And to have fully intact usable ports again it's just a nice thing to be able to collect ports of all manners off boards removed from consumer electronics.

[njp]

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Here is the power brick in case anyone wants to try and hunt it down. Plenty of headroom (5A) and the voltages look to be nice and steady (no drop below 5.0V) for a couple of amps draw at least. Best of all there's no noise on the amplifier (Nad 302) unless you wind the volume knob to max which I doubt anyone will be doing - even halfway and my Mission 760i's are being torn a new one, and at that halfway point you hear no buzz at all. Other power supplies I tried you could hear audible buzzing at that level. Bear in mind I wasn't using a properly shielded audio cable but I will be eventually, got a Belkin Pure AV lead lying around somewhere.

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Rear of PI. You can see audio jack, composite, and double USB socket desoldered. USB socket has a wire soldered to go to the hub, see further pics. Power wires soldered before fuse and diode.

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Here you see the power wires folded around the board, going under the IQaudiO to the other side of the board - see further pics.

[njp]

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Here you see the power wire again. You also see the wire loom connected to the USB socket. I mutilated a good quality shielded USB 2.0 cable for this piece of wire. Shield wiring bundled through a USB ground hole and soldered, and the four USB power/data wires stripped, poked through and soldered. Used a bit of green tiewrap just to hold wire in place temporarily, strain relief. The power wire I've brought to this point and tiewrapped to the USB wire - both of these are now running to the USB hub board.

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Here you see the USB hub board attached via the loom. You can see the USB-B socket has been desoldered from the hub board, along with the 2.5mm power socket (which is wired onto the board for external mounting).

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Closeup of the USB hub board. You can see the USB wire connected in a similar manner through the holes of the existing USB socket. Tiewrapped for strain relief. Power wires (black/red) from the PI are poked through a hole and soldered directly to the power socket pads on the other side of the board. This powers the PI from the power brick and not from a USB socket. The PI has it's fuse intact so I figured why not give it direct and non limited power and save a USB socket.

[njp]

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Rear of USB hub board. You see the power wires there soldered to the same power socket input points. You may notice I've poked the wires through a hole that is actually a ground pad and I could risk the wire insulation of the red wire stripping and shorting, but the red/black wires have some very firm insulation that I feel is not going to disintegrate or strip easily. Plus once the whole thing is integrated, wires wont be moving to and fro risking a short circuit.

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Closeup of the USB hub board again on the main side.

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The power socket removed from the hub and soldered onto a set of good quality wires with a decent guage. Voltage pin heatshrinked.

[njp]

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Here is the full thing with the WiFi dongle connected and it's 5dBi antenna.

Oh by the way I found that the TP-Link TL-WN722N has a much better throughput even with it's stock antenna than the Edimax EW-7711USN. EW-7711USN averaged a file transfer from network to SD at around 1.1MByte/s, few half second freezes, whereas the TP-Link rocked the show transferring at almost 2.7/2.8MByte/s majority of the way through aside from a few split second freezes also. This was surprising. Edimax - RT2080 and TP-Link - Atheros I believe. Edimax was no better with hi-gain antennas.

Router - RT-N66U, about two rooms away with signal strength showing roughly 50% on both adapters and despite both showing a similar connection speed too (60 - 70mbit/s).

Many thanks for the info on using SSH to do a file transfer - I used rsync, just wanted to see some kind of speed rate and time elapsed.