Easiest way to play music from usb hard drive???

[SPOautos]

I have a lot of music on a 2TB USB hard drive and want to add more too it.

What is the easiest way for multiple family members to use this? Is there something like a music app everyone can put on their phone and see the drive if I attach it to our wifi router? My kids play music off their phones all the time via bluetooth speakers. So if their phone can easily access the music bank via wifi that would pretty much be all I need. BUT, I'm thinking maybe a app so that they can sort it, filter it, create their own play lists, etc.

I don't really want access to have to involve computers. I need something easy and not complex at all....my wife does good just to operate her phone.

 

[SPOautos]

I should add, my intent was to attach the USB drive to a Yamaha WXC-50 that is plugged into a power amp. But I've heard that with thousands of songs on the drive and multiple people all wanting different play lists on their phones, it may not work too well.

Also, the WXC-50 will only play through my main power amp its attached too.....they cant use it to serve them music to their phone that they can play through their bluetooth speaker.

That leaves me looking for a different solution. Something where the music can be accessed from pretty much anywhere.....my vintage setup, phones, maybe a computer....and everyone be able to have their own play lists on their phone.

Any direction for me to look in?

 

[BillG]

You may be better off attaching the USB drive to a computer and streaming from there, or actually storing the music files on the computer, and using it as a server instead.

One of the most user friendly packages I've found for doing so is Emby. As a matter of fact, I happen to be streaming some music from my own Emby server right now and sending it to a Chromecast Audio - I can and do often just listen on my phone, though:



There are client/player apps for both Android and iOS mobiles, as well as server software for Windows, OSX, and Linux. The freeware version is more than adequate for most home users, and even allows remote streaming from outside one's home network via cellular:

https://emby.media

If you decide to go this route, I can help you with the setup if necessary. However, it's so easy to configure, I doubt you'll need assistance.

 

[SPOautos]

You may be better off attaching the USB drive to a computer and streaming from there, or actually storing the music files on the computer, and using it as a server instead.

One of the most user friendly packages I've found for doing so is Emby. As a matter of fact, I happen to be streaming some music from my own Emby server right now and sending it to a Chromecast Audio - I can and do often just listen on my phone, though:

View attachment 67767

There are client/player apps for both Android and iOS mobiles, as well as server software for Windows, OSX, and Linux. The freeware version is more than adequate for most home users, and even allows remote streaming from outside one's home network via cellular:

https://emby.media

If you decide to go this route, I can help you with the setup if necessary. However, it's so easy to configure, I doubt you'll need assistance.

Thanks for that great info BillG! I think my issue would be that the computer has to stay on all the time, I do not have a desktop, we all have notebooks and travel around with us.

I've been reading about DLNA since the Yamaha wxc-50 works with DLNA. BUT, do you happen to know if there is a reliable clutter free way to store music online in it's original file format and broadcast it via DLNA? I'm thinking there must be a the equivalent of a NAS but that is cloud based. Google Music Manager looked promising and you can store 50k songs on it, but it converts everything to mp3. All of the music on the harddrive has been saved lossless and at the highest resolution possible. So I dont want to convert the to mp3.

Wondering if you know of something cloud based I can upload it all too that has a media decoder built in for many file times and broadcasts to dlna?

 

[Silver1omo]

Most routers have DLNA for the USB port.
A raspberry PI can provide various options as well.