What audio system do you have, or plan on getting?

[DavidW]

I'd be interested in any details of your Raspberry Pi solution.

Same here.

[Mandryka]

Here's a thread I started on building a Rasberry Pi squeezebox. My advice is to just buy the stuff and do it. That forum will help you out if you have any questions - you can see it wasn't plain sailing for me. It's easier to do than to think about doing.


https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?110533-Some-Rasberry-Pi-LMS-questions-for-a-complete-beginner

[Daverz]

Here's a thread I started on building a Rasberry Pi squeezebox. My advice is to just buy the stuff and do it. That forum will help you out if you have any questions - you can see it wasn't plain sailing for me. It's easier to do than to think about doing.

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?110533-Some-Rasberry-Pi-LMS-questions-for-a-complete-beginner

I use an RPi4 running piCorePlayer.  I just use the standard plastic Pi4 case and power supply that you get with one of the kit offerings from pishop.us or similar retail site.  The Pi board just snaps into the case; no tools needed.  If you don't already have one, make sure you have a microSD card writer.

This seems to have everything you need: https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4b-starter-kit/

piCorePlayer is at https://www.picoreplayer.org/

LMS is at https://mysqueezebox.com/download

My Pi4 is connected to the network via ethernet and then to my USB DAC (Auralic Vega DAC).  The DAC is connected directly to my power amp (Bryston 3B-SST).  I've also tested with with the little Topping E30 DAC, which works great (and costs about 1/30 of what I paid for the Auralic back in 2014!). 

I use the Material Skin plugin and a browser to control the whole thing.  This gives you a uniform interface across phone, tablet and PC.

You should also be able to run LMS server on the Pi4 itself (it's just a config checkbox).  I have not tested this myself, but I've read reports that it works well.

[DavidW]

David - I forgot to ask which network player you got  ... or did I miss that?

Cambridge Audio CXN v2.  Expensive but the only cheaper one which has a display (I really wanted that) is a Marantz streamer that doesn't natively support Qobuz nor Primephonic nor Idagio.

[Fëanor]

I use an RPi4 running piCorePlayer.  I just use the standard plastic Pi4 case and power supply that you get with one of the kit offerings from pishop.us or similar retail site.  The Pi board just snaps into the case; no tools needed.  If you don't already have one, make sure you have a microSD card writer.

This seems to have everything you need: https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4b-starter-kit/

piCorePlayer is at https://www.picoreplayer.org/

LMS is at https://mysqueezebox.com/download

My Pi4 is connected to the network via ethernet and then to my USB DAC (Auralic Vega DAC).  The DAC is connected directly to my power amp (Bryston 3B-SST).  I've also tested with with the little Topping E30 DAC, which works great (and costs about 1/30 of what I paid for the Auralic back in 2014!). 

I use the Material Skin plugin and a browser to control the whole thing.  This gives you a uniform interface across phone, tablet and PC.

You should also be able to run LMS server on the Pi4 itself (it's just a config checkbox).  I have not tested this myself, but I've read reports that it works well.

Well this looks very interesting and helpful but I have a few questions maybe that Daverz or someone could answer for me.

Presently my "streamer" is a modest, (Internet connected), Windows PC desktop running Foobar2000;  music files are on my Synology NAS and accessed by the PC via ethernet.  I don't subscribe to Tidal or the like but it's a future possibility.

What would be the advantages for me of a Raspberry Pi4 streamer?  As I see it, perhaps the smaller footprint of the Raspberry device and control of my music interface using an Android tablet.  Any other advantages?

I believe I can run LMS on the Synology NAS if that was an advantage versus the Raspberry itself.

[Mandryka]

What would be the advantages for me of a Raspberry Pi4 streamer?  As I see it, perhaps the smaller footprint of the Raspberry device and control of my music interface using an Android tablet.  Any other advantages?

I believe I can run LMS on the Synology NAS if that was an advantage versus the Raspberry itself.

Can you get your music into your hifi wirelessly.
Can you control your music through a tablet/phone app?
Can you search your music database by tags?
Can you put spotify, qobuz, youtube tidal etc in a playlist?
Can you move the music you're listening to from one room to another?
Can you find what tracks you were listening to yesterday, last week?

[DavidW]

Mandryka are you asking Daverz, Feonor, ultralinear, myself?  For myself it is yes to everything but the last two.

[Mandryka]

Feonor, sorry, I will now make it clear.

[Daverz]

What would be the advantages for me of a Raspberry Pi4 streamer?  As I see it, perhaps the smaller footprint of the Raspberry device and control of my music interface using an Android tablet.  Any other advantages?

You would not need the PC to be on to play music or run a cable from the PC to the hi-fi.  The Pi has such low power consumption that you can just leave it on continuously.  In addition to LMS, there are several other music servers available for the Pi (e.g. Volumnio, Moode... I tried Volumnio and much prefer LMS.)  I mention these just to emphasize that you are not stuck with LMS. 

The other advantages are LMS features: you can multiple access points in the house that can play simultaneously and independently or synchronized.  It's a mature software ecosystem (how's that for a buzzword?) with a large number of plugins available.  I'm too lazy to list all the features.     

For classical music, LMS (7.9 and up) has a composer (lists any albums with tracks by the selected composer) and conductor menus by default and you can create separate libraries for classical and other music.  That's the easiest way to browse your classical music without having to create custom tags. 

There is also the 3rd party "Custom Browse" plugin that I've used to create a custom WORK tag so I can browse using  COMPOSER -> WORK -> RECORDING menus.  Custom Browse Is very flexible, though somewhat funky.  You'll need to start with LMS 7.9 to install Custom Browse and Custom Scan, after which you can upgrade LMS as usual (as I said, a bit funky right now).

https://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.9   

Tangentially, the LMS Qobuz plugin allows browsing by classical work on each Qobuz album if Qobuz provides that info, a really helpful feature as you can often not tell works just by the titles.

I just have two "access points" in my home, one for my speaker rig in the living room and another for my headphone system in the bedroom.  Both have independent "room correction" (obviously just "correction" in the case of the headphones.) 

I believe I can run LMS on the Synology NAS if that was an advantage versus the Raspberry itself.

You might want to search the squeezebox forum to see what the current state of the Synology port is.  Just a cursory search found this discussion:

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?111876-LmsUpdate-and-LmsRepack-Synology-8-0-*-packages/page31

In any case, you don't need to move your music files.

 

[Fëanor]

Daverz, thanks for you info and comments above;  potentially very useful esp. with respect to LMS.

You did touch on a major concern of my which is the search capability of the music players.  I have many years of experience with Foobar2000 which I like given the customization that I've worked out.  I relay exclusively on metadata tags for find what I'm looking for, and of course, a 'Compose' sort is essential.  (A few months ago I briefly tried Tidal but found trying to search by Composers there was close useless.  I dropped Tital and certainly was going pay for a subscription given that deficiency.)

All my media files are stored on my NAS so I can access them from any where with network access not only with computer but smart phone and even smart TV -- computer is best of course.

[Harry]

Replaced my Yamaha streamer WXC 50 with a Bluesound 2i. The musiccast app from Yamaha is unstabile and their interface is a bloody nuisance. Apart from that the Bluesound is much better in presenting the music. Did an A-B comparison.

[DavidW]

Replaced my Yamaha streamer WXC 50 with a Bluesound 2i. The musiccast app from Yamaha is unstabile and their interface is a bloody nuisance. Apart from that the Bluesound is much better in presenting the music. Did an A-B comparison.

Yes I had considered the Bluesound but I really wanted a display on the player.

[Harry]

Yes I had considered the Bluesound but I really wanted a display on the player.

Me too, but that cost a lot of euros/dollars/pounds more, and is often not adding to the quality of sound.
For me this  was the best deal, about 550 euros but sounding like a 1500 euro costing streamer.
Reviews are raving.

[Mandryka]

Anyone got one of these?

[steve ridgway]

That looks fun although I'm not so sure about the headphone version.

[Harry]

Replaced my Yamaha streamer WXC 50 with a Bluesound 2i. The musiccast app from Yamaha is unstabile and their interface is a bloody nuisance. Apart from that the Bluesound is much better in presenting the music. Did an A-B comparison.

I can now confirm that the Bluesound 2i is far superior to the Yamaha. Natural, with a deep stage, excellent detail, a broad image, and a lot of orchestral punch.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Anyone got one of these?

Interesting!  So, to use it, one would have to hook it up to a gas tank? 

[Mandryka]

Interesting!  So, to use it, one would have to hook it up to a gas tank? 

And the sound quality would be improved if you had very expensive gas pipes.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

And the sound quality would be improved if you had very expensive gas pipes.

lol

[Klavier]

Acapella Audio Arts High Cellini speakers
Ayon Audio Auris II with phono stage preamp
Ayon Audio Orthos II XS mono blocks power amps
Transrotor Apollon TMD turntable; TR 5012 tonearm
Clearaudio Titanium v2 cartridge
dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD; MSB Premiere DAC (for hi-res files/streaming)
Stax SR-009S/Stax SRM-T8000 headphones/amp
Nordost Tyr 2 speaker cables/interconnects
Solid Tech Reference NOS4 rack and amplifier stands