RPi3 + Macbook AV -

[Hummer]

Hi,

 

I would like  to set up a RPi3 + Allo BOSS with a Macbook running Audirvana.  I understand RPi needs to connected to my router.. I have AV on my Macbook.

 

My question is what software do I need to load onto the RP1 SD card  in order to use my Macbook with AV as a server and the RPi as a renderer. I intend to control everything through AV+

 

any help would be much appreciated

[franz159]

You can install Moode  and stream to the raspberry using UPnP from Audrivana, but you can maybe decide to use just Moode itself, controlling it from any browser from a smartphone or tablet, without the need of the Mac and Audirvana.

[Hummer]

Thanks Franz. I intend to use a Rasberry Pi with Allo Boss DAC and will use Audirvana with Audirvana + to control metadata. Are there any other software option to run the Pi with beside Moode which will work using the set up I am intending to use.

I presume the Pi will do the heavy lifting rather than the CPU in the Mac?

[bluesman]

Hi & welcome from one with 4 active RPis in a 13 zone Roon network. You're headed in the right direction for great sound at low cost. If you want to explore further, you might consider a few freeware options before buying Audirvana.  Audirvana's very nice, but there are a few excellent freeware players for MacOS that you might also consider.  Elmedia is mighty fine, as are 5K Player, Vox and Fidelia. Of course, you can also get VLC for your Mac or any other machine you own.

 

Your first option is to load a player bundled with its own OS onto your Pi & control it with your Mac, mobiles etc.  Franz159 is right about moOde - it's a very nice program that's currently running on a Pi3b+ in my home.  It's very easy to install and configure, and it works great except for a few odd quirks in album art display that can be fixed with some tag work (e.g. some albums with different artists on each track display each as a separate album with the same cover on my untweaked installation). You can control it from any browser on your LAN/WLAN. You might also look at OSMC / Kodi, piCorePlayer, Volumio, Rune etc.  I've tried them all and have happily lived with each for weeks to months at a time to see what I could get from them.

 

You can install a player on the default RPi OS, if you'll want to do other things with the same Pi (which I don't recommend).  As the little SBCs are not powerful computers, I keep mine (Beaglebones/'boards, Pis etc) as dedicated music machines.  MPD (Music Player Daemon) is the simplest and lightest, and there are still some nice remote and browser control apps like Cantata, MALP, and MPD Remote. MPD will play bit perfect and sounds great. There are many other good players for Pi, e.g. Clementine, if you do a web search.  And you can now run the very versatile VLC player on a Pi - It's in the current full, default Raspbian package.  None of these handles album art as well and fully as Roon, JRMC, etc.  But they all sound and work fine and cost nothing beyond any voluntary contribution you might want to make to the developer(s) supporting them.    FWIW, JRiver Media Center for RPi works very well for a bit less than Audirvana, as I recall.

 

If you want to start simple, I'd do it with an integrated RPi player/OS install as above, control it from your Mac or mobile devices, and see how you like it.  The other consideration is whether you want to be able to stream your music to your mobiles when out of the house.  You'll probably want to run JRMC on your Pi if you want to listen on the go - I don't think any of the others above will do this.  It works great as a web streamer - we've accessed our music around the world with no difficulty.