RPI DAC Audio Hat

Main streamer is a Volumio Primo but using Roon or for almost everything. I wanted a setup for the Garage/Gym. I had an old RPi3 so thought let's give it a go. Was also told that the USB out from RPi3 is not up to snuff for a DAC, so went with this Hat. To avoid the faff that others have had I used a flashed image of RoPieee on the RPi3, and simply set the Hat to Allo Boss as directed. Then switched off and connected the Hat and RCA leads, and let it reboot. No problems with power via the standard Pi wall-wart. 2 mins later it popped up as a Roon endpoint, I pressed play and badoom. Awesome sound through the garage speakers. I'm sure there will be things I can tweak but I literally did nothing in software after setting the Hat in RoPieee. I'd bet I'd need to spend £150 or more e.g., a Wiim Pro to get the same quality. Looks like Ropieee also supports Spotify which I use for discovering new music, so that's my next to-do. Oh, and a new box lol.

Flashed Volumio to SD card, added Spotify plugin and copied my FLAC collection over and it sounds amazing. I used a Technics amp and a pair of celestion speakers. Tweaked the sound slightly on the DSP in volumio as my lounge is small and speaker placement isn't optimal but it is the best setup I've ever heard at home. Shame Pi's are still expensive as this is amazing value for money for the sound quality and features.

Bought this in the hope of improving the output from my rpi3B+. I have been using the rpi onboard 3.5mm headphone socket to connect to my hifi. I am using plex installed on raspberryOS to play my music library ripped from CD for convenience. As others have already mentioned in reviews, this little DAC comes with little/no instructions for installation. There is a website with some details, but this is still lacking. This is a shame, as I believe this fact alone has lead many people to have bad results and leave reviews that reflect that. It took me a fair bit of time to google and find the information required to get it up and running. If like me, you want to install this on top of raspberryOS and just use whatever player you like, then this is without doubt the easiest way, and armed with the right information will only take you minutes. The first thing to do is physically install the DAC HAT. This is done simply by lining up and connecting it to the 40pin connector on the rpi board. It should be noted here that the DAC HAT does not come with any stand off posts to securely mount it above the rpi board which is a little dissapointing. You can buy them seperately very cheapely, or as I have done, they come with the case deigned to compliment the DAC HAT. Once the board is in place, connect it to your output system. To configure the DAC HAT. 1. Power up you rpi. 2. As others have said, you need to edit the /boot/config.txt file. Open a terminal window and navigate to the /boot/ folder. 3. Use "sudo nano config.txt" to open. 4. At the bottom of the file add the following line "dtoverlay=allo-boss-dac-pcm512x-audio". 5. Press ctrl+x to exit and save the file. 6. Reboot your rpi. This will make the BossDAC available in the volume control on the main task bar. Select BossDAC and play some tunes. But read on. If like me, you still do not get any sound from the DAC HAT, try the following. This is the bit that other reviews here have missed. 7. Open a terminal window and enter "sudo raspi-config" to open the Raspberry Config tool. 8. Select "System Options" and then "Audio". 9. Highlight the line with "Boss DAC" and hit enter. 10. From the top level menu, select "Finish" to save and close the tool. 11. Just for good measure, reboot your rpi. And that was it for me. Working perfectly. (Note: I had read another review that suggested that you need to edit the /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf as well. But this did not help me and I removed those edits. For me it was the Raspberry Config change that worked) So what about the actual sound quality. Well I was reasonable happy running from the rpi onboard 3.5mm jack previously, and this Dac HAT was just an inexpensive try at something else with no real expectations. However, having got this installed and running, the difference in sound quality is staggering. I did not imagine this kind of improvement. The sound detail, vibrance and openess is brilliant. My music library has once again come alive, and I am literally re-hearing anything I play. This is without doubt the best £25 I have spent in years. Thoroughly recommended. Just be ready for the lack of information supplied, and maybe a little googling. But hopefully my notes above will get you running using RaspberyOS.

i thought that it does not work on pi 5 however i just had to edit different config, basicaly after you buy this you need to do sudo nano boot/firmware/config delete the # symbol before i2s and then scroll to bottom and add a new line where you need to type dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus,slave after which pres ctrl and O and then enter, then press ctrl and X after which type in sudo reboot now all this is to make the pi activate i2s connection and set the driver for connection to dac as well as stating that the hardware will be a slave(something which pi 5 has full control over and it will not work if you don't add the slave at the end) you might need to do sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade -y this will update anything needed, after which you can use the the outputs on the dac whatever way you want them. the quality of the sound is basically the same as any other dac I have tried(as example I tried the geekpi ssd/dac board and it costs twice as much for slightly different sound which is not necessarily better)

Plug and play, sound is really good compare to the direct raspberry pi jack, sounds like you go from mono to stereo, recommended!

Had a pi sitting around so thought I’d use it as a music streamer, added this dac and it sounds really good.

This little board works fine and was very straightforward to install as long as you remember to use the 'Allo Boss' protocol. The only minor item which I ought to point out is the depth of the GPI0 block (not sure what the technical name is). It's quite deep (see photo) and means that it sit quite high on top of the Raspberry Pi board. Most times this will be OK but, if you're using upstands, you may find that you need a slightly longer one to account for the depth. The performance isn't affected, it's just a convenience and appearance factor more than anything. Recommended, despite this.

great product. musicality and PRAT. sounds better than more expensive DACs.

Utilisé avec Raspberry 4 et KODI, super pour la qualité du son et éviter le grésillement. Le volume des enceintes peut enfin être mis à fond sans distorsion (kit logitech THX 400w). Très satisfait de cet achat.

No problems at all, just as stated.

Mi primer dac ensamblado por mi, y que maravilla! Justo lo que esperaba, le instalé Volumio y funcionó perfecto

Jestem bardzo zadowolony, nie ma porównania do wbudowanej karty dźwiękowej. Bez problemu integruje się z volumio.

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