Plexamp bit-perfect Google cast?

Plex Players
1

In my listening setup I have both a Chromecast audio and a Raspberry PI 4 with Plexamp headless.

I’m considering to replace both with the new WiiM Pro network streamer. As an addition to the WiiM mini, the Pro now supports the Chromecast protocol.

So I suppose I should be able to stream to it from Plexamp.

However, if I stream to my current Chromecast Audio, I’m always getting a samplerate of 48khz. With the WiiM I’d like this to match my source sample rate. Is there a setting that I missed or is it due to hardware limitations of the original Chromecast Audio? (As far as I’m aware, it should be able to handle up to 96Khz/24bit)

2

I just enabled the DLNA server in Plex and tried casting with the Hifi-cast app…

Now the samplerates are matched! 96Khz/24bit with no issues. So it’s a software thing in Plexamp, it seems.

My high resolution source files are mostly in ALAC format as I manage my library in iTunes.

*edit: I’ve just confirmed that a 44100hz mp3 file casted from Plexamp, generates a 44.1Khz stream from the Chromecast. Any AIFF or ALAC file is always transcoded to 48Khz. My library is 80% ALAC, 10% AIFF and the rest in mp3 since I manage it through Apple Music on my Mac. So what to do? (apart from converting my entire library) :sweat_smile:

3

TL;DR: ditch Apple Music. Convert everything to FLAC and only FLAC from this point forward.





If you want actual hi quality on specifically Chromecasts, Your problem is 1) to ditch Apple Music entirely 2) use the following listed approved file formats that Chromecasts will natively play:

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While ALAC is ideal to use in Apple Music, it’s proprietary and set for Apple devices and will result in having to be transcoded elsewhere.

ALWAYS use a standard such as FLAC.

FLAC with support for high-resolution streams (24-bit / 96 KHz)​

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4

Thanks for the explanation! I thought that Alac was just another container for Flac, but with the possibility to store metadata… if only Apple would add support for Flac inside of iTunes/Apple Music app…

However, I’m on the verge of getting myself the new WiiM Pro streamer which is advertised to have full Alac support and compared to the WiiM Mini from last year, now has Google Cast functionality built-in.

If Alac support is a limitation of the actual Google smart-speakers & Chromecast devices, on a hardware level, is it safe to assume the WiiM will probably play Alac natively without transcoding? Even though I would use the same protocol? (Chromecast from Plexamp on my Android phone)

… if it works out like that (I hope so since I just committed to Plex with a lifetime pass), I’ll be able to sell both my RB PI and Chromecast Audio :slight_smile:

  • btw, wider integration with Plex is also on their roadmap, according to the WiiM forums
5

Right, I’m going to migrate my entire library from Apple Music to Swinsian: a Mac only music library manager with the option to consolidate my library in a specified folder, just like iTunes/Apple Music does… And with Flac support of course :wink:

I’ll just do a batch conversion of Alac → Flac, but first: downloading my entire library from my NAS to a quick SSD to speed things up a little