Squeezebox alternative? Trying Android SB Player app, BUT!

NeilF · 29 Jun 2021 at 14:35

So I'm looking for an alternative to my beloved Squeezebox Player, playing music from my Logitech Media Server on my PC.

I've tried the android app SB Player on a Amazon Fire 4K Ultra box I had lying around and although it works, I think it might be processing the audio instead of passing it out of the the HDMI lead unmolested.

Most obviously, if I play any of my DTS tracks/music, white noise!

Anyone have any simple Squeezebox alternatives which can pass the music to my Onkyo amp unmolested, especially DTS format?

PieEater · 29 Jun 2021 at 18:42

Just put together a Raspberry Pi media player with a USB DAC and MoOde, couldn't believe how simple it was and really pleased with the results. A quick Google suggests MoOde integrates well with LMS but that's not something I can comment on as I have my files locally on the SD card. Something to consider anyhow.

NeilF · 29 Jun 2021 at 18:57

PieEater said:
Just put together a Raspberry Pi media player with a USB DAC and MoOde, couldn't believe how simple it was and really pleased with the results. A quick Google suggests MoOde integrates well with LMS but that's not something I can comment on as I have my files locally on the SD card. Something to consider anyhow.

Seems to be a suggestion to put a form of Squeeze Player on one of these things... Never touched a Raspberry Pi though.

hornetstinger · 29 Jun 2021 at 18:57

I'm sticking to my squeezebox, nothing really out there which is as affordable and works well enough for red book audio.

Sonos? Expensive and limited to 65,000 tracks.

NeilF · 29 Jun 2021 at 18:59

hornetstinger said:
I'm sticking to my squeezebox, nothing really out there which is as affordable and works well enough for red book audio.

Sonos? Expensive and limited to 65,000 tracks.

For the moment you can pick up the old hardware on EBay. But that'll disappear slowly...

hornetstinger · 29 Jun 2021 at 19:04

NeilF said:
Seems to be a suggestion to put a form of Squeeze Player on one of these things... Never touched a Raspberry Pi though.

The whole point of Lms and SB is supposed to be easy to use. Lms auto starts on Synology nas.

I've got a raspberry pi. I have some computer experience but messing around with Linux, no bring HDD, auto mount, auto start Lms. Nah

hornetstinger · 29 Jun 2021 at 19:10

NeilF said:
For the moment you can pick up the old hardware on EBay. But that'll disappear slowly...

Yeah but for the price...I picked up SB touch for £50.

Cheap multiroom .

PieEater · 29 Jun 2021 at 19:25

NeilF said:
Seems to be a suggestion to put a form of Squeeze Player on one of these things... Never touched a Raspberry Pi though.

Me neither but it was a lot simpler than I was expecting, from opening the box of bits to playing music probably took me 30 minutes, no messing with linux, you can easily set up and access network shares through MoOde. Volumio was possibly simpler to use but the sound quality is noticeably better with MoOde. You just insert the MicroSD card after you've loaded the OS turn the Pi on and configure and control the player over the internet via a browser, on any device, so once connected to your wireless network the Pi is just a dumb box with a power and output lead.

NeilF · 29 Jun 2021 at 21:22

PieEater said:
Me neither but it was a lot simpler than I was expecting, from opening the box of bits to playing music probably took me 30 minutes, no messing with linux, you can easily set up and access network shares through MoOde. Volumio was possibly simpler to use but the sound quality is noticeably better with MoOde. You just insert the MicroSD card after you've loaded the OS turn the Pi on and configure and control the player over the internet via a browser, on any device, so once connected to your wireless network the Pi is just a dumb box with a power and output lead.

Yeh, I'd go optical toslink so would just need that hardware. Does your Pi just sit there on 24/7?

PieEater · 30 Jun 2021 at 06:45

NeilF said:
Yeh, I'd go optical toslink so would just need that hardware. Does your Pi just sit there on 24/7?

You can easily leave it on 24/7 I got the FLIRC case which passively cools the CPU so there's no fan to worry about, it just sits unobtrusively in it's little case doing it's stuff. Personally I turn mine off when I'm not using it via the power option in MoOde (no power switch on the Pi) and just flick the power switch at the wall to boot it back up which it does in seconds.

You can get an add-on card (hat) for the Pi to give you a toslink output from ~£26 (HiFiBerry Digi+) but that will limit your case options if you don't want to run it naked. Otherwise something like the Topping D10s will give you the toslink connection via USB. If you're going to to use a USB DAC then you will need the Pi v4 as previous versions had issues with the USB and Ethernet busses sharing resources leading to interference in some cases.