The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive computer board which features a processor, SD card slot for storage, HDMI output, and USB ports. But what the basic Raspberry Pi doesn’t included dedicated audio hardware — you can add a headset or digital audio convert with a USB peripheral or by using some of the GPIO connectors on the board.

Or you can pick up the new Wolfson Audio Card from Element14, one of the manufacturers of the Raspberry Pi. It’s an audio card built for the little computer and it adds support for high quality audio playback and recording.

Wolfson Audio Card

The Audio Card costs $33, which makes it almost as expensive as a $35 Raspberry Pi model B. And it only works on Raspberry Pi Rev 2 boards, so if you have a first-generation board the Wolfson Audio Card won’t work because it doesn’t  have the P5 header used by the new board.

But if you’ve got a supported device and $33 burning a hole in your pocket, you get access to 3.5mm mic, line, and headset jacks, and S/PDIF input and output. There’s also a built-in microphones which you can use for voice controls or for VoIP chats, and expansion headers for adding your own hardware.

The board can handle 24-bit, 192 kHz audio, supports up to 6 analog or digital microphone inputs, and has 2 stereo 2W speaker drivers for external speakers.

wolfson audio card

via Engadget

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2 replies on “Raspberry Pi gets enhanced audio with a Wolfson card (that costs as much as the PC itself)”

  1. The bit they don’t tell you is that 24-bit 192 kHz audio via a standard USB DAC can’t be done on the Raspberry Pi due to its broken USB implementation.

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