A Retro, Not Steampunk, Media Center | Hacker News Reader

A Retro, Not Steampunk, Media Center

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80 pointsgedrap19 comments

This is all around awesome. Every bit of it, right down to the power strip[1] seems to be well-chosen to fit the aesthetic. Truly, a great mix of engineering and artistic skills.

1. http://audio.toddkumpf.com/power-strip#

Probably the best combination of personal engineering and artistic skills is the work (hobby?) of Tatjana J. van Vark:

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/projects.html

Some of her stuff is absolutely stunningly beautiful and wonderfully esoteric e.g. "Mechanical Fourier Analysis and Synthesis":

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/harmonium/harmonium.html

Site appears to be suffering under the load. Here's links to google cache for a few of the pages:

concept: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:el5m9JG...

process: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ItuTOZ...

gallery: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TekvDuj...

blog: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ir6N8bK...

I wonder how is the streamed audio being output to the speakers. As far as I know, non-HDMI Raspberry PI's audio capabilities just suck.

USB sound card

USB sound cards are not always of very good quality. They do transform the signal in various ways.

I mean, if you are serious about audio, you should not even be using a Pi in the first place.

Did you look at the speakers it has? Basically computer speakers from a cinema type setup.

This is very clearly a project about aesthetics and solving a problem that the individual had (integration of various audio systems - turntable + spotify), rather than one about quality of sound.

From an aesthetic perspective this is one hell of a well done job. Everything about it looks good. It won't sound incredible given the speakers used, so it is not necessary for the USB sound card and Pi to also provide a sublime and low-noise signal.

In fact one could argue that given the aesthetics, it not sounding perfect fits the design aesthetic of the project.

Sure, I have no issue with that. I just wanted to clarify that USB sound cards are sometimes very much sub-par in terms of audio quality and one should be very careful about their choice there.

I've been looking for a good USB soundcard. Is there anything in particular you would recommend?

What is your purpose? And your budget?

If you want only to listen, USB DAC is good option. Buy sabre based diy[1]. It's simple and uses great components - best reciver and best in its budget class dac.

[1] http://hifimediy.com/index.php?route=product/product&product...

> not always

Exactly. Some of them are pretty good.

Anyone have suggestions for a good, cheap-ish, USB DAC? I use my rpi for Airplay but the onboard DAC is not the best.

Check out http://www.raspyfi.com/. Their aim is to turn the RPi in to a respectable HiFi source so the DAC is a big part of this.

I've had good luck using one similar to this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MUSE-AUDIO-X5-MINI-HIFI-USB-DAC-PCM2...

It's no frills, but the noise floor seems pretty low and it eliminates any popping sounds.

anyone know what the 2 tracks in the video are?

Yellow Bird and Vibe Vendetta off of Pretty Light's A Color Map of the Sun.

The band is Pretty Lights, not Pretty Light's, for anyone else trying to look them up.

this is sick

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