User experiences with Volumio?

[Pro Jules]

I would be interested to hear how you are getting along with 

 

Qobuz / Tidal playback & search on Volumio

ios (phone or tablet) control of Volumio 

 

Is it clunky? Tolerable? 

 

So far I have ios streamer control app experience with:

Lightning DS (Auralic)= very good 

Mconnect (UPNP) = a bit clunky 

 

I understand there is no ios app to control Volumio? So how do you find the Web / browser control using a phone? 

 

Thanks in advance,  

 

 

[stefano_mbp]

You can try MyVolumio for free for 15 days.

I don’t like it but it’s my opinion ...

If you prefer the iOS app do exist, search for Volumio, but it is nothing different from the safari web interface you can reach typing in the url Volumio.local (once Volumio is installed), if you save the page in the iPad/iPhone home it will be full screen.

I don’t use streaming services but a friend of mine told me that Tidal implementation in MyVolumio is quite .... basic, cannot say anything about Qobuz

[Pro Jules]

Many thanks. 

[CatManDo]

Since I bought my first Raspberry Pi (4) a month ago, I've been trying various uses for this great device. I installed the volumio OS.

 

I was pleasantly surprised that volumio worked with the T+A DAC8DSD although it wasn't listed in the supported DACs. But there were some restrictions:

 

- when the DAC was connected to the Raspberry Pi (USB), the Raspi would not boot. I had to start it first (or just leave it on) and connect the DAC after that. Very inconvenient

- I could play PCM up to 24/352 on volumio and it was passed in that format to the DAC. However, DSD files (64, 128, 256) were all converted to 24/352 PCM. So I can't have the benefit of the seperate DSD circuit of the DAC.

 

Playback was fine (no drop outs or other problems), sound quality seemed perfect (I didn't do a deep listening test though), and the remote control with the Android app or the browser interface on the PC was very convenient

 

I also need to figure out how to keep the music library alive. I made volumio scan a folder with a few thousand albums on a network drive, which took a long time but worked fine. But after disconnecting and reconnecting from the network, the library was empty, although the settings stated the network folder was accessible. So I could not use the library.

 

I would prefer a more lightweight interface, without cover images and additional album information. Just the basics, to be able to browse to an album folder on a network drive and play the album.

 

So for the moment I have no practical use for volumio on the Rasperry Pi, but I will continue to try it.

 

As an alternative Raspberry Pi audio player, I also tried picoreplayer, but I don't like the architecture, as it requires using the Logitech Media Server on the server PC.

[firedog]

Picoreplayer is for people who have SB units already or want a touch screen experience with the Pi. It's very good for that. AFAIR, you can set it up to have an internal LMS server on the Pi itself, so you don't need one on your main sever.

 

The big advantage of LMS, even today, is all the plugins that make it extremely user adaptable - it can do almost anything in audio. For instance, there are plugins that integrate most of the streaming services so they show up within LMS. Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal, and Spotify. Maybe more I can't remember. And the newer Material UI plugin gives it a more modern look with metadata supplied.

 

I also tried Volumio and wasn't thrilled. It's a good program, just not for me. 

 

I'm presently using Roon mostly, so I switched my Pi with a touchscreen to Ropieee, which is a Roon endpoint for Pi. Works fine and you get the bonus of having all the Roon features for playback without any special installation or hassles.

 

On another headless Pi I have Squeezeplayer, HQP NAA, and Roon Bridge installed.. All work fine, but of course you need another tablet or PC to control it. 

 

 

[Mike48]

Volumio is easy to install and configure. (The only thing difficult in my experience has been setting up WiFi. The built-in hotspot has not worked consistently for me.) A nice feature is that keyboard and monitor are never needed during setup, unlike so other OS options for this purpose.

 

I have used gear running Volumio as DLNA renderers and Roon endpoints. In both uses, it worked fine.

 

Volumio is frequently updated, which is nice. I don't care for software that has been abandoned by the developers. It is free unless you choose to pay for the extras included in MyVolumio.

 

I think Volumio is a good solution for streaming on a device that supports it.

[audiobomber]

I have Volumio on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ in a secondary system. I chose Volumio over others like Moode, Rune and Picoreplayer because it was the easiest and most intuitive to set up. However, I use QNAP QMusic to play music. I find Volumio less flexible, and I have multiple playlists set up in QNAP for my all my audio systems, so this is my preferred setup. Sometimes I have both softwares running, because Volumio is quicker and more reliable for level control.

 

This remote system was unstable, kept dropping off the network, until I connected via ethernet to an access point. It is now rock solid. 

[botrytis]

Volumio is pretty laggy, I have noticed. I keep my Android pad plugged in for power as a remote and that seems to help. As soon as I unplug - it will go into limbo.

[Highendfool]

I find volumio extremely responsive and excellent sound quality.

I have it running on a Beelink BT3 pro mini pc from China and it’s rock solid.

upgraded the 12v brick ps to a LPS and it sounds awesome.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I tried Volumio for a few days as I was curious to see how it worked with Qobuz. 

 

The web interface is not to my taste.

 

Qobuz integration is limited. Some basic features are missing, IMO. For example, if you search for a track there is no way of displaying the corresponding album without playing the track. You cannot filter your albums by genre, and so on... 

 

 

[Mike48]

On 7/15/2021 at 12:52 PM, hopkins said:

I tried Volumio for a few days as I was curious to see how it worked with Qobuz. The web interface is not to my taste.

Volumio can act as a UPnP/DLNA renderer. That means that if you don't like the Web interface (I'm not a fan myself), you can use the UPnP/DLNA client of your choice to control it. I use BubbleUPnP on Android.

[jaaptina]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:18 PM, Mike48 said:

Volumio can act as a UPnP/DLNA renderer. That means that if you don't like the Web interface (I'm not a fan myself), you can use the UPnP/DLNA client of your choice to control it. I use BubbleUPnP on Android.

Using Bubbleupnp for a few years now. Still very happy. 

[photonman]

I just got an iFi Zen Stream which is based on a customized version of Volumio.  I only use it for Spotify.  It is a lightweight audio OS/player.  The web UI is basic and intuitive and responsive.  No bells and whistles, just basic playback and system settings (i.e. playback mode, buffer settings, streaming services, NAA, system updates, volume settings, etc.)

 

iFi is creating an IOS control app, but honestly, the web portal suffices just fine and performs good (no lag).  For $400 you get nice hardware and an iFi power supply.  I had been holding out for something to replace my Macbook and this device so far is a great alternative.

[firedog]

It looks like a really good unit, and the Golden One showed it even measured well.

I'm not a big fan of the Volumio interface, but the Zen allows use of NAA, Roon, and some other interfaces, so users have lots of choice of interfaces.

[Mike Rubin]

Okay, I might be a dummy, but I am having a dickens of a time getting Volumio to show up in a web browser at all.

 

I want to try it on a NUC.  I downloaded the zip file to my desktop PC and extracted the image.  I doublechecked that it is the proper image for a PCthen used Balena Etcher to flash the image to a USB flash drive.  I then set the boot-up priority in the NUC to the flash drive.  Then, I booted from the flash drive.

 

Unlike HQP Embedded, which displays a Linux log-on ritual when it boots, Volumio displays zero.  There is a small bar of white pixels against the black screen background in the upper lefthand corner, but nothing else.  Figuring that it might take a moment or two to finish bootup, I have waited to find the installation using http://volumio.local and Fing, but it's clearly not on the network.

 

I reviewed the user guide again and don't see anything about required bootup settings in BIOS, but I had to disable secure boot to enable a boot from a USB stick. Is there something in BIOS that needs to be changed?

[Mike Rubin]

On 11/25/2021 at 3:53 PM, Mike Rubin said:

Okay, I might be a dummy, but I am having a dickens of a time getting Volumio to show up in a web browser at all.

 

I want to try it on a NUC.  I downloaded the zip file to my desktop PC and extracted the image.  I doublechecked that it is the proper image for a PCthen used Balena Etcher to flash the image to a USB flash drive.  I then set the boot-up priority in the NUC to the flash drive.  Then, I booted from the flash drive.

 

Unlike HQP Embedded, which displays a Linux log-on ritual when it boots, Volumio displays zero.  There is a small bar of white pixels against the black screen background in the upper lefthand corner, but nothing else.  Figuring that it might take a moment or two to finish bootup, I have waited to find the installation using http://volumio.local and Fing, but it's clearly not on the network.

 

I reviewed the user guide again and don't see anything about required bootup settings in BIOS, but I had to disable secure boot to enable a boot from a USB stick. Is there something in BIOS that needs to be changed?

For the benefit of anyone having issues booting a NUC into Volumio:  I learned that the version 3 beta available at the Volumio community forum is the only Volumio version that will boot on a NUC.  That version boots perfectly.

[biosailor]

I just recently tried Volumio, in particular the latest version 3. 

 

The UI is surprisingly good, though streaming services like Qobuz, lack a few features, most of all the ability to choose genres.

 

The 2.xxx version runs perfectly fine in UPnP mode with Audirvana/Roon. I had problems with some beta v3 versions, though I haven’t tested the most recent one.

 

The biggest surprise for me is its sound quality. While I consistently found Roon to sound boring and uninvolving, while Audirvana was pretty good in that respect, that little Raspberry Pi running Volumio beats Roon hands down and sounds even better than Audirvāna Studio. I am re-discovering my local library. Previous albums that I never listened to anymore because I found them to sound very harsh with Roon, now sound very with Volumio. Particularly instrument separation is fantastic.

 

It‘s great stuff regarding sound quality!

[Mike Rubin]

I was disappointed to find that Volumio’s UPnP/DLNA capability is limited to rendering and that it cannot serve.  As my NUC isn’t connected to a DAC over USB, I need to be able to serve music from the NUC to my Rendus over Ethernet.  Unfortunately, it appears that is something Volumio can’t do.

 

Shame, because I quite like both its interface and its price. 

[biosailor]

27 minutes ago, Mike Rubin said:

I was disappointed to find that Volumio’s UPnP/DLNA capability is limited to rendering and that it cannot serve.  As my NUC isn’t connected to a DAC over USB, I need to be able to serve music from the NUC to my Rendus over Ethernet.  Unfortunately, it appears that is something Volumio can’t do.

 

Shame, because I quite like both its interface and its price. 

Yes indeed, this might be a disadvantage!

 

I am running Volumio on my Raspberry Pi 4B, my library is connected via USB to one of the Raspi ports and USB connected to my Devialet. In this setup, I have no needs for an external Mac/NUC attached via Ethernet.

As a matter of fact, in my case I think this is the key to good sound quality! Leaving away those general purpose computers that just don’t provide the same sound quality I am experiencing now. Though, this might be different in other cases!

 

I‘d be really interested to see a slim Roon version capable of running on a Raspberry!

[Cebolla]

4 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

I was disappointed to find that Volumio’s UPnP/DLNA capability is limited to rendering and that it cannot serve.  As my NUC isn’t connected to a DAC over USB, I need to be able to serve music from the NUC to my Rendus over Ethernet.  Unfortunately, it appears that is something Volumio can’t do.

 

Shame, because I quite like both its interface and its price. 

 

Haven't used Volumio for a while, but isn't the miniDLNA UPnP/DLNA media server still available as a plugin?

[Mike Rubin]

2 hours ago, Cebolla said:

 

Haven't used Volumio for a while, but isn't the miniDLNA UPnP/DLNA media server still available as a plugin?

Thanks.  I am on the "free" tier for the beta, but the list of available plug-ins on my version doesn't include anything related to DLNA.  Are there places outside of the Volumio application itself to look for plug-ins? 

[Cebolla]

A manual installation method, which includes a link to the miniDLNA plugin's zip file, has been posted by its author in its discussion thread:

https://community.volumio.org/t/plugin-minidlna/45994/42

 

BTW, this is also the same method for installing unofficial Volumio plugins outlined in the Plugin System Overview page:

https://volumio.github.io/docs/Plugin_System/Plugin_System_Overview 

 

[Mike Rubin]

39 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

A manual installation method, which includes a link to the miniDLNA plugin's zip file, has been posted by its author in its discussion thread:

https://community.volumio.org/t/plugin-minidlna/45994/42

 

BTW, this is also the same method for installing unofficial Volumio plugins outlined in the Plugin System Overview page:

https://volumio.github.io/docs/Plugin_System/Plugin_System_Overview 

 

Thank you for this, Cebolla. Guess I gotta reinstall Putty. It has been awhile! 

[skikirkwood]

I have 5 or 6 Raspberry Pis around the house with various DACs and run a mix of Volumio and piCorePlayer on them. They are both great Linux audio distributions and regularly updated. And free is free. The nice thing is for less than $10 you can buy 32GB MicroSD cards and swap out one for another in a couple of minutes. Sound quality wise they both sound identical to me.

 

Over time I've migrated to use piCorePlayer more than Volumio for two reasons - piCorePlayer is more stable, and it has a better Spotify plug-in. I was the primarily developer of the most recent version of Volumio's Spotify plug-in and it was a great way to learn Node.js years ago. But I never did things like add pagination, so if your playlist has over 50 tracks or you have over 50 playlists you are out of luck. The Swiss developer who maintains Logitech's LMS wrote the Spotty plug-in and it's rock solid.

I run the LMS on a dedicated Raspberry Pi 4, although there's no reason you can't run on it on the same Pi with the Sqeezeplayer app. I got used to the LMS interface having bought a Squeezebox Touch years ago. If you're new to both distributions, Volumio is easier to set up. I don't listen to Qobuz or Tidal, so I can't compare support on both systems.

 

While I primarily control both systems from iOS devices, I really love the Squeezelite UI on a Raspberry Pi touch display. It's awesome to select different skins, VU meter styles, etc.

 

Volumio 3 is being released on December 7, so it will be interesting to play around with it and compare it to both Volumio 2 and piCorePlayer 8.0.

[Mike Rubin]

Thanks to Cebolla and the person who wrote the DLNA plug-in, I have Volumio playing to my ultraRendu right now.   Still populating my large library, but so far, so good, especially for chamber music.  (I love HQP very much, but I wanted an alternative for classical music, which I find not so well served by the configurations that can run on my NUC without stuttering.)