At home, I have a Denon with Heos and use Plex to manage my music on my NAS and then use Heos to stream music from the NAS. My main problem is that I do not like the way the Heos app functions, including the fact that it doesn’t have easy features like playlist creation, etc that can be found in Plexamp.
When I am out, I use Plexamp to play files from the same NAS. I very much like Plexamp and the features such as playlists, gapless playback, etc. I would prefer to use Plexamp to stream music to my Denon. It would be nice if Plexamp could cast to the Denon or any other DLNA device.
How about looking into the present where RB Pi’s are still very hard to get your hands on?
Dedicated endpoint network streamers like the newly announced NAD CS1 and especially the super affordable WiiM Pro make a Raspberry Pi + audio hat a though sell. Any plans on native support with those kind of devices?
do you already have a Neo, or thinking of getting one?
i see there are versions with 256MB or 512MB memory … Plexamp would probably be happier with 512MB … but as noted above, it wouldn’t hurt to try 256MB if you already have it
i also recommend the NanoPi R5C … more memory (4GB), HDMI out, fast wifi + dual ethernet ports, nice metal case … recently released and already supported by DietPi … more expensive than a Neo, but still less than almost any commercial streamer … ok, so you pay a bit extra with your time and effort … plenty of us here to help with that
No I don’t have a NanoPi board yet… actually I sold my RB Pi setup (running Plexamp headless) + Chromecast Audio halfway through december, to buy the WiiM Pro - hoping to be able to stream to it from Plexamp. I also just got a lifetime Plexpass
The WiiM Pro (not shipped yet) has Chromecast support, but that’s probably not going to be gapless. I’ll also give LMS a try. Plexamp will still be used for remote listening at least, but it would’ve been nice to be able to stream to the WiiM as well… hence the request for DLNA support
If LMS doesn’t really cut it, I’ll probably look into getting one of the cheaper SBC’s available and make a dedicated Plexamp streamer
Okay, on the WiiM forums, somebody was looking for a way to get a “now playing” status on a hdmi display and somebody suggested the 35$ Inovato Quadra.
I dug into it a little further and eventually found a tutorial on how to install their (Armbian Based, 64 bit) firmware on other devices with the same chipset, including this Turewell Q+, which already has spdif output built-in! This would eliminate the need for a HAT for digital audio.
@elan do you think it could run Plexamp headless on top of the Inovato distro? And what’s the chance of spdif working natively? I’m very tempted!
edit: nevermind… I just read on their forums that in their own “Quadra” box, the spdif port is not supported by the firmware. So safe to say it’s not going to work with the alternative Android boxes either.
Does that mean that Plexamp users with all the DLNA enabled devices are recommended to replace them by pairs of RB Pi and an active speaker? In my case this would mean to replace six devices…
… and lose more than 800 Euro money spent for my six devices… I’m pretty sure I’d be not the only user irritated by that.
Frankly spoken I see a certain attitude in your words and I admit not to like it very much. Finally I have to accept your decision that is business driven, and obviously it’s not a feature that will gain your business.
I want people using Plexamp to have an amazing experience, and benefit from all the little details and nuances we’ve lovingly built into the product over many years.
The experience DLNA casting provides is objectively bad, in terms of latency starting/stopping, in terms of ability to do cross-fading and other “stream effects” and in terms of being able to independently “run” a play queue without a controlling device present. There is also a wide variation in terms of codecs and features supported, as it is a protocol designed by committee.
That’s why we won’t support DLNA, nothing business related.
Then connect the RPi Digi to your digital input on your Denon/Marantz/Harmony (pre-)amp or WiiM Amp for secondary rooms.
Then you might end up with something like this:
Seen from the back:
Moving away from my sonos over to WiiM since sonos have poor support for older port/amp devices, and seems to be all about soundbars and listening “smart” speakers these days!
I also find the WiiM Amp to have better audio quality (better clarity/dynamic and broader stereo-“picture”) than my older sonos Amp!
Or something in the NanoPi family with brilliant metal cases (e.g. NanoPi R4S).
I personally recommend USB audio over the hats, they’re more universal and we’ve heard of fewer issues, this one is my favorite: HiFimeDIY UAE23 USB DAC (Sabre ES9023) | Great sounding DAC with a great DAC for the price and does SPDIF out.
speaker aux port already connected to PC, Bluetooth ready for phones, dlna always free for anything.
Tell me what’s future? Chromecast? Airplay? Sonos? Why not support something old fashion but popular?
I was looking to Wiim to replace my Chromecast Audio devices, but prefer Plexamp as my player. Since Plexamp doesn’t do Chromecast on Windows, and Wiim doesn’t do Plexamp, I’m looking at alternatives. DLNA seemed like a possibility, but not an option on Plexamp.
