Raspberry Pi troubleshooting and configuration instructions for complete f'ing morons

nvm figured it out.

So far, Gentooplayer sounds better than my previous Moode install, but we'll see...

 

I discovered something very cool about RopieeXL. It ignores the volume on your iOS / Mac device when you use airplay to a Pi2AES. I don't know about other streamers. You have to raise the volume up from the default 30% that your Mac or iOS device switches to when you switch to a Pi2AES or streamer every time with MoOde, This is sort of a minor thing if you do it once, but when you do it 30 times etc this winds up being very cool.

I don't use airplay for "serious" listening (how serious? ) but I use it all the time for music discovery like band camp and artist radio stations, and "people who like this artist also like" etc.

Has anyone ever heard a difference in SQ between RopieXL and MoOde? I really like using MoOde for some reason and have this idea that it sounds the best but that might just be because of something I read a long time ago, or because Volumio sucks.

 

VPN compatibility

This is a bit off topic and I know this stuff can be overdone, but here goes. I have always tried to take steps to manage cyber risk. Recently, I added a VPN and the most convenient way to use it is to keep it "on" all the time. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to forget to turn it on when I decide to buy something online. Of course, the problem is that I lose communication with my RPi/PiCorePlayer since I use my phone and Material Skin as a remote control. As far as I know, none of the RPi software we talk about here are capable of being added to a VPN so this is a potential problem for all of us.

The favorite way of dealing with this for VPN companies is to work with a router maker to develop a way to secure your entire local network in a VPN. Unfortunately, that means you are stuck with the router they choose. For now, I will have to be a lot more thoughtful about turning the VPN on and off when I am home. Anybody got a better solution?

 

I agree this seems nicer at least for my setup. You can hack in the same behavior assuming you never want to change the volume on your device. If you ssh into your moode instance and do:

sudo nano /etc/shairport-sync.conf

then scroll down a bit until you see this line:

// ignore_volume_control = "no"; // set this to "yes" if you want the volume to be at 100% no matter what the source's volume control is set to.

Change it to:

ignore_volume_control = "yes"; // set this to "yes" if you want the volume to be at 100% no matter what the source's volume control is set to.

then hit control-x and save the file. Go back to the audio configuration section and restart the airplay renderer and it will always play at max volume. You can also set the max volume to use in the same file if you don’t like 100% but I assume you are using a pre-amp or something to set the volume.

There shouldn’t be too much difference between any of the Linux distro audio players since they all use the same basic components. You can tweak different Linux settings to theoretically improve latency but the version of Linux in use now has improved latency quite a bit since the old days and processors have improved enough so it’s not likely to be an issue anymore (all things being equal rt is better but it’s not likely to be an audible difference anymore). I know moode was starting to do a lot of stuff with CamillaDSP and the same contributor was behind getting mpd to support auto-resampling like 16/44.1 to 24/176.4 so that may be a nice improvement depending on your use case. I’m not sure what has been happening recently with any of the distros though.

 

Has anyone compared the upsampling of MoOde with other upsampling, for example HQ Player or Roon?

I haven't quite figured out the SSH stuff, but I'm thinking of trying MoOde.

 

I run some sacd files in .dsd format into my shit dacs at 24/88.2 or 24/176.4 pcm and it works very well. You can also preset up up sampling as in everything 16bit 44hz set to 24/96 and so forth.

 

Hi Jac,

Maybe this reference will help? : https://forums.slimdevices.com/foru...ftware/103511-running-picoreplayer-over-a-vpn

Mike

 

So BubbleUPNP has the option to stream music from Dropox, Google Drive or One drive.

This would obviously be much simpler than setting up a NAS, But the problem is uploading all your music to the cloud, which would take weeks. And then having to upload every new album over the internet.

Any thoughts on this? I've just bought a NAS from the brilliant @earnmyturns so am setting up my own music library right now. But the NAS setup is a bit over my head and will take a lot of energy and time to get the system working. So I was just curious about the other options built into BubbleUPNP.

Do any of these cloud services allow you to send them a hard drive for the initial upload of your whole music library? My online cloud computer backup service iDrive does this and it's' really great.

Cheers!

 

What is a good music player software for the Rpi running its stock OS? I use Deadbeef on my Ubuntu laptop, but it looks like they don't have a version for ARM. Same with Foobar which I have also used in the past. Installed Rythmbox, and of course there is VLC which I plan to use for video, but just wondering if there are any other suggestions. Going to see if I can get the Pi2AES working with a complete OS rather than the lightweight Volumio OS I have been using.

 

I've not used Bubble but both Synology and Qnap have DLNA/uPNP servers available, I'd expect other NAS to have that functionality as well. You should be able to just enable that and point Bubble to your NAS on your local LAN and be good to go.

 

@Michael Kelly I'm confused, why the dislike? You gave it a like when I mentioned trying Rpi OS in the Pi2AES thread.

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...y-your-pc-or-laptop.8878/page-134#post-427245

Having a full GUI would allow for much more customization. Might even try HQplayer Desktop for ARM if the Pi has enough horsepower.

 

Lol, he probably fat fingered the button. He likes any post with pi2aes mentioned

 

Yeah how does he know? I picture him writing his own SBAF “Pi2AES” crawler application.

 

Fat fingers, small phone, old eyes! I have corrected it

 

Well done ! I use moode and PI2AES for everything streaming local files. One PI2AES has a 2TB ssd and it's been flawless.

 

I can’t suggest a player as I haven’t used a Pi as a player with a UI, but in case you haven’t stumbled over it yet, I’d suggest DietPi as OS. Very easy to manage distribution that always only installs the bare minimum required for the chosen software and is very easy to manage (for people used to Linux distributions). They have a number of media players to choose from, too, though most of them are meant to be controlled through remote means.