Allo Piano 2.1 DAC Support

Build a single or multi-room streamer for an existing audio device using a Raspberry Pi! Supports Bluetooth, Airplay and Spotify Connect

Hi, I am trying to set up a multi room streamer, it is harder than anticipated as I am a noob to the raspberry pi. I have created and deployed my image and have assess to the Balena dashboard but have been unable to install Balenasound using the push method!
Capture|690x262 .
Any help or advice is greatly welcome.

Hi, could you please confirm/try the following: Did you issue a balena login before tying to push? Can you try running balena whoami? That should show your account information and confirm that the login succeeded. Is balenasound the name you gave your application in balenaCloud? Thanks

Hi, yes I login before trying the push. I have also ran balena whoami and it shows mu username, email and url. I have tried balenasound and balena-sound-master but neither execute.

Thanks for the update. Can you see your application when you run balena apps? The name in the APP NAME column is the one that you need to use for balena push.

Hi, I have used the balena apps command Balena Apps
the first line of the app name are RPi4. So I have used balena push balena-sound
C:\Users\STUAR>balena push balena-sound
Error: no “Dockerfile[.*]”, “docker-compose.yml” or “package.json” file
found in source folder “.” came back. The zip file was downloaded from git hub , its the same error code when i tried by using the cd, users, downloads, dir etc.

So on the previous screenshot, you were in balena-sound-master directory which I assume is the clone of the repository. You mention you were trying balena push balenasound and balena push balena-sound-master both with no luck which looks correct. Looking at the output of balena apps your application name is balena-sound so doing balena push balena-sound from the balena-sound-master should do the trick for you.

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Outstanding help Sir. Finally it has worked. Forgive my ignorance is there anything else I need to add before I can start connecting speakers? I have added the manufactures card configurations in “BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_dtoverlay”.
Thank you once again for your help and advice.

Hi, looks like you’re doing well with your project. Depending on your hardware, you might also need to modify the DT parameters (BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_dtparam) and set it to "i2c_arm=on","spi=on","audio=off". This will disable the onboard sound so that the audio system used is your hardware. Just let us know if you bump into other problems. Happy hacking!

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Good morning, I have changed the DT parameters to the suggested settings, I am still not getting any audio.

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Hello there,

Your setup looks good. Then checking balenaSound’s docs, I don’t see your board in the list of supported DACs: https://sound.balenalabs.io/docs/audio-interfaces/#dac-boards

I will message my teammates who maintain balenaSound to ask if it’s possible to support this board as well. I guess it’d be possible.

We’ll reach out to you once we have some news. Stay tuned : )

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thank you for your help and support, it is very much appreciated.

Hello again @DiscoFerret, can you please create an issue about this missing DAC on balenaSound’s github repo here?

Please mention your DAC (allo-piano-dac-plus-pcm512x-audio) and link to this forum thread. You will see that there are similar issues created for other DACs.

This way we are able to consolidate all the information in the same location.

If you don’t have a github account and you don’t want to create one, no worries. Let us know. We will create the github issue in your behalf.

Hi @gelbal I have posted a new issue plese see link.


kind regards

Nice. Thanks for the followup. Let’s wait for balenaSound maintainers to enter the discussion on github.

Hi there, just to inform allo-piano-dac-plus-pcm512x-audio drivers are now available in balenaSound though they remain untested. If you are interested on helping us test it you can follow the DAC section here using dtoverlay=allo-piano-dac-plus-pcm512x-audio. Please let us know if you do test it so we can include this board as supported. Cheers!