[PROBLEM] Pi2Design 502Dac Pro problem with Pi 4

[aknaggbaugh]

I've been using moode V6 with a pi 3b and my 502Dac pro for a while with great success however when I switched out the pi 3b for a 2gb pi 4 I can no longer play through the 502dac pro. Everything else is the same - even the exact same microsd card - and if I switch back to the pi 3b the DAC hat still works. With the pi 4, if I select i2s audio to none I can get an output through the headphone socket. When trying to output to the 502dac pro the UI looks as though it's playing but no sound is produced, if I then pause / unpause the output the UI then freezes. I'd be grateful for any advice, I can provide any required logs to assist in tracking down the problem later today.

Thanks,

Adrian.

[Tim Curtis]

This appears to be a hardware compatibility issue. I'd recommend contacting the manufacture of the board to see whether its compatible with the new Pi-4B.

[swizzle]

The driver might not be in the distro as the product was limited run and is now discontinued but it was compatible with one of the hifiberry drivers, one of digi+ pro or dac+ pro I think.

[Tim Curtis]

moOde's audio device table has "hifiberry-digi-pro" coded for this device. It's still in Raspbian Buster.

Code:

pi@moode:~ $ ls -l /boot/overlays/hifiberry-digi-pro.dtbo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1125 Aug 16 20:06 /boot/overlays/hifiberry-digi-pro.dtbo

IIRC the Pi-4B changed how some of the GPIO pins operate. Maybe this is affecting the 502 board?

[aknaggbaugh]

moOde's audio device table has "hifiberry-digi-pro" coded for this device. It's still in Raspbian Buster.

Code:

pi@moode:~ $ ls -l /boot/overlays/hifiberry-digi-pro.dtbo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1125 Aug 16 20:06 /boot/overlays/hifiberry-digi-pro.dtbo

IIRC the Pi-4B changed how some of the GPIO pins operate. Maybe this is affecting the 502 board?

Yes, before I started using Moode I had to tell Volumio the device was a hifiberry digi+ pro. I had read that the Pi 4 40 pin header retained backward compatibility with previous HATs - is this something that can potentially be fixed by an update to the overlay, or would I need to look at replacing the HAT with one known to work with the Pi 4? (If so, is there a list of "known good" HATs anywhere?

I grepped dmesg for sound related output and got this:

pi@moode:~ $ grep snd- dmesg.out
[    4.211853] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.386459] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.423590] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.493038] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.506623] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.507745] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.509454] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.584625] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    4.656449] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: ASoC: CODEC DAI wm8804-spdif not registered - will retry
[    5.155790] snd-rpi-wm8804 socound: wm8804-spdif <-> fe203000.i2s mapping ok

[TheOldPresbyope]

@aknaggbaugh

I do not have the Pi2Design 502DAC Pro so can't test directly. I do have a HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro which uses the same driver (after all, it was written for it!). 

Just now dug the DAC out of the drawer and plugged it into an RPi4B/4GB, installed moOde6.0rev2, and powered up. I'm listening to the Jazz Groove on my audio system plugged into the RCA jacks on the DAC. Sounds fine.

Don't worry about that stream of "not registered" messages during the boot sequence. I think I started seeing them with these drivers when Raspbian Stretch was introduced or maybe even before. The one which matters is the final message saying the mapping is ok. Here's what I'm seeing on my system:

Code:

pi@moodeLR:~ $ dmesg|grep snd-
[    3.737460] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CPU DAI (null) not registered - will retry
[    3.740850] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CODEC DAI pcm512x-hifi not registered - will retry
[    3.750770] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CODEC DAI pcm512x-hifi not registered - will retry
[    3.913735] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CODEC DAI pcm512x-hifi not registered - will retry
[    4.161318] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CODEC DAI pcm512x-hifi not registered - will retry
[    4.176595] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: ASoC: CODEC DAI pcm512x-hifi not registered - will retry
[    4.545852] snd-rpi-hifiberry-dacplus soc:sound: pcm512x-hifi <-> fe203000.i2s mapping ok

If there is an issue with RPi4B GPIO pins and the Pi2Design 502DAC Pro then I think it's up to Pi2Design folks to explain it. Only they know what their board is doing at the interface.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

@aknaggbaugh,

A lot of users really like Allo DigiOne or DigiOne Signature.

[aknaggbaugh]

@aknaggbaugh,

A lot of users really like Allo DigiOne or DigiOne Signature.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Just as an update, I spoke to the folks at Pi2Design, they indicated there were timing issues with that board which is part of the reason it was discontinued, so it seems I may have been lucky with my one working on the Pi 3 but something about the 4B tips it over the edge. So it looks like I'll be sticking with using it with my 3B for the time being until I can afford a replacement DAC. I don't really need any of the digital capabilities of the 502DAC Pro, so I'm quite tempted by IanCanada's dual mono ES9038 with his FIFOPi reclocker board and probably an op-amp I/V stage.

[suzywong]

@aknaggbaugh,

A lot of users really like Allo DigiOne or DigiOne Signature.

Yup!   And a Signature driving a Naim DAC is stunning.