Is Volumio the best 'streamer freeware'?

[Jack Harrison]

Are you sure? AFAIK Moode only supports Airplay 1.

Yes, see screenshot:

 

[glorious_iguana]

Yes, see screenshot:View attachment 305781

Indeed, I just checked too. Unfortunately I don't use Apple devices myself so won't work for me, but would be useful for guests.

 

[Jack Harrison]

I’ve used Moode on three different RPis over many years in four or five different hifi set ups and through all the various iterations of Moode over the years without any glitches i can think of. When I first started using it, after trying Volumio, I thought, hey there’s no app! But as has been said the Volumio app is pretty much just the same web interface. The Moode interface is streets ahead of the Wiim Mini app in my view. It’s stable and fast and everything’s there. I don’t want Spotify and Amazon HD built in to the same app in some limited way (like some others do it). it’s just a truly amazing little streamer - especially for the price.

 

[glorious_iguana]

I personally find Moode's user interface for the playback of local collection slightly confusing, coming from Spotify apps. You cannot easily start playing an album from a song in the middle and some other odd choices, like having to click on an album cover to switch between collection and playback modes. Otherwise I second you, it covers all my needs (which might not be the case for others).

 

[direwolf08]

The Moode interface is streets ahead of …

“Community“ fan, or from the British Isles?

 

[direwolf08]

I installed Logitech Media Server on my Mac mini home server this weekend and have been messing around with it. There was some troubleshooting I had to do to get the server program to recognize my music folder; I had to muck with permissions to the folder. But I have to say I am really impressed with the capability and stability of it so far. It blows Volumio out of the water. I am using my Wiim’s as endpoints via the UPnP Bridge plugin (that took a bit of finagling too as the settings UI is weird). I am able to use tablets as remotes/Now Playing displays and the Material UI skin is nice looking and configurable. The web interface is quick and responsive, even with my 10k+ song library. The Spotify library integration is really cool and was easy to set up … I didn’t even have to input my Spotify credentials, I just used Connect to sync it! Also, Spotify seems to just work, unlike on Volumio where it is a hot mess. You can also add a plug-in to provide Roon-like artist/album/song information through the UI to browse as you listen.

I have to say, LMS has been - by far - the best streamer freeware I have tried and I’ve tried most of them (LMS, Plex, Volumio, Moode, HiFiBerryOS …). I say that even with the troubleshooting I had to do on the front end to get it set up. Even with that, it was easier to set up than Volumio. That said, it is a tough call between moving fully to LMS vs just using Wiim’s native app for control. The Wiim Home app just works too, and I would put it on par to slightly below LMS on capabilities and UI (poor landscape/now playing screen support, browsing my server library is not great). If already you’ve got Wiim Mini’s or Pro’s around your house, you can’t go wrong either way and LMS is a fun thing to set up and play with. If you’re starting with a bunch of RPi’s, LMS is in my opinion the best choice.

 

[Nesic]

Sadly my Moode experience was even worse than Volumio
Just tried it on my Pi4. It did not enable AP after first boot so I have to went outside and purchase an ethernet cable to connect it to my router in order to have it configured.
Once I did that, it simply does not even allow me to configure WiFi SSID to connect. The moment I hit save, the whole setting just froze and I won't be able to enter any setting pages anymore

Did you solve that? I have identical problem

 

[BoycottHiFiScam]

Did you solve that? I have identical problem

I did resolve this later.

I reimaged the microsd card with ssh enabled and also provided username/password. This time it worked without any problem

Reference:

moode/www/setup.txt at develop · moode-player/moode

moOde sources and configs. Contribute to moode-player/moode development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Nesic]

Thank you.

 

[Rowlandville]

I'm currently using a Raspberry Pi (3B+ and 4B) and i prefer it with the 4B - it's so great, that it's almost hard to believe that it's free - it even has airplay2?

I've heard of other options, but they seem a bit more complicated and I'm not sure that they offer the same options as the most mainstream option.

Let me know which OS you think is good and why.

BTW my current set up is a Raspberry Pi 4B, Topping D10S, and a Fosi Audio BT20A-S.

I want to use Airplay (1) not Airplay 2. Do you know if that's an option?

 

[Apesbrain]

If already you’ve got Wiim Mini’s or Pro’s around your house, you can’t go wrong either way and LMS is a fun thing to set up and play with. If you’re starting with a bunch of RPi’s, LMS is in my opinion the best choice.

Sorry for the late response, but I thought you'd like to know that the latest firmware for the WiiM Pro and Pro Plus includes native support for LMS/Squeezebox. No more DLNA!

 

[Stickler1]

Airplay is NOT a real OS for the player. It is only for the network. If the Internet goes offline or the initiating device leaves the network area, the music STOPS. In the actual player OSs it plays on. All you lose is remote control. That problem is only solved by a non network player of which there are none available currently in 2023.
(That opportunity closed.)
My favorites are piCorePlayer (LMS, you would use iPeng for control) and custom Volumiio as offered by miniDSP in their SHD streamers

 

[Smitty2k1]

Sorry for the late response, but I thought you'd like to know that the latest firmware for the WiiM Pro and Pro Plus includes native support for LMS/Squeezebox. No more DLNA!

Just updated my mini to a pro (used direct from Wiims eBay for $100) specifically for native LMS!

 

[ahofer]

I want to use Airplay (1) not Airplay 2. Do you know if that's an option?

In that case a Pi + ROPIEEXL is pretty good shareware.

 

[terryforsythe]

I use LMS, installed on my NAS. The user interface is not modern, but it is functional. It has been extremely stable and uses little in terms of CPU and RAM resources.

The Spotify and Tidal plugins work. My chief annoyance is that any tracks I add only store to a playlist in LMS. So, for example, if I want to add a track in Spotify that I can access from my car, I need to do so in the stand alone Spotify app. Roon had the same issue when I tried it.

 

[ahofer]

I use LMS, installed on my NAS. The user interface is not modern, but it is functional. It has been extremely stable and uses little in terms of CPU and RAM resources.

The Spotify and Tidal plugins work. My chief annoyance is that any tracks I add only store to a playlist in LMS. So, for example, if I want to add a track in Spotify that I can access from my car, I need to do so in the stand alone Spotify app. Roon had the same issue when I tried it.

Qobuz playlists work the other way around, as you can see below (Roon screenshot). Does Spotify? I don’t use Spotify.

 

[Apesbrain]

The user interface is not modern

You might like the Material Skin plugin:
LMS > Settings > Plugins > 3rd party plugins > Material Skin

 

[terryforsythe]

ahofer, I think you misunderstood- the screenshots you posted are from Roon. I was speaking about saving a track in LMS or Roon, but accessing that track from another app, e.g., Android auto or the Spotify app from the Play store.

 

[terryforsythe]

You might like the Material Skin plugin:
LMS > Settings > Plugins > 3rd party plugins > Material Skin

I am using Material Skin.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I've been using Raspberry Pi streaming software for over 10 years. I don't use streaming services. I use internet radio sometimes. I have more than 20 years of music files including my vinyl and CDs. I play music by directory/file. With over 88K haphazardly tagged files using tags just doesn't work. As a former programmer I find text attribute fields with no input restrictions as file keys a mug's game. If all your music comes from the same source, it will probably work. Otherwise chaos. My favorite is Moode. It offers audio tweaking that's superior to Volumio. The web UI is sluggish on low end mobile devices but that's the only problem I've seen. As Volumio has moved from free and open source to freemium it's become less and less useful unless you want to pay the subscription price. The only advantage it has over Moode is access to DLNA. I also use LMS. It's easy to set up and has a variety of front ends. Hifiberry OS is interesting if you use the Hifiberry DAC+ DSP because it offers automated room correction. The procedure is similar to the software that comes with AVRs. I've used it to tame my bedside speaker. The disadvantage is that it's a client. There's no way to play music directly from the web UI. I use it as an LMS client. It also (barely) supports MPD with add on UI software.

PiCorePlayer and DietPi will both run well on the Pi ZeroW or Zero2W. You can also run the light version of Raspbian with Squeezelite. All require an LMS server.