USB Turntable to Sonos or Pi Musicbox streaming guide

for darkice, libaacplus, et al on Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian Jessie Lite

to facilitate streaming audio from one of these turntables with USB audio codec output

• Audio-Technica AT-LP60-USB
• Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB
• ION Audio Classic LP | 3-Speed USB
• Sony PSLX300USB

via a Raspberry Pi 3 (or older, but why?)

• Raspberry Pi 3

using Raspbian Jessie Lite

Install raspbian

Grab Pi Filler to write the image file (.img) to your 2GB or larger SD card.

Headless wi-fi setup (via macOS, optional)

Download VirtualBox and the VirtualBox Extension Pack (needed for USB 2/3 SD card readers).

Download an Ubuntu VirtualBox image so we can access the EXT4 filesystem on the RPi boot card.

Load up the image, insert the microSD card, select the card reader from the VirtualBox USB menu bar icon, and edit the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file. Add a network entry (or several) for your wi-fi network:

network={
  ssid="MyWiFiNetwork"
  psk="mywifinetworkpassword"
}

Eject the SD card reader from Linux and your Mac, and put the card in the RPi.

Power up your RPi, wait a minute or so, and now try sshing into the box with ssh [email protected] and the password raspberry

Dependencies

Update your Raspbian install:

sudo apt-get update

Set your Raspbian system hostname by editing /etc/hostname and change raspberrypi to:

vinyl

and also the line in /etc/hosts from raspberrypi to:

127.0.1.1       vinyl

Then install a bunch of needed packages:

sudo apt-get -y install aptitude apt-utils sudo unzip autoconf libtool libtool-bin checkinstall libssl-dev libasound2-dev libmp3lame-dev libpulse-dev alsa-utils avahi-daemon darkice

We will install the darkice package, but compile it later to add AAC+ support

Compiling libaacplus

wget http://tipok.org.ua/downloads/media/aacplus/libaacplus/libaacplus-2.0.2.tar.gz
tar -xzf libaacplus-2.0.2.tar.gz
cd libaacplus-2.0.2
./autogen.sh --with-parameter-expansion-string-replace-capable-shell=/bin/bash --host=arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi --enable-static
make
sudo make install

Get darkice source

Enable the Raspbian source repo

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

uncomment or add the deb-src line

deb-src http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian jessie main contrib non-free rpi

Then run:

sudo apt-get update

Now get the darkice source

cd ~
mkdir src
cd src
apt-get source darkice
cd darkice-1.2

Compiling darkice

./configure --with-aacplus --with-aacplus-prefix=/usr/local --with-pulseaudio --with-pulseaudio-prefix=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf --with-lame --with-lame-prefix=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf --with-alsa --with-alsa-prefix=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf --with-jack --with-jack-prefix=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf
make
make install

Configure /etc/darkice.cfg

# this section describes general aspects of the live streaming session
[general]
duration        = 0         # duration of encoding, in seconds. 0 means forever
bufferSecs      = 1         # size of internal slip buffer, in seconds
reconnect       = yes       # reconnect to the server(s) if disconnected
realtime        = yes       # run the encoder with POSIX realtime priority
rtprio          = 3         # scheduling priority for the realtime threads

# this section describes the audio input that will be streamed
[input]
device          = hw:1,0    # OSS DSP soundcard device for the audio input
sampleRate      = 48000     # other settings have crackling audo, esp. 44100
bitsPerSample   = 16        # bits per sample. try 16
channel         = 2         # channels. 1 = mono, 2 = stereo

# this section describes a streaming connection to an IceCast2 server
# there may be up to 8 of these sections, named [icecast2-0] ... [icecast2-7]
# these can be mixed with [icecast-x] and [shoutcast-x] sections
[icecast2-0]
bitrateMode     = cbr
format          = mp3
# format          = aacp
bitrate         = 320
# bitrate         = 64
server          = vinyl
port            = 8000
password        = vinyl   # or whatever you set your icecast2 password to
mountPoint      = listen
name            = Vinyl
description     = DarkIce on Raspberry Pi
url             = http://vinyl
genre           = vinyl
public          = no
localDumpFile   = recording.m4a

icecast2

aptitude install icecast2

For the hostname, use vinyl, and for both hackme passwords, use vinyl

Then, for the admin password, set it to vinyl as well.

Note: heaven forbid you mess up the icecast2 text GUI config... you'll need to run

apt-get autoremove icecast2
apt-get purge icecast2

and then reinstall it

aptitude install icecast2

to get that crappy GUI back... unless there's an easier, undocumented way? and even then, where are the icecast.xml config files? not in /etc/icecast2/ ...

Disable the icecast2 burst-on-connect

Edit /etc/icecast2/icecast.xml and set burst-on-connect to 0 to lower latency on your local network:

<burst-on-connect>0</burst-on-connect>

Autostart darkice

These are from an Ubuntu install and don't exactly match the startup script, but they are close enough and do solve the startup problem

1

In /etc/init.d/darkice find:

DAEMON=/usr/bin/$NAME

and change it to the AAC+ complied version:

DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/$NAME

2

In /etc/init.d/darkice find:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE \

and replace it with:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet -m --pidfile $PIDFILE \

3

In /etc/init.d/darkice find:

stop_server() {
# Stop the process using the wrapper
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE \
            --exec $DAEMON
        errcode=$?

add after (with the new line):

    rm $PIDFILE

4

In /etc/init.d/darkice find:

running() {
# Check if the process is running looking at /proc
# (works for all users)

add after (with the new line):

    sleep 1

5

In /etc/default/darkice check that you have

RUN=yes

6

systemctl daemon-reload

7

Add default user nobody to the audio group (in my case, to work with ALSA):

adduser nobody audio

8

Fix upstart problem (it seems Darkice is trying to start on boot too early):

update-rc.d -f darkice remove
update-rc.d darkice defaults 99

Reboot and connect to your USB turntable

It should work now, so connect your streaming client up to (http://vinyl.local:8000/listen.m3u) and put on a record.

On Sonos, add your streaming turntable URL (http://vinyl.local:8000/listen.m3u) by adding a custom Internet radio station.

On Pi Musicbox, add the URL to your /boot/config/radiostations.js file or use the GUI.

Or switch to Volumio.

Icecast2 admin

is located at (http://vinyl.local:8000) and is good for checking the status of connected clients

RPi temp

Check the temp of your RPi 3 with

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp

if you're running without a heatsink, best to keep it below 70C

More info

See this forum

Final note

While AAC+ is neat, on a local network you might as well stream 320Kbps MP3 for better sound quality, or if you're so inclined, uncompressed WAV