The HiFi-ESP32 Plus represents the next evolution of HiFi-ESP32 boards, featuring the advanced PCM5122 DAC with built-in DSP capabilities. This board maintains the same audio quality as the original HiFi-ESP32 while adding powerful digital signal processing features, including parametric EQ (6 BQs per channel), DRC, and crossover functionality. The PCM5122’s flexible DSP engine can be configured for various audio enhancement scenarios, making it ideal for projects requiring sound tuning (why would you not), and opening the path to create 2.1 systems with PCM5122+PCM5102 master-slave config.

Key Features:

• PCM5122 DAC with integrated DSP
• Parametric EQ and crossover capabilities (for cascading DACs)
• Digital volume control (avoids loss of resolution compared to software volume)
• Advanced audio processing features (DRC)
• Same form factor and connectivity as HiFi-ESP32

Features

	HiFi-ESP32(S3)	HiFi-ESP32(S3)-Plus	Loud-ESP32(S3)	Louder-ESP32(S3)	Amped-ESP32(S3)
MCU	ESP32-WROVER-N8R8 or ESP32-S3-WROOM-N8R8
Flash	8MB
PSRAM	8MB
DAC	PCM5100A 32-bit Stereo DAC -100 dB typical noise level	PCM5122 32-bit Stereo DAC -112 dB typical noise level	Dual I2S DAC (MAX98357) with built-in D-Class amp	Stereo I2S DAC (TAS5805M) with built-in D-Class amp	PCM5100A 32-bit Stereo DAC working with TPA3128D2 D-class amp
DSP	n/a	Digital Volume, Analog Gain, 6x BQs	n/a	Digital Volume, Analog Gain, 15x BQs per channel	n/a
Line out	Non-amplified stereo output, 2.1V RMS	Non-amplified stereo output, 2.1V RMS	n/a	n/a	Line-level putput, 2.1V RMS
Speaker Output (4Ω)	n/a	n/a	2x 5W	2x 32W (4Ω, 1% THD+N)	2x 40W (4Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V 1x 60W (3Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V (bridged)
Speaker Output (8Ω)	n/a	n/a	2x 3W	2x 22W (8Ω, 1% THD+N)	2x 22W (8Ω, 1% THD+N) at 20V
Power	5V over USB-C, 2x LP5907 3.3 V Ultra-Low-Noise LDO for analog section	5V over USB-C, 2x LP5907 3.3 V Ultra-Low-Noise LDO for analog section	5V (up to 2.5A) from USB-C	Up to 26V from external PSU 5V over USB-C with power limited to 2x5W	Up to 26V from external PSU 5V over USB-C with power limited to 2x5W
Connectivity	WiFi + BT4.2 + BLE W5500 Ethernet (optional module) No BT on the ESP32-S3
Software support (ESP32)	squeezelite-esp32 (Spotify Connect, Airplay, LMS, Bluetooth) esp32-snapclient (Multi-room sync) ESPhome (Home Assistant)
Software support (ESP32-S3)	ESPhome (Home Assistant, Music Assistant) Sendspin (multi-room sync, former Resonate)

Onboard PSRAM

Audio streaming requires proper buffering to work; even with ESP32 500K of RAM it is a challenging task. For that reason, most of the projects will require WROVER modules that have onboard PSRAM chips. All ESP32 Audio boards have an 8MB PSRAM chip onboard, connected via a high-speed interface. Any code using PSRAM with just work out-of-the box.

Board Pinout

HiFi-ESP32 Plus

Ethernet

Optional peripheral

Software samples

In the software section, two firmware examples are provided.

• esp32-i2s-bare is a base I2S implementation based on the ESP-IDF implementation.
• esp32-i2s-esp8266audio is based on the excellent ESP8266Audio library (it works with the whole ESP range, don't get fooled by the name), providing a minimum code implementation.
• esp32-i2s-web-radio is based on the same library, providing a minimal web radio stream player. It expects a playlist as input in the 'data' folder.

Platformio IDE

All samples are provided as Platformio IDE projects. After installing it, open the sample project. Select the proper environment based on your dock. Run the Build and Upload commands to install necessary tools and libraries, and build and upload the project to the board. Communication and proper upload method selection will be handled by IDE automatically.

Arduino IDE

Follow the ESP8266Audio library guide. Default settings will work out of the box with ESP8266 and ESP32 boards. For ESP32C3 and ESP32S2 board please adjust the pinout according to the above section

Home Assistant and ESPHome

Being an ESP32-based device, you can easily integrate it into your Home Assistant using ESPHome. Please find detailed instructions in the linked repo

Squeezelite-ESP32

Squeezelite-ESP32 is a multimedia software suite that started as a renderer (or player) of LMS (Logitech Media Server). Now it is extended with

• Spotify over-the-air player using SpotifyConnect (thanks to cspot)
• AirPlay controller (iPhone, iTunes ...) and enjoy synchronization multiroom as well (although it's AirPlay 1 only)
• Traditional Bluetooth device (iPhone, Android)

And the LMS itself

• Streams your local music and connects to all major online music providers (Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz) using Logitech Media Server - a.k.a LMS with multi-room audio synchronization.
• LMS can be extended by numerous plugins and can be controlled using a Web browser or dedicated applications (iPhone, Android).
• It can also send audio to UPnP, Sonos, Chromecast, and AirPlay speakers/devices.

All ESP32-based boards are tested with Squeezelite-ESP32 software, which can be flashed using nothing but a web browser. You can use Squeezelite-ESP32 installer for that purpose. more details and setup instructions can be found here

Squeezelite-ESP32 reboots and connection drops

The default configuration of the squeezelite-esp32 runs automatic discovery of the available LMS server nearby. In fact, it depends on it so much that in case the LMS service is not found on the network, it will reboot automatically (every few minutes).

In many cases, if you use squeezelite for AirPlay and Spotify only and don't have an LMS server, you need to disable discovery altogether. Currently, disabling Squeezelite in the GUI does not work correctly; it places too many spaces between the commands in the autoexec command. Following autoexec1 NVS setting can be used to disable it:

squeezelite -o i2s -s -disable -b 500:2000 -C 30 -d all=sdebug

Flashing ESP32-S3

ESP32-S3 boards have two ways of firmware update: (1) similarly to classing ESP32, they can be flashed over built-in UART, or (2) uniquely for S3, over built-in USB host controller. Since it is firmware-controlled, and may be disabled if not used (or, more commonly, not available with factory default empty firmware). When come unflashed, ESP32-S3 device comes into a boot loop, with a USB-CDC device appearing and disappearing every second, and **requires a special flashing initialisation sequence to get flashed**:

- Press IO0 (FLASH) button and keep it pressed

- Press RESET button and release FLASH button after

- ESP32-S3 will enter download mode, and USB-CDC device will appear and stay available

- Run flashing routine as usual, either through web-serial or `esp_tool`

- This time, it is not possible to reboot the device over USB, so press RESET once more

- Device will boot normally into firmware, and if USB-CDC is enabled in the firmware, you will be able to flash it normally, download mode and reset sequence will work over USB.

- If you manage to flash firmware without USB-CDC support, you need to go through the above sequence once more

Hardware

Please visit the hardware section for board schematics and PCB designs. Note that PCBs are shared as multi-layer PDFs.