Misc. sharing for building Raspberry Pi 5 as music server

[hkphantomgtr]

Sampling rate of music files and CPU Temperature:

If one would like to know the current CPU temp, CPU speed, and CPU volt, the following commands will show ("sudo" or not doesn't matter). 
 

Code:

vcgencmd measure_temp && vcgencmd measure_clock arm && vcgencmd measure_volts

or use the following line if one would like to monitor continuously.  The temp will be updated in 2 seconds step.

Code:

watch -n 2 vcgencmd measure_temp

In my testing setup as shown in below pic, the rig is powered by 4 18650 batteries, thru a capacitor hat for filtering and buffering.  With the help of Raspberry Pi OS and Ubuntu for Raspberry, I'm pretty sure this setup provides at least 5V 5A input at the Pi 5 board point.  The pi 5 played local files stored in the NVMe hat, and output thru the coaxial in a ESS9038Q2M hat.  That's the most demanding hat among my other analogue and digital audio hat.  It's placed in a ventilating position and supported by soft gel pad, gypsum sheet, and a cross-laminated bamboo board for mechanical isolation.




During the test, I found while playing 32bit/382.8kHz and 16bit/44.1kHz wav files in mpd, the cpu temp is 70'C & 60'C in my place, respectively.  Currently it's 24'C in my place.
For the CPU speed and volts, they just keep fluctuating during the period of measurement.  CPU speed range was 1.5-1.8GHz.  Of course, the CPU speed stay at higher speed more during 32bit/382.8kHz playback, and vice versa.  In my 'layman" understanding, I'm afraid that's not good enough for "accurate" music playback.

Sound quality

As this rig, including the batteries and DC cables ran far below 1st 100 hrs, not to mention the 1st 200 hrs.  It's not fair to comment it at the moment.  In fact, it's not satisfactory to my ears, in comparing to my fanless NUC which is powered by a LPS.

So, I'm considering seriously to replace the onboard clock/oscillator with a SC cut OCXO clock, as my next move.