Pifi Berry low headphoneoutput volume

Hardware
1

Hey guys, firstly thanks to the Devs and community for building and contributing to an awesome product - I’m blown away!

I have mine up and running using a raspberry pi b3+ with cheap chinese pifiberry DAC and generic 7 inch hdmi touch interface. Running latest version of OS.

My only issue is my headphone output is low. The rca output is fine but if i plug into the headphone jack it cuts the rca output as well, to about half it’s volume. Is it possible I’m underpowered and running both amps is straining the system? I’m not getting a low power indicator and using a 3 amp USB power brick. Have had a poke around in alsamixer but haven’t found any fixes.

I’m new to Pi and Zynthian so if there’s some research I need to do to troubleshoot just point me in the right direction, happy to learn more!

2

I’ve not played with the card you describe but from your discription it sounds as thou the headphone output is just strapped across the existing output. Now if that is the case then putting a pair of headphones with an impedence of less than 200 ohms or so is going to reduce to output considerably. But without sticking one on a bench and attacking it with an oscilloscope (which I don’t have) it’s difficult to say much more.
Anyone else have any experience of this card(sorry Daniel…)

3

If you are using something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/I2S-PCM5102-DAC-Decoder-GY-PCM5102-I2S-Interface-Player-Module-Raspberry-Pi/333283249552?hash=item4d993acd90:g:wKIAAOSwXKNdQYuZ then @wyleu is correct. I have these cards and the 3.5mm headphone socket is wired in parallel with the L/R output pins. You can use either headphones or line out but attempt to use both will load the output making it quiet. You may need to add a separate headphone amplifier.

4

I would bet by @wyleu’s hypothesis. Probably, the “headphones” output is not a real "headphones output but a line output and it has no power to move a decent headphone. Most (if not all) RBPi soundcards are like that, including HifiBerry ones.

You should add a specific “headphone amplifier” to your setup …

Regards,

5

Behringer P2…

1 Like
6

This all makes sense and it’s not the exact card riban has posted but same DAC chip. Looks like headphone amp is the next DIY project!! I’m actually in China, hence all my cheap chinese hardware, so finding a little amp i can buy or build should be easy, P2 looks like a good compact option as well. Thanks all for your help!

1 Like