A Raspberry Pi as a music server

[somebodyelse]

LogitechMediaServer perhaps? It supports FLAC, gapless and replaygain. With the 'Chromecast bridge' plugin you should be able to stream to your Chromecast Audio too. piCorePlayer is a good endpoint to run on the Pi, and can run the LMS if you don't want to run it on your server. Alternatively there's a community docker image for your server, or daphile (a linux/LMS appliance OS) in a VM. There are a few control apps - iPeng for iOS and Squeezer for android notably, but there are (or were...) others. There's also the Material Skin plugin which gives a responsive web UI that works well on phone browsers as well as tablets and desktops. Playback continues if the app or browser is disconnected.

 

[Prana Ferox]

Your three major RPi music player distros are Volumio, Moode and PiCorePlayer (which is based on LMS) and I'm pretty sure they all check all your boxes. I use Moode and can control it through a web browser on any device in my house, including my phone.

 

[muslhead]

Ropieeexl acts as a roon endpoint and handles all dlna connections

 

[SlowCar]

How much convenient is moode based raspberry pi? Is it stable? Can i have many eq on it for different headphones and speakers? How is apple music streaming candled? Can i have it with coax output? And also rca output? Any recommendations?

 

[Smitty2k1]

Your three major RPi music player distros are Volumio, Moode and PiCorePlayer (which is based on LMS) and I'm pretty sure they all check all your boxes. I use Moode and can control it through a web browser on any device in my house, including my phone.

Thank you, glad to hear

 

[Smitty2k1]

LogitechMediaServer perhaps? It supports FLAC, gapless and replaygain. With the 'Chromecast bridge' plugin you should be able to stream to your Chromecast Audio too. piCorePlayer is a good endpoint to run on the Pi, and can run the LMS if you don't want to run it on your server. Alternatively there's a community docker image for your server, or daphile (a linux/LMS appliance OS) in a VM. There are a few control apps - iPeng for iOS and Squeezer for android notably, but there are (or were...) others. There's also the Material Skin plugin which gives a responsive web UI that works well on phone browsers as well as tablets and desktops. Playback continues if the app or browser is disconnected.

I'll look into this

 

[Prana Ferox]

How much convenient is moode based raspberry pi? Is it stable? Can i have many eq on it for different headphones and speakers? How is apple music streaming candled? Can i have it with coax output? And also rca output? Any recommendations?

I've had moode running for at least a year now. I've had a couple quirks out of the MPD back end that cleared up with a restart, but that's always been when I was screwing with it / changing DACs. I've also restarted it a few times to update the software. When just playing music I've had no issues.

Raspberry Pi by default has USB out and a basic headphone out. You can add hats for different output options or DACs. I use the USB out to a standalone DAC and honestly that's the simplest approach; there were technical complications using the ethernet port and USB out at the same time on earlier Raspberries but not on the 4's. It's a lot easier to find a nice case if you're not messing around with hats.

I don't mess with Apple Music or EQ so I can't answer those questions, but I bet Googling around will answer them.

 

[Pep2020]

I started with moode, then volumio and have ended up using picoreplayer and the squeeze ctrl Android app as my remote control. Picoreplayer is the most stable for me, although the new volumio version looks interesting. When I say stable it just works. The LMS plugins provide everything I need an the airplay plugin is great.

 

[MCH]

How much convenient is moode based raspberry pi? Is it stable? Can i have many eq on it for different headphones and speakers?

Yes, you can have many eq on it and just select the one you want to use (however to do so you need to access the settings, obviously). In my experience, yes, it is stable. And you can run it on a cheap zero 2w, no need for a pi 4.

 

[Prana Ferox]

The zero 2w uses micro-USB ports (which almost certainly means you'll need adapters) and doesn't do 5ghz networking. These fairly minor quibbles were enough for me to use them for non-audio things, your priorities may differ.

It's really easy to swap software with cheap microSD cards. I'm planning on trying PiCorePlayer soon.

 

[Smitty2k1]

I started with moode, then volumio and have ended up using picoreplayer and the squeeze ctrl Android app as my remote control. Picoreplayer is the most stable for me, although the new volumio version looks interesting. When I say stable it just works. The LMS plugins provide everything I need an the airplay plugin is great.

I'm getting ready to set up my first Pi player and I'm looking for "it just works" for my setup - streaming to my whole home audio system and playback of FLAC files on my NAS/server. LMS has been suggested elsewhere too. Is that installed on your Pi or on a server hosting files?

 

[Prana Ferox]

You can use a server like LMS / Plex / Emby or you can just have the Pi software mount your NAS volume directly and play the files that way. There are minor plusses and minuses to either method but generally they both 'just work' for Pi streamers, the differences are more for what other things you're doing with the files. For instance, setting up one of those servers often lets you play music directly from an AVR, if that's a thing you want, and they can provide video library front ends as well, neither of which affects your Pi. There are also some minor differences with file tagging.

You can install LMS on the Pi along with the front end or you can have them on separate boxes (or the server running directly on your NAS.) It works both ways and again the differences are mostly if you want other stuff to connect to the LMS server. PiCorePlayer is most closely derived from Squeezelite and thus is naturally associated with LMS but any of the front ends can be made to work.

I have Plex running on my NAS but for whatever reason it doesn't work with .CUE files. So I just have the Pi mount the NAS volume directly.

 

[Pep2020]

I'm getting ready to set up my first Pi player and I'm looking for "it just works" for my setup - streaming to my whole home audio system and playback of FLAC files on my NAS/server. LMS has been suggested elsewhere too. Is that installed on your Pi or on a server hosting files?

The pi4 has the LMS server and player (squeezelite) running on it. Then I have a NAS separately which all my music is on (you can build a NAS also really easily using a pi using something like OpenMediaVault). Then the smartphone app i mentioned as the control point. Or you can use the material skin plug in which is also really good to control from a browser on your phone.

It is harder than moode/volumio for initial setup (IMHO) but worth it for stability and ease of use. And crucially all free apart from time and hardware.

 

[Smitty2k1]

The pi4 has the LMS server and player (squeezelite) running on it. Then I have a NAS separately which all my music is on (you can build a NAS also really easily using a pi using something like OpenMediaVault). Then the smartphone app i mentioned as the control point. Or you can use the material skin plug in which is also really good to control from a browser on your phone.

It is harder than moode/volumio for initial setup (IMHO) but worth it for stability and ease of use. And crucially all free apart from time and hardware.

Awesome! I have no issues with effort into initial setup, but since this is for the in-ceiling speakers for the whole home audio system it must "just work" for all members of the household. Will report back once it's operational

 

[Gekel]

How about the following:

Use the NAS to store the data. Install moOde on the pi3 and hook up a DAC to one of the USB ports of the pi. Then just use a standard web browser for steering the whole thing.

I use a pi4 attached to a CXA61 amp in one room, and a pi4/DAC combo with active loudpeakers at my computer. Both share the same NAS as data source for the music. Works like a acharme.

 

[Eetu]

A simple alternative is to install Logitech Media Server (and optionally Squeezelite) via DietPi.

 

[Smitty2k1]

How about the following:

Use the NAS to store the data. Install moOde on the pi3 and hook up a DAC to one of the USB ports of the pi. Then just use a standard web browser for steering the whole thing.

I use a pi4 attached to a CXA61 amp in one room, and a pi4/DAC combo with active loudpeakers at my computer. Both share the same NAS as data source for the music. Works like a acharme.

That's what I had in mind, just wondering if one of the OS options was better for this purpose than the others.

 

[Eetu]

That's what I had in mind, just wondering if one of the OS options was better for this purpose than the others.

Personally, when it comes to accessing local/NAS files, I would take Logitech Media Server (w/ Material Skin) over moOde anyday. More stable, cleaner UI, more customization/plugin options. I'm using the Chromecast Bridge plugin that allows casting to a Chromecast Audio. Phone/tablet as a remote using the web UI (saved as a bookmark/shortcut on home screen).

I used PiCoreplayer (and moOde, Volumio before that..) previously but moved to DietPi as I wanted an easy way to run a Plex server on the same Pi. Installing LMS via DietPi as simple if not simpler than piCorePlayer+LMS.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Personally, when it comes to accessing local/NAS files, I would take Logitech Media Server (w/ Material Skin) over moOde anyday. More stable, cleaner UI, more customization/plugin options. I'm using the Chromecast Bridge plugin that allows casting to a Chromecast Audio. Phone/tablet as a remote using the web UI (saved as a bookmark/shortcut on home screen).

I used PiCoreplayer (and moOde, Volumio before that..) previously but moved to DietPi as I wanted an easy way to run a Plex server on the same Pi. Installing LMS via DietPi as simple if not simpler than piCorePlayer+LMS.

Chromecast can't do gapless though right? I'm looking for gapless if possible

 

[Gekel]

moode plays gapless. But why don't you just spend an hour or so, install the image on an sd card and run it on your own? Then you can check out if you like it or not. All you have to do is to create a smb share with the music on your nas and use this as data source on the pi.