Note: This “How-To” was originally presented by Cesar Picco as part of a Nova Labs partnership with GE Garages. Raspberry Pi is a $35 credit-card-sized computer.

Online streaming services are lowering the cost and increasing access to the music we love. But while the choice of devices needed to utilize these services are growing, they are still expensive.  After checking out pricey “audiophile” gear at my local neighborhood shop I was left asking the question:

Can I build one with a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi (RPI) is a perfect transport for audio since it is very low cost, needs very little energy to operate and new open source software becomes available almost daily.  In addition to this, the Pi gives you three different audio output options on a board slightly larger than a credit card.

What you will need:

Hardware

• 1 Raspberry Pi Model B
• 1 USB Power Supply 5v micro USB
• 1 SD Card 4GB or larger
• 1 Ethernet cable (or RPI compatible Wi-Fi USB adapter)
• 1 USB drive or NAS or some form of file storage device for your music
• Powered PC type speakers 3.5mm headphone plug
• Optional – Not needed if running headless
  • 1 HDMI Cable
  • 1 USB Keyboard
  • 1 USB Mouse

Software

• Squeezeplug Server Image for Raspberry Pi – http://www.squeezeplug.eu/?page_id=52
• PuTTY – http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Playing Audio from a Raspberry Pi

There are three different ways to play audio from a RPI.

Headphone Jack

The 3.5mm jack is not recommended by most due to pops and clicks. Now that I have said that, I use my headphone jack a good amount.

Rating: Fair

HDMI Output

HDMI is recommended if you have a newer audio amplifier that will accept HDMI audio inputs.

Rating: Better

USB Output

For high quality, use the USB output to a USB digital to analog converter (DAC).

Rating: Best

Setting Up the Raspberry Pi Streaming Music Player

Step 1

Create an SD card as the boot disk.

• Download the INI file from http://www.squeezeplug.eu/?page_id=52
• For a detailed tutorial on creating a bootable SD Card check out this great tutorial from Adafruit.

Step 2

Boot up and log in.

Username = root
Password = nosoup4u

Step 3

Squeezeplug has a very detailed video on their YouTube site.

• Type “Setup”.
• Select “OK” on the opening donation screen.

• On the next screen select Yes, I like Squeezeplug.

• Setup Home screen:

•  Setup your server and player.  Select Server and Player then OK.

•  Setup your server(s).  Select Install a Media Server then OK.

• Setup your player(s).  Select Install a Media Player then OK.

I highly suggest Squeezelite and Shairport as good player options yet feel free to explore the other players.

Controlling Your Squeezeplug

There are multiple ways of controlling your Squeezeplayer, the easiest in my opinion is the standard app released by Logitech for their Squeezebox.  The software for the Squeezeplug is based on Logitech’s Squeezebox so their apps work very well to control these units.

The app can be found for Android systems at the Play store as well as at the Apple App Store.

One last step to controlling your Squeezeplug using the app is creating a Squeezebox account.

• Create an account at http://www.mysqueezebox.com/

If you are interested in attending an encore presentation of this class at Nova Labs please rsvp on Meetup!