First, install Raspbian.

This configuration works with HiFiBerry DACs and the Sabre ES9023 chip.

If you are using WiFi, turn off WiFi Power Management.

$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Configure the device tree overlay by editing boot config.

$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Remove the following line if it exists. This will disable the onboard sound card.

dtparam=audio=on

Add the following line to the end of the file.

dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac

Reboot your Pi and make sure device shows up.

$ sudo reboot now

$ aplay -l

Look for card 0: sndrpihifiberry. Your card ID may be different from 0.

Create /etc/asound.conf with the following content. Replace 0 with your card ID from above.

pcm.!default {
	type hw
	card 0
}

ctl.!default {
	type hw
	card 0
}

Reboot your Pi and make sure the ALSA settings have taken effect.

$ sudo reboot now
$ alsamixer

You should see Card: snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac displayed in the top left corner.

Install https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot using the commands below.

First, install Rust and Cargo using rustup.

$ curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

Log out of your account and log back in to add the cargo binary into your PATH.

Now, install git and build dependencies.

$ sudo apt install git build-essential portaudio19-dev

Clone the repo and navigate to the directory.

$ git clone https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot.git
$ cd librespot

Optional step: Change the number of volume steps from 64 to 16. I prefer this because it matches the iPhone's volume control. 🙂

$ nano connect/src/spirc.rs

Look for repeated.push(64) and change it to repeated.push(16).

Build librespot. This step will take a very long time on a Raspberry Pi - most likely 30 minutes or more.

$ cargo build --release

Now, let's create a system service for librespot.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/librespot.service

Copy the following into the service configuration file.

[Unit]
Description=Spotify Connect daemon
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0
Documentation=https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
User=pi
ExecStart=/home/pi/librespot/target/release/librespot -u [spotify_username] -p [spotify_password] -n "Librespot" -b 320 -c /home/pi/librespot/cache --enable-volume-normalisation

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now we can start the service.

$ sudo systemctl start librespot

And set it to start automatically on every boot.

$ sudo systemctl enable librespot

You can check the status of the service at any time by running the following command.

$ systemctl status librespot

The following is taken from the install instructions located at https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/tree/development.

$ git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync.git

$ git checkout development
$ autoreconf -i -f
$ ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --with-alsa --with-pa --with-avahi --with-ssl=openssl --with-soxr --with-systemd

$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync

Now, edit this file:

sudo nano /etc/shairport-sync.conf

Change these values:

general = {
	name = "whatever you want!";
};
alsa = {
	output_device = "hw:1,0"; // (or whatever number card,device "sndrpihifiberry" is above)
	interpolation = "soxr";
};

If audio is underflowing, set audio_backend_buffer_desired_length to 22050.

Restart Shairport-sync to apply the new settings.

$ sudo service shairport-sync restart