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HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro – our most advanced digital audio interface

In the past we got some customer wishes for an improved HiFiBerry Digi+ module. For many users the existing Digi+ will still be the right choice, but if you’re looking for the best Digi+ you can buy, the new Digi+ Pro is the one for you. It is based on the existing Digi+ with the following improvements:

  • 2 separate oscillators for 44.1 and 48kHz provide the optimal clock frequencies for all sample rates
  • gold-plated RCA connector
  • I2S output connector (soldering necessary)
  • you can power the 5V part of the circuit and the 3.3V part of the circuit from an external power supply (soldering necessary)
  • you can add a BNC connector (soldering necessary)

Have a look at it:
digiplus-pro

The Digi+ Pro is also our first board that comes with full auto-configuration. That means in theory you don’t have to edit the config.txt file anymore to activate the Digi+ Pro. Unfortunately, in reality you still have to do this in many cases as many distributions enable the onboard sound by default in config.txt. So you still have to disable the onboard sound driver in config.txt.

Due to the changed clock design a new driver is needed, the Digi+ Pro won’t work with the existing Digi+ driver. To ensure everything works perfectly we will start a public beta test. You can order the new Digi+ Pro at a reduced price of €29.90/US$34.90/GBP 26.90. The official recommended retail price of the board will be €39.90/US$44.90/GBP37.90.
However, we require that you help us testing. To do this, you need to be able to:

  • upgrade the Linux kernel using command line tools (we will provide the commands) and
  • do some command-line debugging if necessary

We can’t guarantee that the Digi+ Pro will work with a specific distribution. It should be relatively easy to update the system if it is a Raspbian-based system (e.g. Max2Play, Volumio, …). Kernel upgrades won’t work on extremely stripped-down distributions like PiCorePlayer, OpenElec or LibreElec.

Our money-back guarantee applies also to beta-testers. So if the board isn’t working as expected, you can return it to us and get your money back.

We expect that most distributions will upgrade their kernels in the next few months and the Digi+ Pro will work without any patches in most distributions soon. We will support all software developers to integrate full support for the Digi+ Pro in their distributions.

August 26, 2016

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