Dummies Guide to Pi2AES! Throw away your PC or laptop.

I flashed it but don't know how to access it. RoPieeeXL, moOde and Volumio worked out of the box.

I just want to listen to music, I don't want to fiddle with Linux. I wasted five years of my life using different Linux distros and trying to get the most basic stuff to work. I'm done with that. So I think DietPi is not for me. Although I like the lightweight approach (and still like Linux, I just don't want to spend my life time at the command line).

 

If you want something that “just works” then maybe a DIY SBC with a 3rd party sound card running a free (or nearly free) OS, based on a Linux distro isn’t for you. You may have to look elsewhere (and open up your wallet at the same time). Just sayin. Otherwise you work with what’s available. Most of the time the tricky part is configuring these things to work, and then after that they just run (and you use your control app of choice). Until of course an update comes along.

 

Use the version with Allo gui not the stock one, it comes with everything preconfigured so you don't have to fiddle with linux

 

Alright, thanks thanks thanks!

Of course I couldn't stop it and already got the normal DietPi to stream but didn't hear any sound. Oh yeah, forgot to configure the Pi2AES, but how....?

Then your tip with the Allo GUI was just right on time. Everything plays indeed just fine, not only the Sonarworks VST is working, but also the Hi Res files that would not play beforehand are now. Yeeehaaa!!

I still prefer the RoPieeeXL software approach and how developer Harry tried to help was simply amazing, but in the end it has to work with my configuration. Will settle with Dietpi Allo version for now and start to fiddle around with the settings

 

Just curious, why did you expect DietPi to work better?

Right now DietPi and Volumio are working and moOde and RoPieeeXL are not with my configuration. Also this changed with updates. I did not expect this, because I did not know that there seem to be different UPnP/DLNA implementations. I thought there was one defined standard and that's it. Like HDMI etc.

 

I've been using rpi based transports for years now and out of all the appliance OSes I used DietPi seems to be most reliable of the bunch (Ropieee is also pretty good but it did fail me once and required reflashing the sd card)

UPnP is very loose standard with capabilities varying between different implementations, some upnp endpoints will do hires, some won't. Some will do gapless, some won't. The main reason Roon decided not to support UPnP endpoints at all was to avoid having to deal with stuff such as gapless not working on a device that claims to support it because manufacturer decided to misreport device capabilities.

 

Is there a way to get MoOde and bubbleupnp to play gapless through the Pi2AES? The gaps between songs are one thing but it also makes my Gungnir click between each song.

 

Yes, you need to go to BubbleUPnP menu, render settings for the UPnP render in moOde, and turn on Gapless.

 

awesome! Thank you! I looked around but didn’t find that. My brain is so grateful.

 

Before you blab back at me ( ), if your playlist has different bitrates, then your DAC will do the quick pause/click since it needs to readjust the sampling rate. If the album is same bitrate when it should work most of the time with no problems. Even using BubbleUPnP is doesn't 100% always work for some reason....which is why I'm a Roon whore.

 

Ok, now that gapless is fixed... my last annoyance with Moode/BubbleUPnP is cover art (using qobuz). The art appears on my phone, but isn't passed to the Moode UI. I'd like for it to be displayed on my rPi display, rather than "moOde" in big white letters where the cover art should be.

(I really wish Roon would open up remote access so I could just use it at the office, and ditch bubble...)

 

Interesting. Moode shows artwork in the web interface when I use BubbleUPnP. I am using moOde as the DLNA server as well, but the artwork is low-res so I know it's being served by the upnp client and not from the local cache.

 

Hmm... I'm using Bubble purely to stream from qobuz to moode. Local files I play directly in moode. I have the bubble renderer turned on, but not the dlna server (or the upnp media browser). Let me turn those both on and see what happens.
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turning those on did nothing for me, I even rebooting moode and my phone. grumble
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when I go to the "now playing" screen in moode, it tells me "cover art not found" at the top of the screen. But the art is plainly found and visible in bubble. grumble grumble

 

It seems like moOde creates a separate cache for DLNA cover art and sends it along with the file to whatever client you are using.

Not sure why it's not working with qobuz, but it probably has to do with the DLNA standard vs whatever qobuz is using.

 

Artwork in moOde is crap. I also don't like how small the artwork thumbnail is if using the built in UPnP Server thingy with moOde. This is why I install AssetUPnP within PI/moOde since this is my favorite UPnP Server software and Artwork is the original size of the file. It is also quick. Only issue is that I can't figure it out why it won't restart when I shut off the PI automatically (even if the developer said it is in program itself), which is why in the rare moments I have to shut off the UPnP server within PI I just access the SSH terminal and put it back on. Takes three minutes.

 

Can't do folder browsing in Roon, which they do it for a good reason. Hence I do 90% Roon and 10% UPnP. There at times I need Folder browsing since it's quicker for me to find stuff than Roon. I'm weird.

 

I like that their is a better option to try, I dislike that I need to take the time to figure it out. I don't know anything about linux/SSH/etc. Is there a dummies guide somewhere?

I use Roon 100% at home, but until they provide a way to remote in, I'm stuck with something else at the office (I'm not about to get another subscription)

 

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?45478-Asset-UPnP-for-Linux-instructions-x86-Raspberry-Pi

But here's the deal, it isn't the most user friendly process and you have to learn to use terminal for a few minutes. Only other option is to do a Zoom call with you so you can learn the basics.

 

Let me play over the weekend... if I can't get it to work then I may take you up on your zoom offer.