Here’s a question I can’t seem to find a clear answer for:
Is there a plug-n-play OS option (Pi 3 B+) for a completely basic, library-free transport: basically, folder-/file-browsing an external drive (SATA SSD, 8TB) containing only music (FLAC, MP3, minimal DSD and WAV and…), to send a given selected file to a separate DAC via USB or HigiBerry Digi2 Pro? Preferably by phone app or remote device?
Features like automatically playing through files within one folder (e.g. album) would be icing on the cake; playlists, streaming from Spotify / Tidal and the like are unnecessary for my use.
Reason I ask is because the software for the transport section of my DAC has finally become completely unreliable after ~5 years of no updates (thank you, Oppo…) and I don’t want to corrupt a big $$D with endless reboots after constant freezes.
I don’t like that all the Pi OS’es (Volumio and the other options frequently discussed in this great thread) want to build a files
library. I have too many pressings of the same album in many cases, for a library to be a clean path. I also don’t care to re-label thousands of files for consistency to fit a given program’s requirements (PLEX, I’m looking at you…).
I’m guessing there’s not such a streamlined, bare-bones ( = boring
) option that doesn’t require a fair amount of programming pioneer spirit, but maybe I’m wrong?
Edit: In a nutshell, is there any Volumio-type option that does not require building a library to access / transport music files from an external drive to a discrete DAC, either via USB or HifiBerry Digi2 Pro?
I’m all
ears eyes for any suggestions. Thank you.