Foobar alternative for PC and Android remote control

[popej]

Well, personally, I would never use DLNA and a smartphone together. The PC->DLNA->smartphone->DAC chain has never convinced me, and the smartphone itself could be the bottleneck.

There are 3 types of component for DLNA: server, renderer and controller. Smartphone can be any of these. If you have music files on phone, then it can be a server. If you listen on phone, then it can be renderer. But if you have library and DAC on PC, then phone is only a controller, that doesn't transfer any music data, basically it is a remote.

And how do you find the quality ?
Hi-Res files ?

As for quality and Hi-Res, I'm too old to bother
Kodi on FTV uses passthrough, so quality is defined by my AVR. I have now installed Kodi for Windows, and it sees all sound interfaces. I don't expect any technical problems here.

 

[Apesbrain]

the smartphone itself could be the bottleneck.

I'm not particularly a fan of DLNA, but not for this reason. The audio signal never flows through the smartphone; it is only used for control.

 

[linuxfan]

for someone like me who's a complete novice when it comes to computers, configuring plugins, DLNS, and UPnP sounds like alchemy.
...
Isn't there anything that can be installed on a PC as a player and on a phone as a remote control, and that with a basic setup allows you to open folders, select songs, adjust the volume, create playlists, etc., all from your phone?

Well Daphile comes close to meeting those requirements - but Daphile is only for PC's as a headless server - it's no good if you want to continue to use the PC as a general purpose computer.
If you don't understand about network audio protocols, that's fine, don't lose any sleep over it. You don't need to know that stuff.
IMO the solution for you is Lyrion server + squeezelite renderer on your PC, controlled from Material Skin browser interface on your phone.
First install Lyrion -
https://lyrion.org/getting-started/#__tabbed_1_1
During configuration, enable "Material Skin" in the Plugins menu. If you have problems with configuration, ask.
Then install the player/renderer component, Squeezelite -
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lmsclients/files/squeezelite/windows/
Now you can control playback from your smartphone, or the PC itself, from a web browser.
On your smartphone go to:
http://<IP_address_of_PC>:9000/material/
or on your PC go to:
http://localhost:9000/material/

 

[aikofan]

I’m a longtime LMS user, but I have to admit that I experience odd glitches every once in a while, after a Windows update or a firmware update on my DAC, that breaks it, and for a non-expert in media server protocols like me, this can be challenging. Foobar2000, even with its incredibly complex customizability, is more reliable and easier to use overall, as long as you have the remote control figured out. But Squeezebox hardware, back when it was Slim Devices before it was acquired by Logitech, was my transition from a music library of thousands of CDs stored in cabinets lining an entire wall to digital files stored on hard drives, and I continued using the music server software as it evolved from Slim Server to Logitech Music Server to Lyrion.

Some of the times when LMS wasn’t working for me, I used a few alternatives, such as iTunes controlled by the iOS Remote app and Plex controlled by the Plex app. Of course, iTunes is much more limited and less flexible than LMS, but Plex seemed like a decent substitute for LMS during the short time I was using it.

 

[haro]

Lots of different ways to go. The best one for you depends on what content you use and how you want to use it, For 'this' use case its mostly for Audio library management and playback (local or remote content) - where "I have a PC and want it to be a robust media library" so suggest Musicbee (for the library and playback control) and MBXHUB (for the remote control from any platform or any device) - IMO - really it's trivial easy to get it up and running and works quite well.

 

[Ruediger]

I just have realized, that there is a good music player for Windows. It is Kodi.

Absolutely. Kodi can do a lot, espcially in terms of DLNA network library (artwork, info, options) and controllable DLNA player.

I haven't gotten into music format addons for it (if there are any), as the standard engine is ffmpeg. With that I guess there is a hard limit of what can be decoded to PCM and played with the sound device. HiRes formats could be out.

 

[EXDJF]

I'm not particularly a fan of DLNA, but not for this reason. The audio signal never flows through the smartphone; it is only used for control.

It depends on who will be the renderer or the final streamer, right?

 

[popej]

With that I guess there is a hard limit of what can be decoded to PCM and played with the sound device. HiRes formats could be out.

IMHO Windows soundcard is the limit, I have the impression, that ffmpeg and Kodi can play nearly anything.

 

[somebodyelse]

But what I actually don't like about LMS is that it is some old Logitech thing just kept alive because there are many user historically (hope I got that info right). I get that for the speakers/solutions they once offered, it is needed. But otherwise redundant to the dlna/upnp standard. Unless, of course, an implementation of it is superior for the user. I read many WiiM users like it.

It was originally released by Slim Devices as the server for their streamers - some of the first. Logitech bought them and left it under the same open licence. They kept their server part running for about a decade after they discontinued the streamers, before shutting that down and transferring the maintenance to the community, and it had to be renamed and remove the Logitech trademarks. It's still going because a lot of people still haven't found anything better. The plugins mean it can act as an intermediary for most protocols, so you don't get trapped in one ecosystem. It can transcode for endpoints that don't support the native format, and do server side EQ per endpoint for endpoints that don't have their own. Gapless playback and format support isn't as hit-and-miss as it is with UPnP/DLNA, and the custom tagging allows a lot of versatility that's usually missing elsewhere (soloists, conductors, composers etc.) It's also a lot less resource hungry than Roon, despite being written in perl.

 

[Snarfie]

Unified Remote has a specific foobar2000 widget for basic playback.

MonkeyMote is native for foobar2000, but requires a dedicated foobar2000 component on the PC

also foobarCon Pro, requires the foobarCon component


others:

Beefweb Remote Control on the PC, OS-independent

BubbleUPnP with foo_upnp component.

Besides firewall issues, be careful to match 32- vs 64- bit components, lots of OG tools cannot handle the latter

MonkeyMote works flawlessly.

 

[Redacted]

MonkeyMote works flawlessly.

In fact I just tried this and I agree. W10, FB2K 2.26 preview 2026-06-18 32-bit. I don't need it, as the only time using FB2K is when I'm using my PC, but was curious. Obviously this plays from PC to USB DAC, not to the phone (that is just a remote control).
On my main system in the lounge I use phone or tablet with Streammagic to look at my media server (DLNA) and cue up what I want to play on my streamer - never missed a beat in over 5 years. All bit-perfect, incluidng 24/192, and the streamer is on 5GHz WiFi.

FB2K plug-in here:

Download | MonkeyMote Music Remote

MonkeyMote is a music remote control app for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android supporting Winamp, foobar2000, MediaMonkey, JRiver Media Center and AIMP

www.monkeymote.com

And the Android app on Playstore looks like this:

 

[Snarfie]

In fact I just tried this and I agree. W10, FB2K 2.26 preview 2026-06-18 32-bit. I don't need it, as the only time using FB2K is when I'm using my PC, but was curious. Obviously this plays from PC to USB DAC, not to the phone (that is just a remote control).
On my main system in the lounge I use phone or tablet with Streammagic to look at my media server (DLNA) and cue up what I want to play on my streamer - never missed a beat in over 5 years. All bit-perfect, incluidng 24/192, and the streamer is on 5GHz WiFi.

FB2K plug-in here:

Download | MonkeyMote Music Remote

MonkeyMote is a music remote control app for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android supporting Winamp, foobar2000, MediaMonkey, JRiver Media Center and AIMP

www.monkeymote.com

And the Android app on Playstore looks like this:


View attachment 539682

Issiues i got with streaming occurd using my android phone when using Foodbar 64bit version on my pc. But that could be my own lack of knoledge however the 32bit works fine for streaming.

 

[Redacted]

Issiues i got with streaming occurd using my android phone when using Foodbar 64bit version on my pc. But that could be my own lack of knoledge however the 32bit works fine for streaming.

I was saying I happen to have tested the 32bit version. I use it only because it can find my DLNA server and playback from that (with the usual benefits) - as I understand it, the 64-bit FB2K works with the MonkeyMote plug-in, but that, I have not tested.

The point is that FB2K can be remote controlled by other means than whatever was said no longer works.
Maybe I misunderstand the original requirement but there are loads of "ways to skin a cat" that work fine, even with FB2K.

 

[haro]

https://mbxhub.com/Does Musicbee + Mbxhub fill the gaps foobar2000 is currently leaving (at least current version and 64bit)?

Local library/player + DLNA server on the network + DLNA controllable endpoint

It would be nice to have something on a Win PC that actually does this without fuzz, just standard protocols, and is capable of handling large libraries.

Foobar2000 with the old upnp component was nice, but 32bit and not supported anymore.
Someone will recommend LMS. I tried it. Perl for the server? This is way too limited in performance. Also not abiding to upnp/dlna standard.
MinimServer. Love it on my Synology NAS. On PC it requires java. I suspect it will perform good, but can't (won't) do java on servers.
A handful of other dlna/upnp attempts over the years. The thing with standard protocols and reliability was an issue.

Did I miss a good solution?

If it not only works nice as a library and on the network and does all or most of the swiss army knife tasks foobar2000 does, that would be something.

Hello Ruediger!
I'm less familiar with Foobar2000, and never found it worked for *me* - mostly due to UI style preference. It's a fine app - i use it for some specific functions occasionally (batch transcoding - ironic my primary use for foobar is to 'ruin my music' 'by transcoding it' vs consume it... lol)
MusicBee does have a DLNA plugin but don't use it. (i dont use DLNA) i use network speakers but not via DLNA.
Musicbee works awesome as a large local library management APP. I've used them all and worked on teams that built a few players directly over the past few decades. I admit i have a strong bias for the app, such a strong bias i invested time to make it better. via MBXHub - it's a MusicBee plugin that is akin to BeefWeb providing remote interface you can use out of the box. There is also Truedat; Truedat - Music Mood Extractor - an Audio feature extraction tool that generates mood vectors (valence/arousal) for music libraries using [Essentia](https://essentia.upf.edu/). Extracts 55 audio features per track and maps every song onto a 2D emotion space.] Btw it also extracts 12-tone data when it's embedded in files and uses that in fusion with the Essentia to augment the V/A scores. Then MBXHUB can use the extracted metadata to drive track selection based on 'moods' (moods are like SenseMe channels on a Walkman) using the Arousal and Valence scores, fora local musicbrainz/Piccard like solution. Ultimately, I'm shooting for a local Pandora streams like experience. Additionally, MBXHub is more than just a remote extension, it's a platform, with docs, you can ALSO point your AI buddy at and build it into what you want it to be. [it has llms.txt machine docs that cover all of the interfaces so the AI is not guessing how to make it work] Here is an example of a prompt to create a local MCP server so you can interact with your library using an Agent. (all local) AND among other expanding features - if you happen to have a phantom speaker MBXHUB has out of the box control against the IP endpoints so you can keep all of your remoting in one interface.
Am i biased, yes. do i know that and can still see clearly, yes i think.
regards
Haro.

 

[Ruediger]

IMHO Windows soundcard is the limit, I have the impression, that ffmpeg and Kodi can play nearly anything.

ffmpeg itself will handle anything PCM. Kodi plays about every major format incl. WAV, FLAC, APE. The limit is what the hardware does.

There are ways to make foobar play DSD and afaik there is also software to feed it to ffmpeg. Kodi I don't know, haven't seen anything there.

To me HiRes audio means FLAC containers mostly. Others might see that as the area where the other HiRes audio options like DSD would be included.

 

[muslhead]

jriver

 

[krabapple]

Hey everyone, for someone like me who's a complete novice when it comes to computers, configuring plugins, DLNS, and UPnP sounds like alchemy. It seems more complicated than stealing the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides.

¿Isn't there anything that can be installed on a PC as a player and on a phone as a remote control, and that with a basic setup allows you to open folders, select songs, adjust the volume, create playlists, etc., all from your phone?

God help us.

You'd be better off asking on the foobar2k forum on Hydrogenaudio than here.

 

[Redacted]

"IMHO Windows soundcard is the limit, I have the impression, that ffmpeg and Kodi can play nearly anything."

This is usually true.

I use a Topping DX1 over USB which works fine, as my PC has internal audio module that picks up all sorts of random noise, so for music playback I run FB2K in exclusive mode to the DX1, and no matter what files I play from FB2K, the data is apparently bit-perfect, and the correct bit rate is reported by the Topping app.

ffmpeg is a command line tool (usually - there are some GUIs for it, including the excellent Handbrake) for changing audio and video files in pretty much all conceivably useful ways - I use it all the time, it's a magnificent tool. It can be used in a "piped" mode for changing data on the fly (aka transcoding) but for video, you don't want to be doing complicated changes on the fly, as you'd need a fairly good PC to keep up (but you can pre-process - I use a number of batch files I have made). For audio, changes are going to be limited to sample rates, bit depths, file wrappers, codec changes, compression and the like, which are all a light load.

 

[Redacted]

Firulais71 said:


Hey everyone, for someone like me who's a complete novice when it comes to computers, configuring plugins, DLNS, and UPnP sounds like alchemy. It seems more complicated than stealing the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides.

¿Isn't there anything that can be installed on a PC as a player and on a phone as a remote control, and that with a basic setup allows you to open folders, select songs, adjust the volume, create playlists, etc., all from your phone?

God help us.
You'd be better off asking on the foobar2k forum on Hydrogenaudio than here.

That's the right forum.
We seem to be going round in circles though.
- DLNA is trivial and works well; can be controlled by a separate entity and played out to yet another. The terminology used to describe the 'parts' of DLNA seems to have been chosen to confuse.
- FB2K can run on a PC and play music but be controlled by the FB2K app from a phone, or using any browser.

 

[Redacted]

Just to add bit about DLNA - I know most ASR people know this, but a few don't. And I know this thread is about FB2K, but you have choices!

You probably only get benefit from DLNA if you have a large music collection. And for that matter, videos or photos are usable too. With a large collection, you may have to think about where you store it and back it up to - a phone or small laptop is not the place. The issue with a large collection is finding stuff you want to play - with a small collection, you can just do a normal search and traverse through folders quite quickly. Or have a few playlists. DLNA simply databases the tags and cover art found in your music files. For playback on a streamer amp, this massively speeds up finding things because you are not searching up and down folders for filenames and having to open every file to get tags, every time, it's all done up front.

TLDR:

As one example of how I might play music in my lounge, I have a phone (controller), a streamer-amp (playback device), and a NAS unit that holds all my music & videos and runs a free DLNA server on it. I start the app on my phone, select a media server to look at (usually my NAS but could be my PC), I will have pre-selected my streamer-amp as the target playback device, and then I can see all the "virtual folders" presented by the NAS's DLNA server. This set of folders varies by implementation of the server, and sometimes you can choose. As you can see, my sever show 7 folders. Let's say I pick "genre" - I can click on say, "Blues". I will get a list of all the tracks tagged with "Blues". I can make a selection of what I want to hear, and queue those tracks up, or simply select "play from here". Once tracks are queued, that means the player has a list of tracks, and the links to wherever those tracks are to be found on my LAN. I press "play" and the streamer amp pulls the tracks in and plays them. I can turn the phone off at this point - it's job is done for now. The player munches through the list of tarcks it has been given and does a bit-perfect playback over the LAN.

My point is, beyond all the confusing terminology, DLNA is handy and is actually easy to use.

Anyone with a streamer and PC can try DLNA basics in a few clicks. Put Universal Media Server on a PC, point it at music files locally or elsewhere on your LAN, start the app that controls your streamer, point that at UMS running on the PC (it will be automatically found using UPNP) and pick want you want to play and it will pop out of you playback device.....
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