Shopping list¶

You need two boards and a few wires. Everything is available on AliExpress or Amazon for under $10 total.

Component	What to search for	Price
ESP32-S3 dev board	"ESP32-S3 N16R8"	~$5
PCM5102A DAC board	"PCM5102A I2S DAC" — the small purple board with a 3.5 mm jack	~$3
Female 2.54 mm header	"Female pin header 2.54mm single row" — 1×6 or longer, cut to size	~$0.50

Already have an amplifier board?

If you have a SqueezeAMP or an Esparagus Audio Brick, you don't need a separate DAC — those boards have one built in. Just flash the matching firmware.

Check the DAC board¶

Verify the solder bridges on your PCM5102A are in the same position as the picture below. Boards ship with varying default configurations, and the wrong bridge position is a common cause of silence.

PCM5102A DAC board showing the expected solder bridge positions — PCM5102A with the expected solder bridge configuration

Optional extras¶

Component	What it adds	Page
0.96" OLED, SSD1306 / SH1106 / SSD1309	Track title, artist, progress bar	OLED display
320×170 ST7789 TFT	Full-colour metadata screen (ESP32-S3)	TFT display
Momentary push buttons	Play/pause, volume, track skip	Hardware buttons
W5500 SPI Ethernet module	Wired networking with WiFi failover	Ethernet