Vinyl Streamer

A lightweight, local-network streaming service that captures analog audio from a turntable and broadcasts it over the network using Icecast. Listen to your vinyl records in real-time from any device in your home.

🎛️ Hardware Prerequisites

To build this streaming node, you will need the following physical components:

Raspberry Pi: A Raspberry Pi 3B, 4, or Zero 2 W is recommended, along with a reliable power supply and MicroSD card.
USB Audio Interface (ADC): A device to convert the analog audio to a digital signal for the Pi. I had best restults with the Behringer UCA202

Turntable: Your vinyl record player with analog output like the Audio-Technica AT-LP60XBT-BK

3.5mm to RCA Cables: To connect the turntable/preamp to the audio interface.

3.5 mm Splitters: To keep the connection available to your Home Theater or Speakers

💻 Software Prerequisites

The streamer relies on two core pieces of software: a capture/encoding client and a broadcast server.

Linux OS: A headless Linux distribution like Raspberry Pi OS Lite or Dietpi if you want fast bootup.
ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture): Standard Linux sound drivers to detect and manage the USB audio interface (alsa-utils).
Darkice: The streaming client. It captures the live audio from the ALSA device, encodes it (to MP3, Ogg Vorbis, etc.), and sends it to the server. (Note: Liquidsoap is a powerful alternative to Darkice if you want to implement advanced scripting, like silence detection).
Icecast2: The streaming media server. It receives the encoded stream from Darkice and serves it to network clients (browsers, media players, smart speakers) via a local HTTP URL.
Docker or podman: The virtualization software if you dont want to install on bare metal

🚀 Installation & Setup

Hardware Flow

flowchart TD
    A[Turntable] --> |3.5mm|B[3.5mm Splitter]
    B --> |3.5mm|C[3.5mm to RCA converter]
    B --> |3.5mm|D[Home Theater]
    C --> |RCA|E[Behringer UCA202]
    E --> |USB|F[Raspberry Pi3]

Option A: Bare-Metal Package Installation

Update your system and install the required packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install alsa-utils darkice icecast2

Configure Icecast by following the prompts to set your broadcast passwords.
Identify your USB audio device using arecord -l to find the correct ALSA card number. you should see something similar to

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: Codec [USB Audio Codec], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Edit the /etc/darkice.cfg file to link your hardware capture device to the Icecast server.

[input]
device          = hw:1,0  # OSS DSP soundcard device for the audio input
sampleRate      = 44100   # sample rate in Hz. try 11025, 22050 or 44100
bitsPerSample   = 16      # bits per sample. try 16
channel         = 2       # channels. 1 = mono, 2 = stereo

Icecast streams: continue to edit the '/etc/darkice.cfg' file and add the configuration nof your choice, or both MP3 is compatible with more devices but Opus has usually greater quality

  # ==========================================
  # Stream 1: High Compatibility (MP3)
  # URL: http://<RASPBERRY_PI_IP>:8000/vinyl.mp3
  # ==========================================
  [icecast2-0]
  bitrateMode     = cbr       # Constant bitrate for maximum MP3 compatibility
  format          = mp3
  bitrate         = 320       # High quality MP3
  server          = localhost # Or the IP of your Icecast container
  port            = 8000
  password        = hackme    # Must match ICECAST_SOURCE_PASSWORD
  mountPoint      = vinyl.mp3
  name            = Vinyl Stream (MP3)
  description     = Turntable broadcast in MP3 format

  # ==========================================
  # Stream 2: High Efficiency / Quality (Opus)
  # URL: http://<RASPBERRY_PI_IP>:8000/vinyl.opus
  # ==========================================
  [icecast2-1]
  bitrateMode     = vbr       # Variable bitrate is ideal for Opus
  format          = opus
  bitrate         = 128       # Opus sounds incredibly transparent at 128kbps
  server          = localhost # Or the IP of your Icecast container
  port            = 8000
  password        = hackme    # Must match ICECAST_SOURCE_PASSWORD
  mountPoint      = vinyl.opus
  name            = Vinyl Stream (Opus)
  description     = Turntable broadcast in Opus format

Option B: Docker Compose Deployment

If you prefer a containerized homelab setup, you can deploy the stack using Docker Compose.

docker-compose.yml run

docker compose up -d

(Ensure your ALSA device is mapped correctly and your darkice.cfg points to the icecast container hostname).

🎧 Listening to the Stream

Once the services are running and a record is spinning, you can access the stream from any device on your local network by pointing your browser or a network media player to:

http://<RASPBERRY_PI_IP>:8000/vinyl

You can use a service like Music Assistant to add that stream as an internet radio and cast to your Cast devices (google cast / Snap / Sonos/ etc)

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