Selft hosted music streaming solutions ?

[Xenio]

Hello,

I own a Denon AVC X3700H and I'd like to improve the way I listen to music on it.

I have a linux home server in another room that do multiple things, one of those things is being a NAS with a SMB share.
I tried looking at my options for streaming self hosted music.

I want something open source if possible, or buy once and 100% offline.
I also want to be able to have suggestions for new stuff. So I want Listenbrainz scrobble functionnality. I'll use the listenbrainz API to get new suggestions and add new playlists to the music server.

So as for the solutions :

Roon is just way too expensive.
Plexamp is still expensive and not really offline anyway.

I tried navidrome + symfonium as a client to cast to the denon through UPNP/DLNA => Navidrome doesn't do upnp transcoding and I have to use symfonium as a proxy UPNP, it eats battery and rely on the phone. Symfonium doesn't support openhome protocol thingy so I can't use a bubbleupnp server as a upnp proxy on the linux server.

Also symfonium is utterly strange when two people are using it and casting to the same device ... (not forcefully at the same time) I won't even try to explain it lmao, but I do have some funny videos of a phone saying X music is being played with Y music really being played.

I tried symfonium + jellyfin, there is no good jellyfin playlists integration and anyway same problem with two people and symfonium.
Jellyfin + finamp ... the client is really really bad....

So i've come to the conclusion that upnp/dlna is probably not the way to go about it. I guess I need a network player outputing sound directly to the Denon.
I've seen people using RPIs with specific distros. Are we okay that it's probably the best thing to do in my case ?

There is volumio : not really free and no "buy once" possibility.
Moode seems great...? But no listenbrainz scrobble, though I think we can hack it with listenbrainz-mpd (haven't tried). Are there any "smart" queue features or whatever ?
From what I understood it's a webUI and directly outputting sound like a PC, so this mean no weird conflict if two people use it.
I think there is also Pi Core Player that is similar.

Is a pi zero 2w enough for that ? How would it work if I buy a second sound setup for another room ? Another pi + moode, can they connect together and work as one UI ?

There are also apparently proprietary network players that come with their own app right ? I don't know what they are worth, if they need to be online and how do they compare to stuff like moode audio.

Any recommendations ?

 

[Tim Curtis]

What do you mean by "smart" Queue features?
Post a link to info on listenbrainz scrobble and I'll investigate.

 

[Brian Hall]

I paid a one time fee of $45 for Plexamp. I only use it for serving my ripped CD collection and it works great for that. Their video stuff is bad because it all has ads and I refuse to watch anything with ads.

 

[Xenio]

Something that add a next song to the queue "smartly", based on what's currently being listened, symphonium for example has a feature like that and you can tune it up a bit too.
Or maybe just something that creates playlists like listenbrainz/last.fm suggestions or spotify "daily mixes", though those would be limited to what already in the library ofc.

For listenbrainz :

listenbrainz-mpd

ListenBrainz submission client for MPD written in Rust.

codeberg.org

This is what I'd try if I install moode.

Do you know if a pi zero 2w is enough for moode ?

 

[obsessive9119]

The listenbrainz integration makes it a hard problem I think.

I personally use minimserver for DLNA and various WiiMs as the the clients, but there’s no “smart” stuff there.

Everyone seems to love LMS, there are plugins for it for lots of stuff (so maybe listenbrainz) and you can use WiiMs (other than the mini) as squeezelite endpoints.

 

[Xenio]

I paid a one time fee of $45 for Plexamp. I only use it for serving my ripped CD collection and it works great for that. Their video stuff is bad because it all has ads and I refuse to watch anything with ads.

It is now 250eur for the one time fee

 

[raindance]

Heos is no good for your application? That's what I'm using with my Marantz receiver. My NAS is a media server and the remote app for the receiver works well enough.

 

[Xenio]

I tried HEOS some years ago, the app was horrible tbh ...
Maybe it's better now, guess I could try. But I don't think it will be much more than just "search music with not-great UI, send music to receiver" which is not something i'm struggling with

 

[linuxfan]

I want something open source if possible, or buy once and 100% offline.

Lyrion is open source and has a 25 year development history, and is highly regarded.
https://lyrion.org/
It was formerly known as LMS, formerly known as SqueezeBox SqueezeServer.
Lyrion normally acts as server for LMS-compatible endpoints, but it also has a "DLNA Bridge" plugin which allows it to stream to DLNA endpoints, such as your Denon AVC-X3700H.
There is a feature-rich user interface for Lyrion called "Material Skin" accessed from any web browser.

I also want to be able to have suggestions for new stuff.

One of Lyrion's standard plugins is "Last.fm Audioscrobbler (v1.0)"
I'm not familiar with this function, myself, but you could investigate.

 

[fuzzy_logic]

It is now 250eur for the one time fee

Plexamp is free unless you want any of the features that come with Plex Pass. I have Plex pass but very rarely use any of the extra features.
Not sure what you mean by offline, if you are hosting the music on a server.

 

[obsessive9119]

Not sure what you mean by offline, if you are hosting the music on a server.

Offline usually refers to lack internet connection. Though I’m not sure that fits given the listenbrainz criteria.

 

[Xenio]

Plexamp doesn't support upnp casting anyway so that's not usable

I'm trying out Lyrion / LMS, it's ok, though I struggle with upnp/dlna and there is no listenbrainz integration

I'll just buy a rpi zero 2w and put moode on it, should do eveyrthing I want, hopefully a zero 2w is powerful enough

 

[obsessive9119]

I'm trying out Lyrion / LMS, it's ok, though I struggle with upnp/dlna and there is no listenbrainz integration

Yeah if I’m honest I don’t really get the Lyrion hype. I’ve tried it and it just seemed a bit clunky.

One cool thing was integrating my local albums and Qobuz favourite into one collection. But otherwise it was a bit of a letdown, so I’m back with minimserver.

 

[Xenio]

Offline usually refers to lack internet connection. Though I’m not sure that fits given the listenbrainz criteria.

Listenbrainz could be self hosted, but I won't. I have less problems having this connected because it's not a corporate trying to make money out of this connection, rather it's helping build an open community of music suggestions for other people.
Also, it's just to get new suggestions, everything else will work if the listenbrainz link is KO.

I don't really trust Plex for not f*ing stuff later, they could one day say "yeah, no more update for lifetime plex buyers, now pay the subscription" or "this feature is sub only now" or whatever. Many other companies did things like that. Though, sure, it's not that likely to happen.

 

[linuxfan]

I struggle with upnp/dlna

Once the "DLNA Bridge" plugin is enabled, and Lyrion re-started, then your user interface of choice (iPeng, Material Skin, etc) should simply see the Denon as a valid player/endpoint.

there is no listenbrainz integration

True, but can you not use Last.fm instead? Sorry, I'm not familiar with these services.
Alternatively I see that if you have a Last.fm account, apparently you can synchronise your scrobbles to your ListenBrainz account -

https://www.reddit.com/r/lastfm/comments/1gjyguz/listenbrainz_new_lastfm_sync_option

 

[Tim Curtis]

Something that add a next song to the queue "smartly", based on what's currently being listened, symphonium for example has a feature like that and you can tune it up a bit too.
Or maybe just something that creates playlists like listenbrainz/last.fm suggestions or spotify "daily mixes", though those would be limited to what already in the library ofc.

For listenbrainz :

listenbrainz-mpd

ListenBrainz submission client for MPD written in Rust.

codeberg.org

This is what I'd try if I install moode.

Do you know if a pi zero 2w is enough for moode ?

# Listenbrainz
It looks like there was some code developed by a couple of our users late last year to do listenbrainz scrobbling.

Can MoOde scrobbles to Listenbrainz?

Apparently it works fine but they didn't take the next step and do the integration work to make it part of moode. I don't have a lot of spare bandwidth these days but maybe I'll have a look at some point.

# Smart tracks/playlists
As far as algorithmic track selection goes, its doable but not trivial for example (1) the track metadata has to have tags that aren't typically found in local music collections for example Tempo (BPM), Key (musical key), Mood (emotional tone) and some others, and (2) any tags not supported by MPD https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#tags have to be maintained in MPD's side-database called the "sticker" database https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#stickers

Commercial Music services have all the right metadata for algorithmic track selection and they have billions of tracks but in my own personal experience with several of them the feature (Discovery, Daily Mix, Just for You, etc) often runs out of interesting tracks. This would prolly happen a lot more frequently with local collections which have relatively few tracks.

# Which Pi
Its up to you and moode 9 series does run on all the 64-bit Pi's but a lot of our users find the the Pi5 is best.

 

[Xenio]

Yeah, I see the Denon, but it doesn't play anything when trying to send to it.

And yes I can use last.fm, though I prefer listenbrainz for reasons said above. Syncing both could work indeed.
I did plan to use both anyway at least at the start to see the quality of suggestions and stuff. Also if something supports listenbrainz it will support last.fm most certainly.

I didn't know we could sync, thanks.

 

[Xenio]

# Listenbrainz
It looks like there was some code developed by a couple of our users late last year to do listenbrainz scrobbling.

Can MoOde scrobbles to Listenbrainz?

Apparently it works fine but they didn't take the next step and do the integration work to make it part of moode. I don't have a lot of spare bandwidth these days but maybe I'll have a look at some point.

# Smart tracks/playlists
As far as algorithmic track selection goes, its doable but not trivial for example (1) the track metadata has to have tags that aren't typically found in local music collections for example Tempo (BPM), Key (musical key), Mood (emotional tone) and some others, and (2) any tags not supported by MPD https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#tags have to be maintained in MPD's side-database called the "sticker" database https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#stickers

Commercial Music services have all the right metadata for algorithmic track selection and they have billions of tracks but in my own personal experience with several of them the feature (Discovery, Daily Mix, Just for You, etc) often runs out of interesting tracks. This would prolly happen a lot more frequently with local collections which have relatively few tracks.

# Which Pi
Its up to you and moode 9 series does run on all the 64-bit Pi's but a lot of our users find the the Pi5 is best.

Thanks, don't worry about listenbrainz, I'm a linux sysadmin, so if it can work I'll make it work. Knowing it's possible is enough. Also now that I know I can sync last.fm with listenbrainz I can always fall back to this.

So no great track selection algorithm. I think it's okay, I'll rely on listenbrainz/last.fm generated playlists/albums and artists suggestions, it should be good enough.

I'll buy a RPI and test that out, and at worst I'll have one to do other stuff haha

 

[linuxfan]

Yeah, I see the Denon, but it doesn't play anything when trying to send to it.

Damn.
I have tested the DLNA Bridge compatibility with two endpoint devices; an AudioPro Addon C5 and a Raspberry Pi 3b+ running DietPi and GmediaRender. Both work great, but I know that the DLNA standard is so broad that certain devices simply won't play nice with each other.

EDIT: I've tested with Lyrion running under Windows and macOS, I haven't tested with Lyrion running under Linux.

 

[linuxfan]

Regarding the DLNA Bridge plugin, I just remembered -
in the Lyrion settings go to the Plugins tab, and next to the UpNP/DLNA Bridge listing, go to Settings.
I think there will be a setting for "Binary" with a drop-down selection of either "shared" or "static".
As I remember it the shared version failed, as revealed in the Lyrion logs, clearly due to operating system library incompatibility.
Choose "static" and hopefully that should work.