Show your audio system

[gbh_uk]

A relocation of almost 6,000 miles last year and an onging uncertain situation here forced me, for an extended period of time, to listen to my music through a decent but relatively small Harman Kardon bluetooth speaker. In mono!

I sorely missed the simple luxury of stereo so I recently dusted off my Quad 22L2 speakers that I'd put into storage 12 years ago, paired them with a Marantz Cinema 70s and lashed together a Pi 5 (4GB), a Seagate portable drive and a HifiBerry Digi2 Pro into an enclosure.  Not my best work perhaps, but it looks decent enough and works well. 

Since I took the internal pic the connections to the power input and mains switch have been spade-connected and heat-shrunk and the power block is fixed into place. 
The LED in the pushbutton switch on the front panel is powered by a short USB cable to the Pi, and the RPi5 power button header pins are brought out to the switch so it can be put into and brought out of standby relatively easily.  

When I have time that I can dedicate to it my plan is to implement some form of remote control over the power button.

               


Next time I pay a visit 'home' I'll bring back my Quad centre speaker to replace the Dali Oberon Vokal that I bought as a temporary stopgap. 
And my Allo DigiOne. Or I'm thinking to try a transport from Ian Canada. Nothing esoteric. But for the moment this setup suits me just fine.

Thanks Tim. After a long absence moOde is keeping me sane once again.

[Tim Curtis]

That a really a cool setup :-)

How did you get that uFL connector fitted to the Pi?

[gbh_uk]

Slowly, with the help of a YouTube video, a strong magnifier and a very fine-tipped soldering iron :-)

It's one of those things that I did just to see if I could... and for future-prooofing the build. At the moment I connect via ethernet, but who knows what the future may bring.

[wkloppen]

Hello there...I'm 3 day user of moOde. Before I ran a dietpi with bubbleupnp server which works perfectly fine but thought I'd try something new.
my basic setup consists of a USB DAC, a smsl sanskrit 10-th edition MK-2. I've blown up the outputs of the MK-3 recently...Got my eyes on smsl dl200 but not decided yet.
The amp is a DIY Wolverine solid state amp, setup as dual mono with 2x500W toroidals outputting 55v DC. Speakers are oldies from the '90's. KEF Reference Model 3's.
I do not have any local audio files. I only use Qobuz with the UPNP renderer option in moode. The audio output of the TV is set to bluetooth using the bluetooth controller in moode.
The sound is perfect. At least to me
I did notice one small thing. When I load a playlist with me usual control point Linn Kazoo, I don't see the thumnails in moode. Maybe that's normal maybe not...not sure.

       

Willem

[kurt1970]

Hi All,
 
I’m using moOde since the end of 2022, as I was looking to replace my Naim NDX Gen1 streamer on my main system.
 
At some point, Naim released their new series of streaming gear, which also meant they only support flac radio stations on their new devices. From a commercial point of view, a smart move of course.
 
As I work most from home, I listen a lot to internet radio stations. Almost all of them in (at least) CD quality (flac - 44.1kHz/16 bit). To have CD quality on my Naim NDX Gen1, in 2021, I developed a Raspberry based gateway that I put in between the Naim and the internet station, doing the conversion from flac > wav. This trick took weeks to figure out but allows Naim Gen1 customers to listen to CD quality radio stations. My ForwardProxy (as it’s called) is still running In the Cloud in Europe (Frankfurt) and the US (Phoenix).
 
Fact is that Naim was/is quite sensitive to network hick-ups, causing music stops playing very frequently. I still have an 18y old SONOS Connect, doing very well, but not playing CD quality internet stations either. So, at some point I made the decision to look after “something” else. Given the fact that most commercial brands buy streaming boards instead of developing them themselves, and the fact that I’m using an external DAC, I decided to explore what was possible with a spare PI I had.
 
Next to that, I’ve a +2600 CD collection stored in flac on a NAS. Well, the NAS is basically a PI4 with a 2TB SSD, exposing a SMB share, and some auto backup/sync software on it to make sure I never loose my music collection. So, the ease of accessing those files was an important criterion as well.
 
Another aspect was the UI. I’m familiar with the very good SONOS app, as well as the crappy NAIM app (it’s improving – finally…). So, user friendliness was also important.
 
I tested piCorePlayer, Volumio and moOde. For me, moOde is by far the best solution of all three because of its speed, very user friendly UI running on all kind of devices, easy and fast access to my CD collection.
 
And yes, we (my wife and myseld) and some audio minded friends, were not able to hear a difference in sound quality between the NDX (connected via S/PDIF to the DAC) and the PI running moOde. I tested moOde, both connected via USB to the DAC and via the Hifi Berry Pro S/PDIF hat. Slight preference for the USB link.

Some words about the systems.
I run moOde on two systems; the main system and the garden house system.
 
The main system consists of:

• Amplifiers: 2 x McIntosh 1.25KW
  
• Pre Amplifier: Quad Artera Pre – connected via XLR to the Amps and to the DAC
  
• DAC: Soulnote D2 – Connected to the moOde PI via USB and via XLR to the Pre Amp
  
• Speakers: KEF Blade
  
• Wiring: WireWord
  
• Power Conditioning: Torus Power RM16 CE
  
• Streamer: moOde (always latest version) running on a PI4 with SSD boot and nicely hidden after the DAC
  

 

The garden house system consists of:

• Integrated amplifier: Gato DIA-250S, including TI Based DAC.
  
• Speakers: Sonus Faber Lumina III
  
• Wiring: Ali Express (works great)
  
• Streamer: moOde (always latest version) running on a PI4 with SSD boot, digitally connected to the Gato amp via USB, and nicely hidden after the digital clock
  

Best,
Kurt

[Nutul]

Really nice setups!!!

[kurt1970]

Really nice setups!!!

Thank you!

[TheOldPresbyope]

To say "I'm impressed" feels inadequate. Both spaces look gorgeous.

I lusted after McIntosh gear from the beginning but settled for less. I never had room for speaker towers like yours but got years of service out of bookshelf-sized acoustic suspension speakers I bought in my salad days. Had to go to the local audio shop (when those were still a thing here in the USA) to experience anything close to what you have (although floor-standing Klipschorns were the pièce de résistance back in the day).

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that sometimes a new or trial release of moOde (as well as its open-source brethren) will unexpectedly output 0 dB during setup. May you never have your downstream system cranked up on at the time!


Regards,
Kent

[kurt1970]

Hi Kent,

Thanks for those kind words.

And yes... I never thougth about that "I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that sometimes a new or trial release of moOde (as well as its open-source brethren) will unexpectedly output 0 dB during setup. May you never have your downstream system cranked up on at the time!".
In my case, I don't use the moOde volume control (read: direct out, max out), so I rely on the amp/pre-amp to control the volume. I don't think this could cause a risk?

[TheOldPresbyope]

Hi Kent,

Thanks for those kind words.

And yes... I never thougth about that "I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that sometimes a new or trial release of moOde (as well as its open-source brethren) will unexpectedly output 0 dB during setup. May you never have your downstream system cranked up on at the time!".
In my case, I don't use the moOde volume control (read: direct out, max out), so I rely on the amp/pre-amp to control the volume. I don't think this could cause a risk?

As long as it's turned down to start with you'll be fine. 

Regards,
Kent