Not the OP, but if you have a little budget, HifiBerry's AMP2 [0] sounds great. After my dad gave his Hi-Fi stack to me (due to having no space at home), I built a small system with this and connected to a set of passive 2.1 Kenwood Hi-Fi speakers for him. They sound amazing, plus HiFiBerry OS is superb for connectivity.
I just want to note that software is built with collaboration of Bang & Olufsen. Both hardware and software oozes quality.
The hifiberry documentation is a mess. Let’s say you want to get rid of your Sonos system and start at zero with a Pi (it’s not my first one)… which features could be replaced by hb? What hardware should I buy? Which licenses?
I don't have a Sonos system, but I'll try my best to run it down for you.
Platform has two starting points: Raspberry Pi + AMPs (or DACs) or Beocrate [0]
If you go with the former, you need a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 (even 2GB models are OK), HiFiberry board of your choice, a case (available from HifBerry), and a PSU in 19-24V range.
My setup is as follows:
- Kenwood 2.1 passive Hi-Fi speakers.
- HifBerry AMP2
- Raspberry Pi 4 / 2GB
- Steel case for Raspberry Pi + Board
- 20V Meanwell power supply with a barrel jack.
If you prefer to use your own amp or powered speakers, there are DACs which you can directly connect to line level inputs. They support the same OS, and some are even support XLR outputs or multichannel I/O for production/studio needs.
If you want go all in, you can add a DSP into the mix which allows parametric eqaualization, and room compensation with optional USB Mic (similar to how B&O speakers measure room to self-optimize). Also you can design your own DSP chains and upload to the DSP.
Regardless of the OS you run (HifBerry OS or HifiBerry OS64 (which is beta)), you get the following services out of the box:
- Roon
- AirPlay
- Spotify Deamon
- Spotify Connect
- RadioBrowser & TuneIn support
- Squeezelite for Logitech/Squeezebox
- Music (for local files)
- Bluetooth
Spotify daemons require a premium (Spotify) subscription and Roon needs a license/subscription.
There are also extensions, but I don't use any of them and don't know what's available.
I use the system mostly with MPD to play music from my and dad's personal collections. MPD can also connect to a Samba server.
If you have any other questions, I will try my best to answer. Hope this helps.
I just want to note that software is built with collaboration of Bang & Olufsen. Both hardware and software oozes quality.
[0]: https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/dealing-with-blocked-p...