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New Volumio is paid?

Ears of Tin

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My personal favorite based on both features and UI is rAudio (nee RuneAudio).

https://github.com/rern/rAudio-1

I recently replaced Volumio with piCore/LMS on my secondary system as I was put off by some of the 3.0 changes. I like piCore although it's trickier to install and configure than rAudio. Moode had all the features I liked but the UI seemed clumsy to me. My advice is to try them all if you like to tinker.
 

Triliza

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Pay it ! Nothing wrong with that..
Of course there is nothing wrong for people to get paid for their efforts. It just feels sometimes a little bit unfair when a product starts free, people use it and promote it around, and after gaining some traction you have to pay for it. I'm not using Volumio, so I am not talking about this case in particular, more like in general.

Offering something for free is not something new, most of the open source/linux ecosystem is free for the end user, commercialization happens usually with support to companies and selling ready-to-use hardware. As in the case of ASR, projects get some support from donations and selling merchandise.

Imagine now if Amir suddenly impose a fee to read his reviews, to access the review index or something. He has and continue to put a lot of effort on this site, so he could do it, but no one would be happy about it. Now that I think about it, his wallet must have loose some weight with all the aquatic troubles he is having, best not to put such ideas in his mind :oops:
 
OP
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sjeesjie

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That’s how I was thought drug addiction would work. First they hand it out virtually for free and when you’re hooked you pay the big prize. Nothing wrong with that revenue model right?
 

mSpot

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Of course there is nothing wrong for people to get paid for their efforts. It just feels sometimes a little bit unfair when a product starts free, people use it and promote it around, and after gaining some traction you have to pay for it.
But that doesn't apply to Volumio. The free version is still free, although it requires registration now.

Let's be thankful that these free players are not (yet) ad supported.
 

jensgk

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But that doesn't apply to Volumio. The free version is still free, although it requires registration now.

Let's be thankful that these free players are not (yet) ad supported.

Since Volumio is licensed as Open Source with the GPL license, it should be possible to fork the project on GitHub and remove the registration requirements, if you want to and have the skills.
 

friarminor

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Just started using Volumio and notwithstanding the registration, it has been a wonder so far. If there's anything supremely better and as easy to install then, I'm all ears!
 

norcalscott

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Just started using Volumio and notwithstanding the registration, it has been a wonder so far. If there's anything supremely better and as easy to install then, I'm all ears!
If there is anything comparably easier to use I don't know what it is. I've been playing around with version 3 and the devs have been making some great changes, including getting more plug-ins to work. The Last.fm plug in now is on their "plugin store" and is a simple install and setup and now works with streaming radio as well, something I was never able to get to work on version 2.x.

I just bought an SMSL SU-9 and have been playing around with it for a day now, and I have to say, the sound quality out of Volumio, into the SU-9 via USB is absolutely great (to my ears). At the risk of incurring the wrath of all the MQA haters, since I have the old Virtuoso plan with Volumio, I get Tidal connect and it passes the MQA data to the SU-9 (DAC confirms with MQA logo) and these tracks sound very good on my system.

I am slowly making Volumio the center point of my system now, playing Tidal from streaming, Radio Paradise via plugin, and playing all my FLAC and MP3 files off my NAS. I manage this with an old Toshiba Chromebook that logs into and controls Volumio. I have no way to measure it, but the sound quality seems a tad bit better from the Raspberry Pi than it does from my Windows box, running the same content. Hard to believe that this kind of sound quality is achievable with a system like this.
 

friarminor

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Anybody using RPi tried connecting an external dvd/cd player and used Volumio to control the playback? Will this work ? Thanks!
 

mSpot

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Anybody using RPi tried connecting an external dvd/cd player and used Volumio to control the playback? Will this work ?
The functionality built into Volumio requires a paid subscription and generally works well. The best thing about it is that it will try to identify the disc and pull metadata from the web, and in most cases you will see the album cover and track titles on Volumio while playing a CD. I haven't tried the CD ripping function but it may be useful.

What I don't like is mechanical noise from the external drive. It spins up whenever it preloads more data and spins down when it is done buffering. This may be accompanied by clicks as it re-seeks its location on the disc. The drive will repeat this cycle constantly while playing a disc. Sometimes it isn't ready for the next track and may take a few seconds to load. I would be happy if there is such a thing as a quiet external USB CD/DVD drive, but I think they are all relatively noisy. I have tried an Apple Superdrive which is said to be one of the more quiet ones, but it is still noisy. It might not be an issue if the drive is located across the room, but on my desk the noise is annoying.

I still have a CD transport from years ago and prefer using it (plugged into my DAC) over an external CD/DVD drive on Volumio. It is quiet and I can just load a disc and press play (as opposed to having to open Volumio and navigate a couple of screens).
 

somebodyelse

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The functionality built into Volumio requires a paid subscription and generally works well. The best thing about it is that it will try to identify the disc and pull metadata from the web, and in most cases you will see the album cover and track titles on Volumio while playing a CD. I haven't tried the CD ripping function but it may be useful.

What I don't like is mechanical noise from the external drive. It spins up whenever it preloads more data and spins down when it is done buffering. This may be accompanied by clicks as it re-seeks its location on the disc. The drive will repeat this cycle constantly while playing a disc. Sometimes it isn't ready for the next track and may take a few seconds to load. I would be happy if there is such a thing as a quiet external USB CD/DVD drive, but I think they are all relatively noisy. I have tried an Apple Superdrive which is said to be one of the more quiet ones, but it is still noisy. It might not be an issue if the drive is located across the room, but on my desk the noise is annoying.

I still have a CD transport from years ago and prefer using it (plugged into my DAC) over an external CD/DVD drive on Volumio. It is quiet and I can just load a disc and press play (as opposed to having to open Volumio and navigate a couple of screens).
The spin up / spin down is a software issue if my memory of setting up a linux media pc some years back is anything to go by. Seek noise is a drive issue though. Having a pause between tracks is inexcusable in my book, and reason for a bug report.
 

mSpot

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The spin up / spin down is a software issue if my memory of setting up a linux media pc some years back is anything to go by. Seek noise is a drive issue though. Having a pause between tracks is inexcusable in my book, and reason for a bug report.
Thanks, I'll bring up the issues on the Volumio community forum. I just tried playing an audio CD using the same external drive on my MacBook Pro with VLC, and the drive runs almost silently. I believe that the spin-up/spin-down noise with Volumio is because it is running the drive at high speed (up to 24x on this drive). This could cause re-seek and delays because the drive keeps going idle and needs to spin up again to continue.
 

GunGrave87

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I have been running volumio free for about a year now and it has been nothing short of a nightmare.
The free plugins for spotify and youtube crash all the time.
I get gateway timeout, Spotify API error, pause doesn't always work.
If the RPI sits idle for a day I have to restart it.

And the 60$/year is total crap and not worth it. For 90$ you can get a dedicated streamer like the WiiM Mini and will have better software and a dedicated hardware.
IMHO RPIs are really not worth the hassle anymore.
 

NiagaraPete

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I have been running volumio free for about a year now and it has been nothing short of a nightmare.
The free plugins for spotify and youtube crash all the time.
I get gateway timeout, Spotify API error, pause doesn't always work.
If the RPI sits idle for a day I have to restart it.

And the 60$/year is total crap and not worth it. For 90$ you can get a dedicated streamer like the WiiM Mini and will have better software and a dedicated hardware.
IMHO RPIs are really not worth the hassle anymore.
Try Dietpi and add the services you need. I use Shairport for Airplay and ReadyMedia to connect to my music server. My RPI has never crashed or crapped out.

Here’s a list of software for media.
 

GunGrave87

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Try Dietpi and add the services you need. I use Shairport for Airplay and ReadyMedia to connect to my music server. My RPI has never crashed or crapped out.

Here’s a list of software for media.
Thanks for the advice.
I am currently installing PiCorePlayer with LMS. Ofc spotify is a third party plugin again, hope this implementation is better.
 

NiagaraPete

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Thanks for the advice.
I am currently installing PiCorePlayer with LMS. Ofc spotify is a third party plugin again, hope this implementation is better.
I had no success with Volumio either. I haven’t tried PiCoreplayer yet.
 

Tom C

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I didn’t like Volumio, for the same reasons. For me, piCorePlayer has been smooth and trouble free.
 

GunGrave87

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I have just installed it using this tutorial:
I did run into some problems:
- any other skin than default causes a JS error on the wizard and it never loads (regardless of browser)
- the samba storage cannot be found on the local network, but using the IP directly works
- the wifi is a bit of a pain to setup and ignored in the tutorial
- spotify is again a third party plugin but for the moment, it seems to work.

The only issues I have encountered with playback is that the squeezebox android app will occasionally jump to home or up one level. Other than that, storage and spotify playback seem to work well.
 

Tom C

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I’m an iOS user, not Android, so I’m not familiar with your UI, but my devices just use Safari web browser, and no issues.
 

GunGrave87

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This happens only for the wizard setup.
Every other page is rendered correctly except the LMS setup wizard that selects music locations.
 
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