I have successfully installed JRiver IdPi, connected to my NAS, imported all my music (and discovered the long filename box to check off, so it doesn't get stuck!) I have been using it with a USB dac, but now I plan on moving it to a different stereo, which is based on a Rotel RSX-1560. This is older hardware, from 2009, and has a built in DAC which goes up to 24/192 via coax (I sent Rotel an email to confirm this, haven't heard back yet). I have already tried connecting using HDMI, and the Rotel receiver only sees up to 48khz, which I believe is a limitation of the Rasberry Pi's HDMI port, although it is not clear to me if that is a hardware or software issue.
My question is, which do people think would sound better? Using the Hifiberry DAC+ and just connecting it to the receiver with analog RCA, or to use the DIGI+ board and connect to the receiver's DAC using the S/PDIF coax? The Rotel is a nice receiver, and I'd like to hope it is a higher quality DAC, plus already wired directly into the receiver, vs using the HifiBerry DAC+ board. On the other hand, about 5 years or so have gone by from when the Rotel was new, and technology may have marched on? Short of purchasing both, I'm curious which way people have been happier, especially comparing USB output to DIGI+ ouput into the same DAC. Unfortunately I am losing DSD decoding for now, but the whole point was to build an inexpensive renderer which could still use JRiver, which accesses my NAS and can read SACD ISOs. The Rasberry Pi 3B and Jriver Id PI combo is up to $100 bucks so far, and the less expensive NUC machines or a home build HTPC would be a few hundred dollars more at least.
It would be nice to just get the new Oppo Sonica DAC, which has the same functionality, but I don't even know if it would handle SACD ISO, and for me that is the deal breaker since I already am set up that way, and I'm not interested in converting all my albums into dsf files!
Any thoughts?