Streamers + local flac confused about solution

[Longfellow78]

You should really tell us what your equipment is if you want good answers. No need to be shy about it.

Have you tested Spotify against your CDs blind? It may not be as bad as you think, at least for Premium. I found differences blind, and use Qobuz, but they are rare, and you may lose some favourite tracks and built up information by changing.

To be honest I use lossless because of a bit of audiophile paranoia, the differences I found weren’t really important.

Good point!
I have a Fiio M11s as the DAP running Android 10 sometimes connected to an Smsl Do400 dac/amp, going to Fostex T60rp/Phillips shp9500. Also my PC is connected to the smsl via USB as the main source. I would like to play my flacs from the dap sd card, along with a streaming from I think Tidal. Also the same for the PC, with flacs on a NAS or PC hard drive and tidal.

I could just play them separately but it would be much nicer to do it in the same Interfsce.

I did test Spotify against my cds and could definitley hear a difference in clarity and treble sparkle and instrument separation.

Thanks.

 

[Galliardist]

OK. LMS will only play local files from a server. Your Fiio can control that playback, but it won't play your local files from the SD card.

The product that may do this is Plexamp, but it requires a paid addin to do what you want, or at least did.
Kodi can sometimes do what you want but is hard to set up and apparently doesn't work on all devices.

Apple Music can do some of these things on Android but the Windows "preview" version is horrible at the moment, and you'd use Apple Music as your streaming service.

I'm not an Android person, someone else may know a better option.

Personally, I'd build something nice to use on the PC, and on the Fiio I'd just get your local music working normally and add the direct streaming app: and make sure that what you have happening is avoiding the Android inbuilt audio and therefore conversion. Of course you could have Fiio working as a controller to the app on your PC when at home, if you choose a suitable product.

I deliberately referred to blind testing between Spotify premium and your CD files, and make sure you are doing that without internal bitrate conversion on whatever you are testing with. It should be very hard to hear a difference if everything is working properly and you don't know which format is playing.

 

[ZolaIII]

Meho... JRiver is not free but it works the best (for me at least). You go USB to DAC and create DLNA server for DAP. Use WDM driver so all native apps and browsers go trough it as DSP. Future more you can apply different sets of DSP chain to DLNA (from wired) for headphones you will use. Really don't know how good FiiO software is, last time I checked it whosent very good. You can also side load apps to it but I can't guarantee how good and smooth that will work. Mentioning for the JRiver Jremote2 app (which also isn't free or great) that can serve as WiFi remote for basic playback on both with volume control and browser for local media.

 

[BillG]

It might be possible to have LMS play files that are local to your DAP via its Drop'n'Drag plugin:

7.9: Drag'n'drop to the web UI / play any file from your computer - Squeezebox : Community : Forums

Formerly known as SlimServer and Squeezecenter and Squeezebox Server and Slimp3.

forums.slimdevices.com

However, it's not something I've used myself. So I can't be certain about it.

 

[Longfellow78]

Thanks for all responses. Will read and reply later. Cooking Xmas lunch now! Cheers.