HiFiBerry Brings Eight-Channel Audio to the Raspberry Pi 5, and 60W of Amp Power to All Models
If you need four independent stereo outputs, the HiFiBerry DAC8x is what you're after — as long as you've got a Raspberry Pi 5.
Raspberry Pi audio specialist HiFiBerry has launched two new add-on boards for the popular family of single-board computers, the HiFiBerry Amp4 Pro 60W Class-D amplifier and the eight-channel Dac8x — the latter exclusively compatible with the latest Raspberry Pi 5.
"One of the major limitations of the Raspberry Pi since the beginning has been the limitation to two-channel audio for HATs [Hardware Attached on Top boards]," HiFiBerry explains. "While this is just fine for most applications, there are use cases where you would like to use more than 2 output channels. You might think about home theater or spatial audio. But there are lots of other applications you could think of: playing four independent stereo streams on the same Pi or even creat[ing] software-based crossovers for four-way speakers."
It's that thinking that has led to the creation of the HiFiBerry DAC8x, brought to our attention by Linux Gizmos. Based on a quartet of Burr-Brown digital to analog converters (DACs), the DAC8x provides four stereo outputs at up to 192kHz and 24-bit resolution — mounting directly to the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) connector on the Raspberry Pi 5 and requiring no additional or dedicated power supply. As an added bonus, there's also a 5V output good for up to 5A to power additional hardware.
The eight-channel board is joined by a high-power amplifier board for those who only need a single stereo output, the HiFiBerry Amp4 Pro. With a claimed 60W of power, drawn from a dedicated 12-24V power supply, the amplifier board also powers the Raspberry Pi to which it's connected — simplifying cabling. An optional digital signal processing add-on board, also compatible with HiFiBerrry's earlier DAC2 Pro, DAC2 HD, and Digi2 Pro boards, can be added for hardware audio processing tasks.
The HiFiBerry DAC8x is now available from the company store, priced at $64.90, and is only compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5; the Amp4 Pro, compatible with all Raspberry Pi models with a 40-pin GPIO header, is priced at $74.90.