I am using a beaglebone black with a custom Debian based kernel. I need to have the ability to output HD audio to ~5ohm speakers (have not yet chosen the speakers). The audio will most likely be formatted in MP3/AAC format.
I have no experience with audio hardware and am not sure if I need an audio codec or just an audio DAC. I would imagine I will probably need an amplifier either way. I have no need to have audio input so I do not see why I would need a codec…
I am also interested to know what the easiest solution would be and/or best chipset. I do not want to use a cape (partly because it would not work with my kernel, but mostly because I like doing things myself). Am I going to need to write my own driver for the chipset and what exactly would this entail? Perhaps I will need to write a daemon to take raw audio data and send it to the chip over SPI?