As for me, I would love Raspberry Pi 5 to be conveniently adapted to an entry-level audiophiles' friendly fanless media center capable of serving music from high-resolution FLAC files and 4K movies from MKV files on a network drive. It should be Wi-Fi as well as Ethernet connectable, and it should be operated with a phone/tablet application through Bluetooth. Ideally, It should operate TWO video cards - one for external display (to serve movies) and one for "internal" display (to show "now playing" data).

Consequently - it should deliver at least stereophonic output audio through an appropriate DAC as well as HDMI / DP video.

I understand DAC is an extension card purchased separately, but all the other components should be on board.

Simply speaking - the target is Rasberry 5 as a full-featured fanless (noiseless) media-center suitable both for serious listening to music and for watching movies. Not necessarily listening to music should be linked to the necessity of turning on a TV set, so secondary video output for a handy "now-playing" in-build screen would be appropriate.

As for now, there is no easy good solution, or I am not aware of it.

If you already know such a project - I would love to know it too!

As for me, I would love Raspberry Pi 5 to be conveniently adapted to an entry-level audiophiles' friendly fanless media center capable of serving music from high-resolution FLAC files and 4K movies from MKV files on a network drive. It should be Wi-Fi as well as Ethernet connectable, and it should be operated with a phone/tablet application through Bluetooth. Ideally, It should operate TWO video cards - one for external display (to serve movies) and one for "internal" display (to show "now playing" data).

Consequently - it should deliver at least stereophonic output audio through an appropriate DAC as well as HDMI / DP video.

I understand DAC is an extension card purchased separately, but all the other components should be on board.

Simply speaking - the target is Rasberry 5 as a full-featured fanless (noiseless) media-center suitable both for serious listening to music and for watching movies. Not necessarily listening to music should be linked to the necessity of turning on a TV set, so secondary video output for a handy "now-playing" in-build screen would be appropriate.

As for now, there is no easy good solution, or I am not aware of it.

If you already know such a project - I would love to know it too!

ziggi said:

I understand DAC is an extension card purchased separately

The DAC is on-board for current Pi versions.

Is this high-quality DAC applicable for hi-res 24/96 FLAC processing?

I mean quality like

HiFiBerry DAC2 HD

ziggi said:

I understand DAC is an extension card purchased separately, but all the other components should be on board.

Yeah, I kinda agree there could be better audio processing with the Pi. 

I guess the USB port is simply so extensible that it's somewhat overlooked.

There've been a lot of DAC add-on boards so far. Perhaps there simply hasn't been a very popular demonstration of why it's important? Like project wise. May be an opportunity there.

It would be nice to have a small built-in amplifier for alerts/tones etc. But I guess it's minor, it's easy to attach that as a separate add-on. 

With the chip shortage and the DAC factory fire a couple of years ago, it would be hard for a Pi 5 to have a really decent DAC chip. The one on the HiFiBerry board is $10 and there's only a few hundred available at a couple of distributors, it's really scarce.

It would double the cost of the Pi perhaps, once all the other nice parts (op amp buffer, clock source) are added to enable the very high-end audio (and some people might not want it anyway, if they are streaming using say Bluetooth to a digital speaker.

Plus it's hard to get great quality without picking up noise on a small board next to the microprocessor.