USB Audio Adapter for Zero W. How to get sound from it

General Discussion
1

I am very much a beginner at Raspberry Pi.

I’ve just got a one of those USB Audio Adapter’s (to use with one of them pirate radios (Zero W) Can someone link me to a step by step guide (very easy one please) of getting it set up so I can listen to music via headphones as I know it doesn’t have a jack with the zero. Thanks.

Or Could I just do it via forcing the sound from HDMI to 3.5mm and nothing else. Will I get sound from the USB Audio Adapter if I do that.

I would like to do this ASAP.

Thank you.

This is the USB Audio Adapter if it helps.

I will connect another cable with it also so it will connect to the PI board.

I did see you need to change the confusion file with the line output_device = “hw1” in a comment but that’s all it said.
If anyone knows how to do that, please tell me. (Step by step so I can understand it)

NOTE: I still want to be able to get audio from the pirate radio built in speaker as well as headphones.

2

Hi,

You should be able to select it as an output device under:

Settings -> System -> Audio: Audio Output device.

Thanks Tom.

3

Also one other thing I forgot to mention.

If I turn on bluetooth and pair them up to bluetooth enabled headphones, will it pick up them in the settings?

So every time I turn it on with just the power bank attached, and also enable the bluetooth on the headphones it will work?

If I have to install something I won’t bother. The PI is has bluetooth but in.

4

You would have to install something. It’s not difficult but the package is still in testing. I can walk you through it later but have to go out now.

1 Like
5

Maybe. If I see the step by step guide then I’ll decide.

7

As long as @grahamh provides you with the commands and I’m sure he will it’s as easy as copying the commands from here into the command line and pressing enter

8

Going a little bit Off-Topic here, But:

Actually - you guys should use a real Dac on the Zero W.
I built up my 4 Media-Centers dedicated to audio using these DAC’s: JustBoom DAC Zero pHAT | 384kHz/32 bit DAC for Raspberry Pi Zero
On that site you can also get the housing for it. OK - it makes a quite expensive Rasberry PI media players if you count it all - but I never had an issue since these are up and running.

However, and this is for the notes:

  1. I use picore player (https://www.picoreplayer.org/) as OS on these boxes. It is optimized for raspberry PI’s with small memory, and runs entirely out of RAM. So it won’t break SD Card over time.
    This makes it also very resistant to power loss etc. Will just boot the saved configuration
  2. It requires the LMS (Logitech Media Center software My Media - Welcome to mysqueezebox.com! ) running in your LAN. I run it inside a docker container. You can also link into internet Radio Stations and other stuff. So really versatile.

The reason I write this down here.
OSMC is an amazing OS for the Kodi platform. And that’s what it was built for.
In the beginning, I did run raspbian, then OSMC (and I really stripped down both OS’s to the bare minimum). But over time, I always had issues with the SD Cards wearing out as kodi will not entirely run out of RAM (I tried, tmpfs filesystems everywhere and writing a script to copy the files in place before starting Kodi).

Thing is - Kodi on a headless system is a real pain. So I looked for alternatives out there until I found LMS + Picoreplayer and check it out. That is a combination for audio that is unbeatable.
It even has software for Android (IOS I didn’t check) Squeeze player which enables you to control the music to be played back, and LMS has a Web-Interface so when you’re on your computer you can control all audio media-centers (picore player) in the house with it :slight_smile:

Note : LMS has been discontinued by Logitech, but there is quite a community maintaining it.

1 Like
9

One last thing for now. Can the pirate radio run on a 5W, 2.1a power bank?
If no, what’s the minimum requirements?

10

It’s more difficult than I thought. We haven’t made a BT package for Pi0 yet and you will need to do some work with the commandline to get it to work.

The USB dongle should just work but you need a microUSB to USB A socket of course.

5W @ 5V is 1A so I don’t know if you will get 2.1A from it. 2A minimum is recommended.

11

I got one of them yes, came with the pirate radio.

Will it pick up the device for 100% guarantee from a usb hub seeing as it’s only got two usb ports.

I mean 5V not 5W.

12

There’s always a risk with connecting through a hub. I think for audio you’d better use one of the USB for the dongle and the other one for a hub for everything else.

YMMV.

13

So you mean use two hubs in two different slots? Where does the power cable go then as I need one of them to power it up.

14

My bad. I think the power USB is only that - I was thinking there were two USBs you could use for peripherals.

15

I will be doing it later today. If it doesn’t pick it up via the usb hub, any other way I can do it?

I did see you need to change the confusion file with the line output_device = “hw1” in a comment (not on here) but that’s all it said. That’s on the page where you can buy the official adapter.

16

You shouldn’t need output_device = hw1. Normally a USB soundcard just shows up in the audio settings in Kodi.

18

OK but I am using VLC though. Not Kodi.

19

I somehow already since your first post had a gut feeling there is something odd.
Do I assume correctly you are not running OSMC as your OS?

20

Raspberry Pi Desktop is what I am using. I will try it soon and see if it picks it up as I haven’t done it yet.

21

Then you posted in the wrong Forum. This Forum is dedicated to OSMC not Raspbian.

23

Apologies. I did say I am a beginner at this.

So how do I do it on the desktop version then?