Building a New Streamer.

[jon]

Vortexbox

I had some hopes for this, until I started doing research! It is currently abandonware, the maintainer has not done an update in 2 - 3 years.

At that point I stopped even assessing it. That's a shame.

It's all too likely that Covid caused these issues, and I do hope that the maintainer comes back to it and continues developing it.

[jon]

Logitech Media Server

Another candidate. I will admit to never really investigating and assessing it. It turns out that LMS is a Media Server... it needs a renderer to actually play music.

As a server it is really good, quick to catalogue your music, provide pictures, and so on.

I was slightly put off by this, however many renderers incorporate LMS as their base Media server. You just need to be aware of it and plan steps to mitigate the issue.

I stopped doing this one, as I want a renderer and music server all in one.

[richie60]

Have you looked at Daphile?

https://daphile.com/

It’s a server and renderer in one based on LMS.

[willbewill]

Vortexbox uses LMS. But as you say it hasn't been updated for quite a while now. However it still works well except that the cover art finder no longer works ( but you can use Bliss, a pay to use plug-in to get cover art - although I just manually add it now, thankfully it's only the occasional cd added now and again as I did the bulk of my CDs whilst it was still working).

[jon]

Ap-Linux or Audiophile Linux

Based on Arch Linux, and is a complete nightmare if you are not at least familiar with Lunix and what to do. I love Arch Linux for the power it hands to the user. I hate Arch Limux for the power it hands to the user. Configuring it is never easy. For example, and there was a lot more to get it to work:

Code:

fdisk -l              # find the disk / partition, in my case /dev/sda and /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1   # build the ext4 filesystem in the root partition
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt  # mount the new file system
time cp -ax / /mnt    # copy over the OS
                      # reported back cp -ax / /mnt 1.36s user 136.54s system 88% cpu 2:36.37 total
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash # run in the new system root
cd /etc/apl-files
./runme.sh            # do the rest of the install
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda # make the new OS bootable part 1
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg   # part 2
passwd root           # set root’s password
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Pacific/Auckland /etc/localtime # set my time zone
hwclock --systohc --utc # update the hardware clock
./autologin.sh        # set the system up so that it automatically logs in
exit                  # done with the chroot session
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab # create the fstab for the new system

Ok, so one of the things I want is ease of installation. That's a fail right there.

On the other hand I liked the sound it produced, there was very little buffering and latency and jitter was virtually non-existent.

Moving on!

[jon]

Daphile

Or more particularly Daphile RT. The RT stands for Real Time.

https://www.daphile.com/

Ok, switch to Download and download the RT version. Why RT? It is better than the standard version.

Ease of Installation - totally silly:

1) download ISO
2) Burn to USB Stick
3) Configure PC to boot from USB - for the NUC that involved turning off UEFI and enforcing an USB boot.
4) Boot from USB stick
5) Access Daphile from web browser.

There was then some further configuration:

Spotify - enter username/password and you are done.
Tidal - configure LMS account and go.
Youtube - enter account
Internet Radio stations were just a click away.

The whole thing took less than 10 minutes start to finish and was painless and easy.

The sound was on a par with AP-Linux, as expected, however there was less latency and buffering. It spotted and configured my external music hard drive, and downloaded cover art very quickly. It saw and understood the Revolution DAC.

I'm keeping this.

There are some downsides, it is best on a tablet/ipad type device. You can use a phone, it's a little more cramped but not enough to be a a big problem. It pages things, so look out for the usual 1>2>3... and those numbers are small. Since I have lost the sight in my right eye, that's a problem for me.

The whole thing is a big step up from the Raspberyy PI/Volumio thing I had (as were all the distros I tried).

[richie60]

Daphile.

And for use on the iPad, or phone, you can get the ‘Material Skin’.

[willbewill]

Daphile questions-

I assume it can use internal CD to rip from.

Does it have options for backup and restore - hoping I could use my Vortexbox backup as I have a huge number of albums already ripped

Does it do a good job of pulling cover art in when ripping?

[jon]

Daphile questions-

I assume it can use internal CD to rip from.

Does it have options for backup and restore - hoping I could use my Vortexbox backup as I have a huge number of albums already ripped

Does it do a good job of pulling cover art in when ripping?

Short answer is yes to all of that.

[willbewill]

Short answer is yes to all of that.

Thanks

Just got it up and running

[willbewill]

I like the inbuilt file manager - easy to add music via it

[jon]

Hope it's a keeper for you, Malcolm.

[shadowlight]

I use iPeng on my iPhone and iPad to control the LMS on Daphile.  There are similar apps for Android.  The one difference between your setup and mine is that I installed Daphile on the internal hard drive.  From Settings —> System Firmware —> Select Installation Target.  Running my setup on an old Lenovo Celeron tiny pc I had sitting around.  I mostly stream Qobuz and have not bothered to scan my local music which is mostly in WAV and AIFF format.

I thing that you might want to do is enable plugin Donot StopMusic (not 100% sure on the exact name), which will play similar music to your last playlist or album.  I have found some good music and artist using that.

[willbewill]

I also installed on internal HD, I use Squeeze Ctrl on Android as I have for many years with Vortexbox.

[jon]

I thing that you might want to do is enable plugin Donot StopMusic (not 100% sure on the exact name), which will play similar music to your last playlist or album.  I have found some good music and artist using that.

I go through phases of enabling that. Currently off!

A friend just mentioned Jane's Addiction - apparently it's a legendary rock band. Sad truth, from my perspective, I've never heard of them. Currently running through their stuff.  So am always open to other people's music.