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Raspberry/Arduinoe/etc. - Choosing a device questions?

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mouser:
I have a few mini-pc type project ideas, and I'm looking for advice on which ones would be best for which projects.. I hope some of you with experience can help point me in the right direction.

For one project the requirement is to be able to record and play audio files (mp3 preferably), through a speaker.

Deozaan:
This might help:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=37173.msg393655#msg393655

wraith808:
This might help:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=37173.msg393655#msg393655
-Deozaan (December 28, 2015, 02:08 PM)
--- End quote ---

Since mouser was the last post in that thread, I'd think that he'd seen it. ;) So I'd think he was asking about personal experience of DC'ers.

I hope some of you with experience can help point me in the right direction.
-mouser (December 28, 2015, 01:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

Renegade:
If you're looking to do audio, you'll want something beefy like a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone. I've not actually checked this, but do see if Bass (un4seen.com) works on one of those distros as it will make your life infinitely easier.

An Arduino or comparable board isn't suitable for audio unless you have very minimal requirements, e.g. play a bell/buzzer or cheesy "tink tink" sounds. I've had my Arduino playing different songs, like the Empire's theme from Star Wars, but it's "tink tink" and every single note has to be programmed. Fun? Sure. Productive? Not so much.

But there are other boards out there that are much beefier than a Pi. They're also more expensive though.

What I'd recommend is having a browse around to see if there are any similar projects for what you want, or anything of comparable magnitude, e.g. CPU requirements, memory, speed, power consumption, etc. That will let you see what others have already done. If they have Youtube videos, all the better as you can then see the performance as well.

40hz:
The Arduino excels at projects that you want to interface to other hardware devices. In many respects it's like the old PIC  Microcontroller which it's largely replaced in the hobbyist/small prototype/maker communities. It's not that great from a general purpose computer perspective IMO. But as the base on which to build some really crafty and smart hardware devices, there's a lot to like.

The RaspberryPi is a decent enough general purpose microboard PC. It's beginning to show it's age a bit now that it's spawned a host of more powerful imitators such as the Beagleboard and the CuBox. But it's easy to use and well documented. It's probably the most forgiving and easy entry point to getting involved with these little computers. Good user community too. Reminds me of the old hacker community that grew up around the computers of my youth such as the KIM-1, VIC-20/C-64, TRS-80, and the old Atari and Acorn PCs. Lots of information and project ideas being freely shared. I thought I stepped into a time warp when I first ran into it.

The R-Pi should work for what you want to do based on your brief description. You can build a decent DVR or media center (i.e Kodi/XBMC) with the thing. And it'll handle HD. So I'm sure it'll have no problem handling a plain audio file.

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