ESP Audio Boards (v2) and Louder-ESP32

Description

Compared to the first generation of ESP Audio Docks, v2 uses top-of-the-range WROOVER modules with 16Mb of Flash and 8Mb of PSRAM. Every board in the range will have an ESP32S3 variant to promote faster S3 adoption in the community. Every board will have built-in or external Wi-Fi antenna options to allow both compact variant and the one designed for challenging connectivity conditions. Ethernet is an optional extra that allows wired board use. Finally, every board will fit a standard Raspberry Pi 4 enclosure allowing a neat look on the budget. All-in-all, v2 is a poor man's Esparagus board, that might not have as many peripherals, but have the same audio capabilities and cost a fraction of the Esparagus equivalent.

Project Logs

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OLED screen
andriy.malyshenko • 16 hours ago • 0 comments

Small but colorful update. Starting May 2025, all boards will have an OLED screen solder-less connector. Originally, I added the OLED header on the back side of the PCB that would require careful and skillful soldering (It is quite nice when using squeezelite since you can get quite a lot with existing plugins and settings). Later on, I managed to find the right model of the screen and corresponding connector for a reasonable price, and decided to equip every board with the connector as standard.

At this moment, one can simply throw in a compatible OLED screen and use a small strap of double-sided adhesive to fix it mechanically. The final result is a nice and finished look
Introducing Amped-ESP32
andriy.malyshenko • 04/01/2025 at 11:42 • 0 comments

Introducing a new board in the ESP32 Audio family - Amped-ESP32. Short version: it is a powerhouse similar to Louder-ESP32 (they sound so similar that I started to suspect they have the same output drivers), but simpler to use and a bit more versatile.
Slightly different angle: It is the next step for the HiFi-ESP32 board, which has the same DAC and 3.5mm output. It adds a powerful TAS3110 D-class amp and can drive large speakers no sweat. You can plug headphones into the 3.5mm as well, the amp will get muted in the case.
Slightly longer story, compared to the TAS5805M of the Louder-ESP32, it lacks DSP capabilities, since it relies on the external DAC to produce an analog signal (PCM5100 in this case). EQ or Loudness processing will have to be done on the MCU instead; that's the price of simplicity.
(Spoiler alert) Next stop is the 2.1 version of the Amped board, but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to implement the LF stage (I'm no good at analog, I'm afraid).
Introducing Loud-ESP32
andriy.malyshenko • 11/13/2024 at 17:10 • 0 comments

Today, I'm ready to introduce the Loud-ESP32 board and its ESP32-S3 counterpart. This is the second generation of the Loud-ESP board and a direct successor of the Loud-ESP Duo dock.
Like other boards in the ESP Audio series, it is the same size, so you can use it with the Raspberry Pi 4 case. It has a built-in ESP32 module with PSRAM in case (external chips suddenly become inadequately expensive).
Also, I switched to the BGA version of the MAX98357 DAC. It is incredibly small, I had doubts if it can handle the job through those tiny pads. But during testing, no issues were found, it plays as good as the larger-sized QFN16 brother.
The key point of the board is to deliver good quality audio as simple as possible. It can use any USB-C charger delivering little above 2A of current (pretty much any modern phone charger), and it is surprisingly loud for the size.
To chase the low price point I decided to make most of the peripherals optional (like Ethernet or IR reader), so one can add only the things you'd really need.