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Daphile, Digital Music Convenience for Audiophiles

somebodyelse

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How do you intend to approach it? Daphile bits only, LogitechMediaServer core too, or LMS and all its plugins?
 

rchrdm

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Hmm... I don't even know what the LogitechMediaServer or LMS are. To start with, I thought to focus on the Daphile bits. How to burn CDs, assign keys to functions, create a Playlist, etc.

I will send you a PM so that you can, if you want, send your email address. I will then invite you to look at the notes I am compiling on Google Docs.

Sound OK?

What is your experience with Daphile? Seems extensive!

Richard
 

somebodyelse

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Daphile is a well assembled combination of free software bits with a nice web interface for configuration. LogitechMediaServer (LMS) is the media server it uses - also found in piCorePlayer among others - so a lot of the capabilities and operation is the same on any LMS instance, not just Daphile. That would include playlist generation. It uses squeezelite for the player part, and optionally BruteFIR for EQ and room correction. The underlying linux OS is based on Gentoo.

You should really have a look at the slimdevices forum and wiki - including the original call for daphile testers
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?99132-Call-for-testers!-Daphile
https://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Main_Page.html

I've played with Daphile as an easy to install LMS instance, and as an easy step into using BruteFIR, but the 'daily driver' is a small server that runs LMS along with a host of unrelated services, and has been since before I found daphile. I know my way around the bits of LMS that I use, but haven't touched other bits of it. I've also used Gentoo and most of the components in daphile before, so had to have a poke around under the hood - the ssh access that's enabled in the beta versions makes this easier.

Unfortunately the Google Docs part is a showstopper for me. I'd be happier with something like a wiki or markdown on github. Or posting to a thread on here.
 

rchrdm

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Thanks for your reply. I'll do some research based on your notes. I will set up the document in some other way besides Google Docs.

Richard
 

rchrdm

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I have taken a look at a few web pages for LMS and Gentoo. It seems that these apps either do not have a graphical user interface or it is minimal in terms of operating then as music players. Is that correct? I thought that if Daphile uses these apps, they might have some of the Daphile user interface.
 

somebodyelse

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Gentoo is a linux distro that lets you customize just about everything, so it's well suited to producing your own special purpose linux image. Whether it has a GUI or not is entirely up to whoever configures it. In the case of daphile it's a well thought out custom web interface. If you enable the interface on a local display it just opens a fullscreen web browser to show it.

The LMS user interface is web based and can be reskinned. Daphile changes the colours from the default ones so that the style matches the rest of the daphile web interface, hides a few things like the Settings link, and puts it in a frame within the daphile interface so it looks like it's part of it, but if you look at them side by side you'll see the similarity. You can even do this on your local daphile instance (at least you can on the beta...) - suppose your daphile interface is at http://daphile.local/cgi-bin/AudioPlayer then you can see the default LMS interface at http://daphile.local:9000/ or the material skin one at http://daphile.local:9000/Material (assuming you've enabled the plugin via the Advanced Media Server Settings).

This also means you can use phone apps like iPeng, Squeezer etc. to control playback.
 

rchrdm

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Of the three links in your post, I could only access the second one. So, if I can find a user manual for LMS, would that cover most of the UI for Daphile?

How do I access the BruteIR add in for EQ, etc.?
 

rchrdm

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Here is what I have so far for a Daphile manual.
 

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  • Daphile User Manual Notes.pdf
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somebodyelse

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A manual for, or knowledge of, LMS would cover most of the media server side. There are a few minor differences due to the reskinning, but it should be similar enough that you can use everything.

For BruteFIR go to Settings -> 'Audio Devices' then go to the 'Audio processing' dropdown for your device and select the option for BruteFIR - it'll add a BruteFIR button below that lets you set the convolution filters.

For your file manager queries about metadata, LMS keeps a database built from scanning the files for tags, so you really need your music to be suitably tagged. I don't remember if daphile enables the AutoRescan plugin by default, but it's worth enabling if it's not already. If it's not then you'll have to trigger a scan, or wait for one, before the new stuff appears in the library. The scan can also pick up album art for most of the standard naming schemes. If you're into Classical, Jazz, audiobooks or anything else that's not well served by the usual tags then have a look at the Custom Scan and Custom Browse plugins - the forum has suggestions about using them for composer, conductor, soloists etc.

The right hand pane is the playlist (in a desktop browser anyway) - hover over the track and you'll get extra icons appear to play the track, remove it from the playlist or get more info. There's a 'save' button at the bottom of the pane that'll let you save and name the current playlist - it'll then be available under 'My Music'->Playlists for future use. It's not something I use much. I've not used Favorites at all. At the top of the right hand pane the buttons that look like Fast Forward and Rewind on either side of the play/pause button are in fact Previous and Next. Next skips to the next track. Previous will go to the start of the current track if you're part way through, or to the previous track if you're already at the start. Click on the track progress bar to skip to that point ion the track.

I've not tried key bindings.
 

rchrdm

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I was able to get the BruteFIR button to appear. When I click it, it looks for convolution filters. I am already using REW and a minDSP for room adjustment. Is it possible to generate convolution filter setting to do the same thing?

Does BruteFIR have an EQ?

When I play a track in the right hand pane, it is highlighted in orange. The only icons are the play arrow and an "X." I don't see any other icon to select it for a play list. Do I have to do something in "Settings" to enable this?
 

rchrdm

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I found the EQ button at the bottom of the Daphile window. Cool!

Richard
 

rchrdm

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I pasted all of your replies into my "user manual" document for editing. Thanks!
 
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rallychief

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Hi everybody new here, joined as you seem to have a sub section for Daphile, having just decided to give it a try , been running a pi3b with MoOde audio previously, anyway have bought a small form PC based on an Asrock J4005m motherboard in a Coolermaster elite case, it has a lite on DS8 drive for ripping, 8gb crucial DDR4 ram, and a 1tb Samsung 860 ssd internally for storage. it is connected ethernet for managing via laptop etc.

I have 2 problems i hope someone here may be able to help me with, 1 i am trying to back up some music files that are on the internal ssd, i have a 2.5" drive connected to the PC via usb to e sata lead, the drive is listed in Storage showing it's make model capacity etc, if i then go into backup, i can select source drive, and within the drive listing for source drive the external drive is listed, but when you open the target drive drop down the external drive is not there, just the internal drive, the external drive is formatted ex fat and has an empty music destination folder on it, also if you look at drives in file manager, both of them have a padlock icon beside them..

Prob 2 i have been listening to it temporarily on headphones with a HRT Headstreamer, which is a dac/headphone amp powered by the 5v from the usb socket, when no music playing you can hear low level tearing ripping noise, which varys in speed and intensity.

Thanks in advance for any help

Chris
 

somebodyelse

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I suspect the exfat filesystem is the problem. For a long time there was little or no linux support for it because of MS patent claims. While support has improved, it may not be included in daphile yet. I don't have anything with exfat to check though. Does the same method work with non-exfat drives?

Not sure about the 2nd one either. It's not 'normal' for daphile, at least in my experience. The description is similar to ground related noise, but I wouldn't expect that when you've only got the USB cable and the headphones going into the Headstreamer. Unless the Asrock has spectacularly noisy USB ports it's unlikely to be poor regulation either. You'd probably have heard it with other PCs anyway if it was either of those, or a faulty device.
 

rallychief

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Hi somebodyelse many thanks for your reply, i tried the drive formatted NTFS that also didn't work for backup does it have to be ext4 no idea how to do that,the only options i have in win 10 are NTFS and exfat, fat 32 no longer an option, why do drives have padlock icons in file manager, the machine has 6 usb ports 4 rear 2 front tried all 6 they all produce noise, the only other thing plugged into the machine, is the ethernet cable which is going to a netgear orbi satellite, could it be rf noise from the orbi.

Edit the Headstreamer is totally silent used with a laptop

Cheers Chris
 
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rallychief

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Ok have got a little further, their are 2 check boxes SW and Share in the listing for the drive in storage, menu if those are checked the drive now shows up in the target drive list in backup menu, and can be selected, what next, do i have to enter something in target directory box if so what, i have the full box checked to backup whole drive, what starts the backup process does a next button pop up when it is configured correctly ?

Cheers Chris
 

somebodyelse

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I was using an oldish beta version of daphile - after updating it has a newer kernel and includes exfat support that wasn't listed before. I've also reformatted a USB stick as exfat for testing, but as I did this in linux it's possible it will behave differently to if it was done on Windows. 'RW' is Read-Write - if it's not ticked then the drive will be mounted read-only, which is why you were seeing the padlock icon in the file manager. I should have thought of that, but it's usual in the upper folder levels as you can't write to those, so I didn't think anything of it. The drive needs to be writable to be used as a backup target, and you probably need to have hit the 'Save & Restart' button at the bottom of the settings page for the RW setting to be remembered over reboots. Target directory is optional but you'll want to use it if you're using the drive for anything other than backups, or for more than one backup. You could have something like backups/weekly and backups/monthly for different sorts, or backups/A, backups/B and backups/C for 3 different manual backups, depending on your backup strategy. Once your backup config is saved ('Save & Restart' button again) the backup will appear in the 'Info' tab, along with some status info and a 'Start' button to kick off manual backups. I've just done a manual backup of a small amount of data to an exfat formatted USB stick and it seems to work - in the File Manager I can see the target directory was created, and contains the file that I placed to be backed up. I've not looked into all the backup options - some experimenting may be needed!
 

rallychief

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Hi somebodyelse yep i hit the save and restart to keep the sw and share options selected, i will use the drive for daphile backup exclusively so by what you are saying target directory can be blank, so when i hit the save and restart button i should have have a start button appear, figured their had to be something, i don't have this, will run through it again.

Cheers Chris
 
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