Introduction


This guide contains all the information you will need to run the OSA Electronics DACBerry ONE.

Summary

  1. What we need
  2. Assembly
  3. Onboard configuration
  4. Quick install
  5. Volumio instructions
  6. OSMC instructions
  7. Retropie instructions

What we need


Assembly


Use the nylon screws and standoffs to assembly the Raspberry Pi together with the DACBerry ONE, as shown on the image below:

 

 

Onboard Configuration


The two RCA connectors on the DACBerry ONE can be used as Analog Outputs or as Digital Input/Output. By default there are two jumpers on JP1 that sets the RCA connectors as Right and Left for Analog Interface. If you want to change them, just locate the JP1 and change the two jumpers to “Coax In” and “Coax Out” positions.

Quick Install


There is an easy way to install support for DACBerry ONE on Raspbian Jessie and Raspbian Stretch.

Just run the following code from your Raspberry Pi with Internet connectivity:

Analog Output

curl https://www.osaelectronics.com/get/dbone_analog.sh | bash

Digital Output

curl https://www.osaelectronics.com/get/dbone_digital.sh | bash

You may need to reboot once. After rebooting, everything should work!

Volumio Instructions


Volumio team is already working to add official support on next release, but meanwhile, you can follow these steps to make it work:

*IMPORTANT: In order to make it works properly, is recommended to do a fresh install of Volumio and use lastest version.

Analog output

To get the it working using the RCA Output, you need to use the “iQaudio DAC Plus” profile.

Digital output

To get the it working using the Optical or Coax Output, you need to use the “Justboom Digi” profile.

 

Airplay

Volumio is a perfect choice if you want to stream music from your Apple devices.

Step 1
Open Volumio and navigate trought “Network” in Settings Panel, and connect to your WiFi network.

Step 2
Inside “Network” settings, locate “Hotspot Settings” tab and enable it if it’s not. Restart.

Step 3
Go to your desired Apple (or Windows) device and open iTunes if you are using a computer, or open the “control center” if using a phone/tablet. Go to the “Airplay” icon and select “Volumio”.


Step 4

That’s it! Enjoy streaming music!

Adding password to your Airplay device

With the Airplay feature activated, everybody will have access to your device and will be able to play music on it. If you want to add a password to it, follow these instructions.

Step 1
Open an SSH connection to your Pi, if you can’t connect at all, enable it on volumio.local/dev.

Then, type the following line to open up the template for the shairport config file in a text editor:

sudo nano  /volumio/app/plugins/music_service/airplay_emulation/shairport-sync.conf.tmpl

Step 2
In the “general” section, add a password, like this:

general =
{
    name = "${name}";
    log_verbosity = 0;
    password = "<your airplay password here>";
};

Save the file as usual and reboot.

Step 3
Connect to your device, you should be prompted for a password when airplaying to it.

OSMC Instructions


KODI OSMC team is already working to add official support on next release, but meanwhile, you can follow these steps to make it work:

*IMPORTANT: In order to make it works properly, is recommended to do a fresh install of Volumio and use lastest version.

Analog output

To get the it working using the RCA Output, you need to use the “iQaudio DAC Plus” profile.

Digital output

To get the it working using the Optical or Coax Output, you need to use the “Justboom Digi” profile.

 

Retropie Instructions


As for Raspbian Jessie, just run the following code from your Raspberry Pi with Internet connectivity:

Analog Output

curl https://www.osaelectronics.com/get/dbone_analog.sh | bash

Digital Output

curl https://www.osaelectronics.com/get/dbone_digital.sh | bash

In case the script doesn’t work for you, or doesn’t support your OS, you will need to add the overlay manually, type:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Then, add the following line for Analog Output:

dtoverlay=iqaudio-dacplus

For Digital Output:

dtoverlay=iqaudio-digi-wm8804-audio

You may want to disable the Raspberry Pi’s on-board audio. This is done simply by commenting out the {dtparam=audio=on} device tree parameter also in your /boot/config.txt file by placing a # at the start of the line. Save the file and reboot.

#dtparam=audio=on

The next step is optional, is to edit the raspi modules list with:

sudo nano /etc/asound.conf

This file should be blank! Just copy and paste the following text into the file:

pcm.dacberry {
    type softvol
    slave.pcm "plughw:0"
    control.name "PCM"
    control.card 0
}

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm  "dacberry"
}

ctl.!default {
 type hw
 card 0
}

Save the file as usual and reboot:

sudo reboot

Now to check everything is as expected, just type:

amixer
aplay -l

You should see something like that:

pi@retropie:~ $ amixer
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: volume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 255
Front Left: 255 [100%]
Front Right: 255 [100%]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: volume
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 255
Front Left: 255 [100%]
Front Right: 255 [100%]
pi@retropie:~ $

pi@retropie:~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
pi@retropie:~ $

And voilà! Enjoy playing retro games!

26 thoughts on “DACBerry ONE Quick Start Guide

  1. Korbinian says:

    Thanks a lot for this sweet little board
    Just FYI the analog outputs work for me aswell on Raspi 3B+ with Raspian Stretch.
    Anyone who wants to use it as spotify client, i can recommend raspotify.
    New flash, Install analog outputs, install raspotify, listen to streamed music via amp – all worked out of the box, beautiful.
    Next Project will be TV audio from toslink to analog.
    Thanks Oriol

  2. Arnaud says:

    Hi Oriol,
    I’d like to configure Dacberry One with the Two RCA as Stereo input and the Toslink as Output. Purpose of the configuration is to convert Turnable analogic signal to digital.
    Is there any way to do it?
    Thanks.
    Arnaud

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Arnaud,

      Actually there is no way to do that with ONE, it has no Analog Inputs. What you can do is exactly the reverse way, Digital to Analog conversion via software or modifying the hardware.

      Another way is to find some USB recording soundcard with just an input and then use the ONE as digital output. Soon will be available a new soundcard on the store with 2 analog inputs and 4 analog outputs that can be used in combination with ONE, but I can’t tell you exactly the release date.

      Hope one of these solutions works for you!

      Best,
      Oriol.

  3. Radek says:

    Hi Oriol,
    I am desperate. I am unable to make SPDIF input working, I have been searching internet for 5 days and still no luck. I want to receive audio through SPDIF input and make it go to analog output. I can only get audio working from Raspberry PI3 but not from SPDIF input. Could you give me a hint or tell me what to look for?
    Thank you so much.

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Radek,

      Sorry for my late response. I’ve been atteding Mobile World Congress with no time to respond earlier.

      About your question, the fastest way in to modify the board hardware. If you have good skills with soldering iron, I can explain how to do that. The second way is to implement that by software, I have not yet implemented that solution, but if you want I can send you some example code in order to make that work.

      Let me know!

      Best,
      Oriol.

      • Radek says:

        Hi Oriol,
        no worries, at least there is some solution to my problem, I left like I am the only one having an issue.
        I think I would go with the soldering option, although a software solution would be more elegant.
        Thank you so much!
        Radek

          • Oriol Sanchez says:

            Hi Radek,

            I have no email from you! Can you please re-send it to me? I’m sorry for not repyling you before, with the new Pi 3 B+ introduction I have a lot of work.

            Thanks!
            Oriol.

  4. Falko says:

    Hi Oriol,

    as one of your Kickstarter backers, i can say you did a really good Job in developing the Dacberry one. How is your Progress in writing the code to use the analog and digital Output at the same time? It would help me a lot, if i did not have to Change the raspberrys config.txt every time i want to Change between analog Output and digital Output. Thank you.

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Falko,

      Thank you very much for your words! It’s a pleasure to see my work and effort is appreciated.

      Regarding your question, I’m working on the code, but as you may know I suffered health problems on the past months and I have a lot of extra work to do. In fact there are still about 50 persons of Kickstarter waiting for their DACBerry ONE and their case, so for me now this is a priority. Hope you can understand it.

      In any case I will keep you posted about that, because many others are asking about the same in order to get both outputs working at same time!

      Have a nice day!
      Oriol.

  5. Peter says:

    Hi Oriol,
    just tried your recipe for digital output with a fresh volumio2 on a raspi 2, and it just didn’t work (got an no alsa device error message). Accidentally I switched to Hifiberry Digi as DAC model, and after a reboot everything works smoothly.

    Cheers,
    Peter

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hi Peter,

      I’m glad it is working for you! In fact Hifiberry Digi uses the same DAC chip, so actually as you said it also should work. Sometimes Volumio needs to restart several times or even to do a factory reset in order to work.

      In any case, I hope shortly it will be supported officially as they are already working on it!

      Best,
      Oriol.

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Claude,

      I’m working to fix the problem with the link. The other link you mention is for going back to factory audio default output on Raspberry Pi.

      Best,
      Oriol.

  6. wolfgang says:

    with your Quickinstall I always get “0bash: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `newline’
    bash: line 1: `'”

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Wolfgang,

      Some users reported me that error due a bad SSL certificate, I’m working on that and soon will be fixed. Meanqhile try to follow iQaudio or Justboom guides for Raspbian.

      Best,
      Oriol.

  7. claude says:

    Is it possible to use both analog RCA and digital optical outputs ?
    I wanted to use my hifi analog amplifier to play music and my video digital 5.1 amplifier to watch movies.

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hello Claude,

      It’s possible to use both at same time or separately. Unfortunately I have not yet finished the code for using both at same time.

      I will post the code as soon it’s ready!

      Best,
      Oriol.

        • Oriol Sanchez says:

          Hello Simon,

          There are some users that have developed their own library/driver to make it work. Actually as I said previously, it’s possible to have both working at same time. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time right now to develop this driver. Just for your information, the newer ONE+ board can play analog and digital simultaneously without any driver needed.

          If you have good programming skills, I can share with you some code via email.

          All the best,
          Oriol.

          • Simon says:

            I don’t have any programming skills at all 🙂 But there is a solution. It is called I2S-MMAP. It is hidden in Raspberry Settings in Max2Play OS. It enables multiple sound streams on one soundcard. It works flawlessly 🙂

  8. Franz Huber says:

    Hi Oriol
    i need some help for configuration the raspberry 3 with dacberry one. System is latest Debian Jessie with Squeezelite Player.
    Thanks in advance

    • Oriol Sanchez says:

      Hi Franz,

      For some reason the article is not working, it has an entire entry but I can only see “abc”, I suspect you too.

      Meanwhile in order to get it working, use the “iQaudio DAC Plus” profile for analog audio, and “JustBoom Digi” for digital audio.

      I’ve sent the new boards to developers so as soon as they get ready they will publish a new update to setup it more easy.

      Please let me know if this work for you, and I will work on the guide to see what’s wrong.

      Best,
      Oriol.

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