HiFi DAC Audio Hat

I am using this dac hat on RPI 3b running Raspberry pi os Bullseyes. I have another RPI 3A+ running Raspberry pi os lite which installed Logitech Media Server for LAN devices playing music. I just installed squeezelite to play music. Setup as below 1. type "sudo nano /boot/config.txt" without "" , follow the manual instruction add a line at the end of the file dtoverlay=allo-boss-dac-pcm512x-audio 2. sudo reboot 3. right click on desktop volume icon there is "BossDAC" , you can change output from here 4. install squeezelite by typing " sudo apt update ; sudo apt install squeezelite" without "" 5. check the DAC by typing "aplay -L" without "" , should see hw:CARD=BossDAC,DEV=0 BossDAC, Boss DAC HiFi [Master] pcm512x-hifi-0 Direct hardware device without any conversions plughw:CARD=BossDAC,DEV=0 BossDAC, Boss DAC HiFi [Master] pcm512x-hifi-0 Hardware device with all software conversions sysdefault:CARD=BossDAC BossDAC, Boss DAC HiFi [Master] pcm512x-hifi-0 Default Audio Device dmix:CARD=BossDAC,DEV=0 BossDAC, Boss DAC HiFi [Master] pcm512x-hifi-0 Direct sample mixing device usbstream:CARD=BossDAC BossDAC USB Stream Output 6. connect to Logitech Media Server, type "squeezelite -o hw:CARD=BossDAC,DEV=0" without "" 7. open browser and type LMS IP change the player 8. enjoy. Sound quality is very good. It seems more musical and more power than my another DAT HAT Hifiberry DAC2 Pro, It is installed on RPI 3A+ powered by Hifiberry OS. Both of these DAC are using headphone jack as output. Highly recommanded RPI DAC hat, worth for every penny. The only complain is no stand provided with the DAC hat ======Update 04 May, 2025 ============== Change OS to MoodeAudio, still rock solid. My another dac hat hifiberry dac2 pro was not working any more. :( No sound & no lights, mostly damage

Works as it should. Even comes with helpful directions.

I first heard about Pi DAC HATS a few years ago. Have tried HiFiBerry. Was blown away by the sound and how easy it was to operate with Volumio operating system. I haven't listened to it in a while and decided to give it a try again. Something happened to the HiFiBerry...it was in-op. I wanted to get back to streaming my CD rips again. I saw this HAT and the DAC chip is quality and the coupling caps are rather good. I though I would try again with this unit. Now I'm using a Pi4b instead of the 3b. I powered the Pi and the HAT through a linear power supply hooked up to GPIO pins 4 and 6. OMG!!!!!! My audiophile heart is all a flutter! Everything I remember and more is there. I have access to my 5K+ CDs and the touch of my smart phone screen with Volumio. I have not even tried the internet radio or Tidal or other streaming services. I am very impressed with the unit and the price! Note-- There is a bit of a learning curve and the Pi does take a while to boot up at first. I just leave mine on. This is unfortunate but I have a bit of time to not have to pay $$$$$ for a streaming playback unit. Very happy. Listening now!

tl;dr summary for the DAC and case Nice sounding DAC, better than built-in audio on rPi but not as good as quality USB DAC. Case well built, works for rPi 3 and 4 but has poor quality soft metal fasteners that can strip or be easily damaged. --------------- Now the longer details for those who might be interested. We have a music and video streamer on a small server (Zimaboard). Using Jellyfin for video and Logitech Media Server (LMS) for audio. LMS connects to local media (FLAC, opus, mp3) and qobuz streaming high def audio. We have a rPi 3B+ and a rPi 4 connected to stereos in our living room and family room. The 3 was connected to an old FiiO e10K USB DAC and the rPi 4 to a Topping E10 Lite DAC also via USB. The rPi 4/Topping sounded incredible using moOde. The rPi 3/FiiO, also running moOde, sounded ok, but not nearly as clear or detailed as Topping. Wanted to upgrade the rPi3 and rather than pay $99 for another Topping to pair with the old rPi, decided to go with the InnoMaker HAT and case. Both came well packaged. The case needed to be assembled after getting the paper wrapping off the pieces. Took some time and patience, but they came off. Instructions for the DAC and case were online at the URL in the DAC box. Very detailed and helpful especially since you get 3 different sized standoffs. Only negative was the quality of the standoffs and screws. Very soft metal. The threads either arrived damaged on one of the screws, or else they got damaged when I put the screw thru the hole in the rPi board. Simple contact with the hole in the board should NOT have damaged the threads but they were damaged and with no spares, I had to force thru the bad threads using needle nose pliers and a pair or regular pliers. Unlikely I wll be able to unscrew it when/if the board or DAC ever dies and needs replacing. Would have preferred nylon screws or some of type of fastener. But other than that, with care, it all got assembled and looked pretty good. Plugged it in. Went to moOde and changed the audio source to Allo Boss DAC and rebooted the rPi 3. It sounds really good. Not as good as the rPi 4 with the $99 Topping DAC but still really good. And much better than with the old FiiO USB DAC. Didn't mention the change to my wife and she remarked last evening that the music sounds better, much more clear. I took that as a good sign as she rarely comments about the quality of the music so for her to notice says something. All in all happy with the purchase. If I had been using a rPi 4 I might have gone for another $99 Topping E30 Lite or the similar quality $79 S.M.S.L SU-1 DAC instead of the Pi HAT for the minimal price difference but I decided to give these a try and am glad I did. I hope this helps.

Great sounding DAC. East to connect and works great out of the box.

Does this actually work with pi5. I get tired of buying stuff for raspberry pi that says it works and I have to spend a day getting it to work after reading data sheet. No instruction. Online is outdated. I tried it again with a pi 2 zero. I could ssh to it without the hat but as soon as I started with the hat my zero well was zero. Main power on hat is bright red. Slide red glow from an led by a rca jack. Pretty sure my hat is bad from the start.

Audio quality instantly upgraded from the on-board analog out signal. Sounds great! Very easy to install if you know how. If you're using LibreELEC like me, the drivers are already in the OS (they are in most supported OS's I've read). You simply need to add it in the config. Do that like so: 1) SSH into your RPI (won't go into how to do that, Google it if you need) 2) Type "cd .." and press enter (no quotes) 3) Type "mount -o remount,rw /flash" (no quotes) to remount the flash directory as rewritable 4) Type "nano /flash/config.txt" (no quotes) 5) Arrow down to the bottom and type this at the end: dtoverlay=allo-boss-dac-pcm512x-audio 6) Press ctrl+x, choose y (for yes, to overwrite the file) and press enter 7) Type "reboot" (no quotes) to reboot the system 8) Now in Kodi, to into Settings - System Settings - Audio and choose the default output device of, "ALSA: Default (BossDAC Analog) Done, enjoy your audio DAC HAT :) UPDATE: Years later, I'm re-configuring this amazing DAC on a plain Raspbian 11 (bullseye) system and couldn't remember what I did prior to configure it. Found the pdf manual online and see that InnoMaker referenced me for installation on other systems with the above, THANK YOU! Since that was for Kodi/LibreELEC, the steps slightly change for Raspbian Bullseye: 1) SSH into your Raspberry Pi or open the terminal if local. 2) Type: "sudo nano /boot/config.txt" and press enter (no quotes) 3) Scroll/arrow to the bottom and type this at the end: dtoverlay=allo-boss-dac-pcm512x-audio 4) Press ctrl+x, choose y (for yes, to overwrite the file) and press enter 5) Type "reboot" (no quotes) to reboot the system 6) Type: "cat /proc/asound/cards" and press enter (no quotes) 7) Take note of the number at the far left next to "BossDac" (expected to be a 2) 8) Type: "sudo nano /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf" and press enter (no quotes) 9) Scroll/arrow down to: defaults.ctl.card 0 defaults.pcm.card 0 (if the 0 is a different number, that's OK) 10) Change the number at the end of both lines (in the above, it's a 0) to the same number you saw in step 7 (expected to be a 2) 11) Press ctrl+x, choose y (for yes, to overwrite the file) and press enter 12) Type "reboot" (no quotes) to reboot the system 13) Once Raspbian boots, right click on the sound icon in the taskbar and choose "BossDAC"

I'm using this on a RPi 3b+ to serve as a CD player. The DAC is working just fine. I expect most would use this with available software, but I wrote my own player software using python. My wife's library of 800+ CDs are on the micro SD card and it's often in use for much of the day, nearly every day.