Like Roon, LMS uses its own protocol for streaming. It was designed specifically for music: it's gapless and compatible with lossy, FLAC, MQA, and DSD64. It was originally called Slimserver and was developed by Slim Devices whose Squeezebox players were among the first commercially available streamers. Although Logitech no longer sells the product, they do continue to develop and support the server. When you need help, there is a robust online user group.
Latest Beta:
http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/index.php?ver=8.3
Latest Release:
https://mysqueezebox.com/download
piCorePlayer:
https://www.picoreplayer.org/
Free clients:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lmsclients/files/squeezeplay/windows/ or headless
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lmsclients/files/squeezelite/
Online forum:
https://forums.slimdevices.com/
Control via browser, or controller and player apps are available for Android and iOS
Suggested plugins once you have things running: Material Skin (a modern UI for desktop and mobile), Music And Artist Information (a "Roon-lite" experience)
The beta release is very solid and has support for Spotify and Tidal integration. I don't subscribe so I don't know if it will do things the way you want. The server runs very reliably on a Core i3 or better with 4GB RAM. A Celeron-class CPU is adequate if your library isn't too large. Some people are happy running LMS on a RPi.
I've not used Roon as what I need I already get free from LMS. I don't like solutions based on DLNA such as mConnect.
I'm convinced. After a couple of hours playing with it, I have decided that, for me, Logitech Media Player (LMS) is the way to go.
I first had downloaded version 8.2 from the website, which is the latest "Release," and that was at least part of the problem I was having yesterday. It did not work on Linux Mint 21. I then tried the beta version 8.3, and that works. Now, the next step is to see if I can get it working on my NAS. I will need to use a Docker image. There is one, so I will give it a try.
What streaming protocol are you using? I connected to my miniDSP SHD via UPnP/DLNA, but if there is a better protocol I can use I would like to give that a shot.
Here are my observations using LMS so far:
1. To control LMS from my phone (Android) I found Squeezer, which also is free. To control it from my tablet (iOS) I found SlimLibrary ($6.99) and iPeng ($8.99). I have not yet tried SlimLibrary or iPeng. Any opinions on these apps, or other apps that can be used to control LMS, would be appreciated. It would be nice to use an app that is available both in the Android Play Store and the Apple App Store so that I have a consistent user interface across devices. I have not found one, though, that is available both on Android and iOS, but I may not be using the correct search terms.
2. I can sync all of my devices (one using UPnP/DLNA, one using Airplay, and one using Chromecast Audio) so that I can stream the same music to them simultaneously, or I can stream different music to each of the devices. This is a feature that I really like, and one that is completely missing in mconnect HD. Roon lets you group devices, but only if they use the same streaming protocol.
3. UPnP/DLNA and Airplay stream gapless. With Chromecast Audio there is a short gap between tracks, but it is less than a second.
4. When streaming over UPnP/DLNA to my miniDSP SHD, the volume control works differently than mconnect HD and Roon. mconnect HD and Roon stream at a set volume, and adjust the internal volume control of the SHD (Roon flawlessly, mconnect HD problematically as explained earlier). LMS does not change the internal volume control, but instead changes the volume of the stream. Thus, I set the volume on my miniDSP SHD to the highest level I would want to listen, and then control the volume of the stream. Maybe there is a different streaming protocol I should be using with the SHD. Any insight would be appreciated.
5. Streaming via Airplay, LMS does adjust the internal volume control of my Yamaha receiver.
6. LMS keeps album tracks together, even when there are tracks with different artists. mconnect HD did this as well. In Roon I have to manually group the tracks into a single album if the tracks have different artists.
7. Much is controlled via plugins. None of my devices showed up in LMS until I installed the appropriate plugins ( Airplay bridge, Chromecast bridge and UpnP/DLNA bridge).
8. Tidal integration, which also is handled via a plugin, is its weakest point. As with Roon, I cannot save tracks to my Tidal playlists. The only option is to save them in LMS.
9. LMS has a Spotify plugin - mconnect HD and Roon don't support Spotify as far as I can tell. Again, I cannot save tracks to my Spotify playlists, though.
10. Roon, by far, has more polish and a better user interface than LMS.
If cost was not a consideration, I probably would stick with Roon. But, we are comparing something that is free to something that costs $699.99 (or $12.99/mo. or $119.88/year). Roon's additional polish and features are not worth that much money to me. If Roon were much less expensive, then it would be a harder decision for me. Now I'm hoping the installation on my NAS goes smoothly.
Nothing comes close to Roon. That experience comes at a (somewhat premium) price. I first was very reluctant to commit to Roon, but after using countless hours and burning brains cells on forums, to find something cheaper, I eventually went with Roon. We (I) spend so much money on crap in our lives, so the cost of a monthly subscription to Tidal, Qobuz and Roon is OK for me. Buy 2-3 cd's a month, and the digital subscriptions are actually cheaper - with a black hole of music archives included. If I consider my hourly income in my day job vs. the time I've spent searching for a cheaper alternative to Roon, I could have bought a Roon lifetime subscription, and streaming subscriptions for a year or two :-D
