Raspberry Pi IQaudio DigiAMP+ (CE07562)

Core · 18 January 2021 09:13

This is a placeholder topic for “Raspberry Pi IQaudio DigiAMP+” comments.

IQaudio DigiAMP+ uses the Texas Instruments TAS5756M PowerDAC to deliver direct connection to PASSIVE stereo speakers at up to 2x35wpc with variable output. Ideal for a Raspberry Pi-based hi-fi system.

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brian86770 · 18 January 2021 09:13

does it run class “D” amplification…??

Bryce · 19 January 2021 01:08

Hi Brian,

You’re exactly right, it’s a class D amp.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tas5756m.pdf?ts=1610948028128&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ti.com%2Fproduct%2FTAS5756M

Aaron109945 · 21 August 2022 02:17

Hi, I’m going to order a Raspberry Pi IQaudio DigiAMP+ which power supply should I order with it?

Liam120347 · 23 August 2022 04:51

Hi Aaron,

From the product page they mention the ‘XP Power VEC65US19’

It looks like a pretty specialised power supply but very neat!

Ben97520 · 3 January 2023 00:56

Hi, are you stocking the new DigiAmp+ for Raspberry Pi?

James · 3 January 2023 05:20

Hi Ben,

Good news, here it is:

It’s currently in local stock, but you can find out the latest by heading to the product page

Ben97520 · 3 January 2023 06:07

Thanks, I did see that but was unsure by the references to IQaudio that it could be the older version.

James · 4 January 2023 03:57

Hi Ben,

Thanks for pointing that out! Seems we forgot to remove them when we fixed up the images.

I’ll make a note to get that fixed ASAP

Donald23173 · 7 June 2024 08:31

Just bought one of these (plus a 7" screen to use it as a media player), and realised it needs an external power supply (and the special HighPi Pro Case would be nice) Well, that would effectively tripple the cost

The recommended power supply above looks very similar to the power supply from my now-dead laptop, so hoping to reuse what I already have. My AC adaptor is 19V 4.7A (90W) centre-positive output … but the barrel connector doesn’t fit in the DigiAMP+.

If I understand correctly, one of your 2.1mm to 2.5mm DC Barrel Plug Adapter would do the trick; or I could cut the plug off the AC Adaptor, and (making sure i get the + and - the correct way around) solder the wires directly to P5 on the DigiAMP+ board.

Or is there something important I have forgotten ?

Robert93820 · 7 June 2024 10:02

Hi Donald

You are the only one who knows that.
Cheers Bob

Michael · 11 June 2024 01:35

Hi @Donald23173 - it seems like your Laptop Charger solution could work. The only niggle will be the physical plug and making sure correct polarity is maintained, as you’ve identified.

Is the laptop charger a 2.1mm? If so, that plug adapter ought to work

Best of luck with your project

Donald23173 · 11 June 2024 12:35

Coincidentally I have now been given a NUC AC Adaptor with variety of plugs, which is now powering my RasPi.

I’m now installing software for this project, and noticed a bit of a discrepancy …

IQaudio Card    /boot/config.txt
________________________________________________________________________
DigiAMP+        dtoverlay=iqaudio-dacplus,unmute_amp
                or
                dtoverlay=iqaudio-dacplus,auto_mute_amp

Having installed the latest Raspberry Pi OS (bookworm, 64-bit, full) and run apt-get upgrade (and quite a lot upgraded), and updated /boot/firmware/config.txt as described … the board was not found

I wondered if maybe there is a newer driver … and indeed the Raspberry Pi DigiAMP+ documentation page suggests to add

dtoverlay=rpi-digiampplus

and a bit further down under " Mute and unmute the DigiAMP+" heading it further confuses me further by stating:

For Raspberry Pi boards:

dtoverlay=rpi-digiampplus,auto_mute_amp

For IQaudIO boards:

dtoverlay=iqaudio-digiampplus,auto_mute_amp

For anyone else going down this path, I found that “dtoverlay=rpi-digiampplus,auto_mute_amp” works.

Michael · 12 June 2024 06:59

Thanks for the update @Donald23173 - I’ve captured this improvement for our team to update our instructions.

As I’m sure you can understand, life in the Raspberry Pi lane moves pretty fast and as maintainers update their packages it can be tricky for us to keep up.

Appreciate you coming in with the settings that worked for you

Donald23173 · 16 June 2024 23:43

Yesterday I tested a change I made in the Home Assistant / Music Assistant / Lovelace page, and the volume unexpectedly jumped up forcing me to quickly turn off the music player.

Rather than subject my partner to further testing I moved the unit back to my study room … Now the DigiAMP+ is not recognised by “aplay -L”.

After trying a fresh install on a new microSD card, and finding no hardware problem, I go back to my previous installation … and there is DigiAMP options sitting at the bottom of “aplay -L”.

False alarm, sorry

Donald23173 · 23 June 2024 06:37

I think I spoke too soon … maybe a intermittent hardware fault ?

Next significant event was me thinking that the big desktop tripod-mounted USB microphone was going to be unwieldy next to the RasPi with 7" screen … so thinking I would try an Adafruit Voice Bonnet instead.
No go. The DigiAMP+ no longer detected, but neither was the Voice Bonnet. Finally realising that both were trying to use the same I2S GPIO pins I gave up and took the Voice Bonnet off. Start again from burning the RasPiOS image (thank goodness for microSD cards).

Since then, over the past 3 days I have occasionally had the DigiAMP+ card detected in aplay -L … but whatever I do next, it disappears. Last 2 attempts I have only been trying to get mpd running with the DigiAMP+

Murphy says that if I document this last try, it will work

Power off RasPi 4 and remove the USB mic because it has a headphone socket whicha adds a lot of audio out devices.
use RasPi imager to burn 2024-03-15-raspios-bookworm-arm64.img.xz onto the 16GB microSD card, setting hostname (KitchenControl), SSH username/password, and locale settings.
Insert SD card in RasPi4 and power on. It boots a couple of times and displays desktop on attached HDMI touchscreen.
“aplay -L” displays … well, the normal base devices plus 6 variations for each of vchdmi0 and vchdmi1, and 5 variations for Headphones. I had removed my USB mic since it includes its own headphone socket which generates a lot of device variations.
“grep -a . /proc/device-tree/hat/*” displays

/proc/device-tree/hat/name:hat
/proc/device-tree/hat/product:Pi-DigiAMP+
/proc/device-tree/hat/product_id:0x0005
/proc/device-tree/hat/product_ver:0x0005
/proc/device-tree/hat/uuid:28f0a91b-aabb-4222-9bc4-013880a4eb8e
/proc/device-tree/hat/vendor:IQaudIO Limited www.iqaudio.com

Note: This is always the same whether the DigiAMP+ device is detected or not.

Following the raspberrypi.com’s instructions, sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt to comment out dtparam=audio=on and add to end of the file:

# Some magic to prevent the normal HAT overlay from being loaded
dtoverlay=
# And then choose one of the following, according to the model:
dtoverlay=iqaudio-digiampplus,auto_mute_amp

Note that both the rpi-digiampplus and iqaudio-digiampplus versions have worked at different times.
I also add an option (to remove audio) from the existing HDMI driver line, giving:

# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,noaudio

Usually I would already have done an apt update and apt upgrade, but now is fine.

pi@KitchenControl:~ $ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease
Hit:4 http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
134 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
pi@KitchenControl:~ $ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libcamera0.2 libraspberrypi0 libwpe-1.0-1 libwpebackend-fdo-1.0-1
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gtk-nop gui-updater libcamera0.3 libhwloc-plugins libhwloc15 libopencv-calib3d406 libopencv-core406
  libopencv-dnn406 libopencv-features2d406 libopencv-flann406 libopencv-imgproc406 libopencv-objdetect406
  libprotobuf32 libtbb12 libtbbbind-2-5 libtbbmalloc2 libxnvctrl0 linux-headers-6.6.31+rpt-common-rpi
  linux-headers-6.6.31+rpt-rpi-2712 linux-headers-6.6.31+rpt-rpi-v8 linux-image-6.6.31+rpt-rpi-2712
  linux-image-6.6.31+rpt-rpi-v8 linux-kbuild-6.6.31+rpt pastebinit python3-pycryptodome
The following packages will be upgraded:
  arandr bsdextrautils bsdutils chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra dpkg dpkg-dev
  eject fdisk ffmpeg firefox ghostscript gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-x
  gtk-update-icon-cache gui-pkinst less libarchive13 libavcodec59 libavdevice59 libavfilter8 libavformat59
  libavutil57 libblkid1 libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-devtools libc-l10n libc6 libc6-dbg libc6-dev libcamera-ipa
  libcamera-tools libcamera0.2 libdav1d6 libdpkg-perl libfdisk1 libfm-data libfm-extra4 libfm-gtk-data libfm-gtk4
  libfm-modules libfm4 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-data libgs-common libgs10 libgs10-common
  libgstreamer-gl1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-3-common libjavascriptcoregtk-4.1-0 libmount1
  libndp0 libneatvnc0 libpipewire-0.3-0 libpipewire-0.3-common libpipewire-0.3-modules libpisp-common libpisp1
  libpostproc56 libsmartcols1 libspa-0.2-bluetooth libspa-0.2-modules libswresample4 libswscale6 libuuid1 libvlc-bin
  libvlc5 libvlccore9 libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 libwf-utils0 linux-headers-rpi-2712 linux-headers-rpi-v8
  linux-image-rpi-2712 linux-image-rpi-v8 linux-libc-dev locales lp-connection-editor lxplug-netman lxplug-updater
  mount pcmanfm pi-bluetooth piclone pipanel pipewire pipewire-bin pipewire-libcamera pipewire-pulse pishutdown piwiz
  pixflat-theme python3-libcamera python3-picamera2 python3-pil python3-v4l2 raspberrypi-sys-mods raspberrypi-ui-mods
  raspi-config raspi-firmware raspi-utils rc-gui realvnc-vnc-server rfkill rp-prefapps rpi-eeprom rpi-firefox-mods
  rpicam-apps util-linux util-linux-extra vlc vlc-bin vlc-data vlc-l10n vlc-plugin-access-extra vlc-plugin-base
  vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-qt vlc-plugin-samba vlc-plugin-skins2 vlc-plugin-video-output
  vlc-plugin-video-splitter vlc-plugin-visualization wayfire wayvnc wf-panel-pi xserver-common xserver-xorg-core
134 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 393 MB of archives.
After this operation, 186 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

sudo reboot now
aplay -L now gives only:

pi@KitchenControl:~ $ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default
    Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server
lavrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Libav/FFmpeg Library
samplerate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Samplerate Library
speexrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler
jack
    JACK Audio Connection Kit
oss
    Open Sound System
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
speex
    Plugin using Speex DSP (resample, agc, denoise, echo, dereverb)
upmix
    Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8)
vdownmix
    Plugin for channel downmix (stereo) with a simple spacialization
pi@KitchenControl:~ $

Doesn’t seem much point continuing to install mpd if the hardware isn’t there to play on.
Several reboots later, and no DigiAMP+ showing up.

Is there something I have missed … or does this suggest an intermittent fault and should be returned ?

Aaron · 24 June 2024 06:16

Hi @Donald23173,

It is strange that it’s being intermittent.

Can you post some photos of how you have the DigiAMP connected to your Pi?

Donald23173 · 24 June 2024 11:14

'Tis indeed strange … it wasn’t until I wrote out the post that I realised how unlikely that repeating the same install/setup procedure gives different errors/results each time. Also that it went from occasionally not working to occasionally working.

The DigiAMP+ is a HAT, and I had checked that it was lined up correctly. I believe that it would not have been working at first if it was not lined up correctly. I did not remove it from the RasPi; I did add the Voice Bonnet on the top of the stack.

As it happens, I did take some photos of the 3-board stack from the sides, thinking to design a custom case for the whole kaboodle

and one looking down onto the DigiAMP+ after removing the Voice bonnet

All photos are with power off since I was posing the components.

I got so fed up with it, that today I took the DigiAMP+ HAT off my RasPi 4 and decided to try ‘plan B’. I remembered that the Adafruit Voice Bonnet has 1W amplifiers, so can substitute for the DigiAMP+, albeit at lower volume. The old speakers I was going to use really were overkill for my kitchen anyway, even for listening to opera But from memory there was some issue with the Voice Bonnet’s microphones that made me put the Voice Bonnet aside previously.

If you think it worthwhile I can swap back to the DigiAMP+ and the microSD card I was using with that, check its operation once again, and take some photos. Apart from the GPIO pins being lined up correctly, what else would you be looking for ?

Robert93820 · 25 June 2024 02:25

Hi Donald

The angle of that top board as in2nd pix. I don’t know which is the female connector in that lot but whichever one it is it is quite shallow and maybe some of the pins are not contacting properly.

That is one hell of an angle for a connector and I would suggest replacing that spacer with one of the correct length. Whether that is the cause of the problem or not. This sort of thing IS NOT very good practice.
Cheers Bob

Samuel · 25 June 2024 03:38

Hey @Donald23173,

Just to check, are you powering the Pi only through the DigiAMP+ HAT with input between 12-24v?

It may be worthwhile using a multimeter on a few of the GPIO pins coming out of the hat to make sure it’s giving the Pi power in an expected range.

Aside from this, your physical setup looks pretty good aside from what Bob has pointed out about the connector placement.

I would suggest looking into Alsamixer. it’s a decent sound tool that may help you with your troubleshooting.

This seems like a tricky one, hopefully you can get something working!