Substitute for Chomecast audio?

[bluesman]

On 4/21/2019 at 3:49 AM, firedog said:

Looking for something with similar functionality: wifi, USB connection possible. 

Anyone found anything that works well?

 

You need to be more specific - your intentions are not clear. If you're looking for an endpoint device you can power from an active speaker's USB port but not output to USB, you may be out of luck.  CCA's the only simple, inexpensive device I've seen that gets power from USB, and it only delivers audio output via 3.5mm TRS analog or 3.5mm optical digital.   If you want to power an endpoint directly and send audio to your active speaker via USB, a Raspberry Pi costs the same $35 that a CCA used to cost and does the job as well (or better.   You just have to install an endpoint, e.g. Roon Bridge, Volumio, Moode, etc.  JRMC runs well on a Pi too.

 

But if you're trying to avoid running any wires except between the speaker and the endpoint, I don't know of anything as simple and effective as CCA.

[bluesman]

10 minutes ago, firedog said:

Sort of don't want a discontinued product. Not looking for a superaudiophile level piece - it 's for a secondary setup and will mostly be doing internet radio. 

You can do this with any phone or tablet (Android or iOS) that has an analog ‘phone jack. Power it from the USB port and run a 3.5mm cable from device out to speaker in.

 

I bought a new 7” Android tablet on sale for $35 at Best Buy a few months ago to use on stage for lyrics. But I put Roon on it and use it at home too. There are many players and streaming endpoints available for these devices that will do what you want.

 

My iPhone 4s is long retired from service, but it still works fine as a network device. JRemote is intact, although the old processor won’t run any of the Roon instances.

[bluesman]

On 4/29/2019 at 12:03 PM, jcbenten said:

I am interested in your experiences with the Volumio.  I have an unnatural fear of Linux and have yet to try a Pi.

 

You don't need to worry about Linux on a Pi any more than you do about Android or iOS (both of which started with Linux kernel variants under the hood) on your computer, phone or tablet.  The stock OS (Raspbian) is Debian, but the GUI is all you'll ever work with and it's as easy and intuitive as Windows or Mac to use.  You're already running JRMC & Foobar according to your footer, so all you need to do is stick the OS on an SD card, put the Pi on your network,  and connect it to your DAC or powered speakers either by USB or analog output. If you can configure Foobar, you'll have no trouble at all with Raspbian.

 

The latest Raspbian images have VLC included as the default player. Yes, it's a video player - but it'll play bit perfect FLACs etc up to 24 bit as I recall.  It's a terrible library management tool , which is irrelevant if you're only using it as a JRMC or Foobar endpoint.  I don't think it'll play native hi res files, although I never tried  There are dozens of other great players you can easily download and install, but VLC's pretty good and requires no effort from you other than to click on the icon under the Sound and Video link in the menu (click the raspberry in the taskbar to open the menu).

 

You can easily stream from JRMC to a Pi. You may need to download Bubble UPnP Server to the device on which you're running your JRMC instance to make Chromecast and some other renderers show up as DLNA zones, but VLC should not require this.  To stream from Foobar, download and install the Foobar UPnP media renderer output module.  It'll put all your network UPnP renderers on Foobar as endpoints.  You'll see a list of them under view-UPnP Browser in Foobar, and AFAIK you need this for all UPnP / DLNA endpoints.

 

I don't know of a better use for an audiophile's $30 or less (they're almost always on sale at a discount somewhere) than a Pi!

[bluesman]

6 hours ago, bluesman said:

The latest Raspbian images have VLC included as the default player. Yes, it's a video player - but it'll play bit perfect FLACs etc up to 24 bit as I recall.  It's a terrible library management tool , which is irrelevant if you're only using it as a JRMC or Foobar endpoint.  I don't think it'll play native hi res files, although I never tried  There are dozens of other great players you can easily download and install, but VLC's pretty good and requires no effort from you other than to click on the icon under the Sound and Video link in the menu (click the raspberry in the taskbar to open the menu).

 

You can easily stream from JRMC to a Pi. You may need to download Bubble UPnP Server to the device on which you're running your JRMC instance to make Chromecast and some other renderers show up as DLNA zones, but VLC should not require this.  To stream from Foobar, download and install the Foobar UPnP media renderer output module.  It'll put all your network UPnP renderers on Foobar as endpoints.  You'll see a list of them under view-UPnP Browser in Foobar, and AFAIK you need this for all UPnP / DLNA endpoints.

 

I don't know of a better use for an audiophile's $30 or less (they're almost always on sale at a discount somewhere) than a Pi!

 

Thanks to a wonderfully polite and helpful message from Crenca, I must correct a few errors I made by relying on my memory instead of going back and setting this all up again first.  Many thanks to John for being an excellent role model for all of us!

 

The UPnP / DLNA player function in VLC only accesses the servers on the network - it does not appear as a zone. I have a running VLC instance set up on one of my test computers, & I see that although it shows all my network UPNP / DLNA servers, it does not show up as a zone in JRMC or Foobar and is not on Bubble's renderer list.  This means that you can play files from any UPnP / DLNA server on your network with VLC on a Pi, but you can't control it with JRMC or Foobar.

There are several foobar plugins dealing with various aspects of UPnP and DLNA.  I thought I remembered using foo_out and foo_out_UPnP to play to VLC.  But on trying it, I can't.  There was a previous plugin that did let you do this, but it's apparently now gone.

 

If I read the descriptions correctly, it appears that you can use GMediaRender on Raspbian to make Pi  a player for JRMC and Foobar.  I haven't tested this and it would require you to use the command line (which I gather you don't want to do).  I have Volumio and Moode currently set up on Pis, so I know they'll work as you want them to work - but you'd have to install them with their integral OSs (again not a difficult proposition, but you seem to want to avoid having to do that). You can also use PiCorePlayer and many other such OS/players if you're willing to download them, burn them to a microSD card, and configure them.  It's as easy to do as configuring and managing Foobar - and once it's done, it's done.

 

I'll see if I can find another simple player that will also serve as a JRMC / Foobar zone.   I'm truly sorry for my errors!

 

Best regards -

 

David

[bluesman]

PiCorePlayer will work as a Squeezelite renderer out of the box. I’ve tested it on a Pi 3b+ on my network as a Roon zone (Roon will play to Squeeze devices as zones). So when you need a solution, you can put PCP on a microSD card, stick it in a Pi, and get back to your music in about 20 minutes for $35 or less. You don’t have to open a terminal at all - PCP is easy to configure from a browser on any network device.

 

Enjoy!

[bluesman]

21 minutes ago, firedog said:

Yep, just what I'm planning. What I don't understand is why more of these Pi OS's don't have Roon Bridge as a built in/add in component. 

You can install Roon Bridge on almost any of these audio OS / player installations using the command line. Just follow the instructions that come up from the link on the Roon downloads page - it’s 3 simple lines entered and executed one at a time. If there’s no terminal access, you can often use SSH.

 

You have to install and activate SSH access on most to do it from a networked device using Putty etc. But if the basic OS is a Linux kernel or derivative, you can do it easily on most.

[bluesman]

I just remembered reading about another option to make Pi into a zone on JRiver.  You can make a Raspberry Pi a Shairport device by following these instructions on the JRiver Interact forum.  Per the posts in the linked Interact thread, this will put the Pi on the JRiver zone list so you can control it from JRMC.

 

My Roon instance recognizes Shairport devices as zones too - Volumio on a Pi shows up as a Roon zone and says "ShairportSync" next to its network name. I have not intentionally set up this Pi or its Volumio OS/player as a Shairport device.  Volumio includes this functionality.

 

Even more interesting is that the same Pi running Volumio shows up in the Bubble Server renderer list.