Loud Esparagus

Great for: Home Assistant · AirPlay 2 · Spotify, AirPlay & Bluetooth · Snapcast multi-room · compare all setups →

What is it?

Loud Esparagus is a handy, low-cost media streamer device that can be paired with small passive speakers. Loud Esparagus uses a dual MAX98357 Hi-Fi DAC that will output up to 5W per speaker, so it can be powered by a standard USB-C wall charger.

Loud Esparagus is a feature-packed version of the Loud-ESP32, with all you need to have to form a ready-to-use media center solution for a smart home

Our Crowd Supply campaign to back the manufacturing of the Esparagus series boards was successfully funded, thanks to everyone who made that possible.

Use cases

Loud Esparagus is a flexible, open-source audio platform designed to fit into both smart homes and custom audio projects.

Smart Home Audio & TTS
Integrates with Home Assistant and Music Assistant for high-quality audio playback and text-to-speech announcements. Perfect for notifications, voice alerts, and whole-home audio driven by your smart home automations.
Multi-Room Audio with Snapclient
Use Loud Esparagus as a Snapclient endpoint to create perfectly synchronized multi-room audio systems. Ideal for distributed music playback without proprietary lock-in.
Standalone Player with Squeezelite-ESP32
Run Squeezelite-ESP32 for a self-contained network audio player supporting Spotify Connect, AirPlay, and Logitech Media Server (LMS) — no external computer required.
Educational Projects & Teaching Platforms
A powerful tool for schools, universities, and technical education. Loud Esparagus can be used to teach embedded systems, digital audio, networking, and open-source software, ranging from simple audio playback labs to advanced DSP, streaming, and real-time systems projects.
Research, Prototyping & Experimentation
Well-suited for rapid prototyping of audio devices, proofs-of-concept, and research projects involving DSP, low-latency streaming, wireless audio, or human-machine interaction.
A Foundation for Custom Products & DIY Builds
With all firmware and tooling fully open source, Loud Esparagus is an ideal base for custom audio devices — whether you’re building a personal DIY project, a small production run, or a community-driven product.

Features

	ESP Audio Duo (discontinued)	Loud Esparagus	Esparagus Echo Duo
MCU	ESP32-Mini Module	ESP32-WROVER-N8R8	ESP32-S3-WROOM-N8R8
DAC	Dual I2S DAC (MAX98357) with built-in D-Class amp	Dual I2S DAC (MAX98357) with built-in D-Class amp	Dual I2S DAC (MAX98357) with built-in D-Class amp
Output (4Ω)	2x 5W	2x 5W	2x 5W
Output (8Ω)	2x 3W	2x 3W	2x 3W
IR reader	❌	✅	❌
RGB LED	❌	✅	✅
I2S Microphone	❌	❌	✅
Flash/PSRAM	4MB/8MB	8MB/8MB	8MB/8MB
Connectivity	WiFi + BT4.2 + BLE	WiFi + BT4.2 + BLE	WiFi + BLE + Ethernet
Case		80 x 50 x 20 mm Aluminum case	70 x 24 x 88 mm Aluminum case
Power requirement	5V from USB-C	5V from USB-C	5V from USB-C

⚠️Loud boards will connect to passive speakers; you can’t use headphones or an external amp
💡Need to connect an external amp? Check out HiFi Esparagus and Amped Esparagus
💡Need DSP capabilities? Check out Louder Esparagus

💡Looking for a more cost-efficient version? Check out Loud-ESP32

Onboard PSRAM

Audio streaming needs proper buffering, and with the ESP32’s roughly 500 KB of RAM that is a challenging task. That’s why every board in this line has an 8 MB PSRAM chip onboard, connected via a high-speed interface.

Firmware

Home Assistant
Start from the web-installer, as soon as you configure WiFi, the boards will be discovered by the ESPHome add-on automatically. Dedicated configs can be found in the documentation for simple and stable media-player, experimental sendspin protocol, and experimental snapclient component
AirPlay 1 & 2 with Sendspin and Bluetooth. Native, actively developed AirPlay 1 & 2 firmware (rbouteiller/airplay-esp32) with PTP multi-room sync, an experimental Sendspin renderer, and Bluetooth A2DP on the ESP32 revision. Flash straight from your browser with the web-installer — no toolchain needed. See AirPlay 1 & 2 below for details.
Squeezelite-ESP32
Flash directly from your browser using the web-installer, configure WiFi using Hotspot (default password: squeezelite). Don’t forget to exit Recovery mode when configured.
Snapclient
Flash directly from your browser using the web-installer, as soon as you configure the WiFi board, it will discover the snapserver automatically
Snapclient (edge)
Developer’s version of the snapclient, less stable and more feature-rich for those who cannot wait for new features to be released. Installed via web-installer, similar to standard snapclient
Your own software
Use Arduino IDE or Platformio IDE and the provided software samples

AirPlay 1 & 2

Squeezelite’s built-in AirPlay is a first-generation implementation. rbouteiller/airplay-esp32 is a standalone, open-source AirPlay 1 & 2 receiver for the ESP32 family — actively developed, with great work done by the community despite the lack of help from Apple.

It runs on both the ‘classic’ ESP32 and ESP32-S3 revisions and installs straight from a browser — no toolchain required. Support is rolling out board by board, and the AirPlay 2 guide keeps the current list. Current features:

AirPlay 1 & 2 — appears natively in Control Center and any AirPlay app, with PTP-based multi-room sync
Sendspin (experimental) — an open multi-room protocol renderer sharing the same output path, DSP, and volume control as AirPlay
Bluetooth A2DP on the classic ESP32 revision — phones and laptops can stream directly whenever AirPlay is idle (the ESP32-S3 has no Bluetooth Classic radio)
On-device display — the optional OLED add-on, or the Louder-ESP32-Pro’s color TFT, shows track metadata and progress for AirPlay, Bluetooth, and Sendspin alike
USB audio (UAC) — the ESP32-S3 revision can be built as a USB sound card for a connected computer, sharing the same DAC path
Full DSP control on Louder-ESP32/Louder-ESP32-Plus — the TAS5805M/TAS5825M’s on-chip EQ is fully exposed: 15 cascaded biquad sections per channel, each an arbitrary peaking filter, shelf, high/low pass, band pass, notch, phase shift, or raw coefficients, plus a crossover builder (and, on the TAS5825M, full PurePath Console 3 tuning replay)

→ AirPlay 2 speaker guide: which board to pick, step-by-step setup and sound tuning.

Using with Home Assistant

Every board is designed to work with Home Assistant through ESPHome. Ready-made configurations, installable from the browser, cover the common setups. Depending on the board, they include:

media_player component for simple and robust media playback and TTS announcements (with ducking effect)
Sendspin media player – new experimental protocol for multi-room sync with media controls and more
An experimental snapclient component that allows near-perfect multi-room sync and seamless integration with Music Assistant
Another snapclient fork with an implemented 15-band software equalizer and a rich set of EQ presets
Voice assist config for S3-based boards with a microphone, allowing local voice-controlled assist and automation

Configurations are being actively maintained and upgraded, and new experimental components are added for you to test and enjoy.

→ Home Assistant audio guide: which board to pick, Music Assistant setup, sound tuning and power.

Documentation

Both the software and the hardware are fully open-source and available on the project’s GitHub. You can follow the project updates at Hackaday

Esparagus Media Center promo video for Crowd Supply

Where to buy

You may support our work by ordering this product at Tindie and Elecrow

Loud Esparagus at Tindie, Lectronz, and Elecrow ($45 MSRP, $40 at volume)
Loud Esparagus at Crowd Supply ($45 MSRP)

Sponsorship & Community Support

If you’re working on an open-source project, an educational initiative, or any pro-bono/volunteer effort, feel free to reach out for sponsorship details. I’ll do my best to provide discounts or even free boards.