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Post by MartinT on Aug 27, 2017 20:28:49 GMT
Hey no problem, Juke. Glad to have another happy Pi user on board.
Can you not buy a battery with 5V USB output from a phone shop?
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 13, 2017 19:55:15 GMT
At long last a RasPi has darkened my doorstep. I bought a complete starter kit, so case, Pi, SD card and PSU were supplied. The thing was built up, hooked up to the network, and having the power applied within 10 minutes, and that included formatting the SD card and burning a PiCorePlayer image onto the SD card.
A couple of minutes on the router admin, and an IP address was reserved for the beast. This was followed by much head scratching and swearing, as the damned thing would not read the NAS of my network - eventually it dawned on me, after consulting several web pages and forums, that I needed to mount the NAS drive as a repository, so a mount was created, IP address and passwords provided, and the whole thing started scanning the NAS and building a library. Result!
A little bit of tinkering, to bring BBC iPlayer radio to the table, and also to set up Spotify to access my premium account, and all works swimmingly well. It's a very responsive bit of kit, so there's no discernible lag to commands from a web browser, or the Squeeze Commander app on my Smartphone.
I'm well pleased! The only fly in the ointment is that there doesn't appear to be a way to turn off the embedded player, so for the time being I'm just going to have to live with it. I'm sure I'll get used to ignoring it.
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 13, 2017 20:07:17 GMT
Glad it's working well for you Chris. Funnily enough, I received a load of Pi bits this week too. The case and output card arrived today, so I shall be putting it together tomorrow - my third one!
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Post by MartinT on Oct 13, 2017 21:00:39 GMT
The great thing is that you can put a different build onto another SD card and compare them. I'm not familiar with PiCorePlayer, but you might want to compare with Volumio. The Spotify Connect plug-in is really good for allowing use of the Spotify interface itself. Meant to ask, Stratmangler, how are you connecting to a DAC and which DAC are you using?
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 13, 2017 21:40:56 GMT
The PiCorePlayer build supports LMS, and as I'm a long term Squeezebox user I have little (read that as no) interest in trying Volumio or any other player. I moved over to using a Pi to run LMS because it uses considerably less elecktrickery to run than the Windoze machine I was using to run LMS this morning.
LMS has got a very professional and dedicated team of code writers looking after it. When Auntie Beeb moved the goalposts into the next county with respect to streaming services, it was only a short amount of time before a stable work around became available. It was the same when Spotify changed the way they delivered services. Service was very quickly resumed.
My Touch is hooked up to my DAC using a 1.5m Belden cable from Mark Grant, the one with the Canare plugs fitted. My DAC is a M2Tech Evo DAC. Both Touch and Evo DAC are powered by Nick G made linear PSUs. The Touch has the EDO applet running on it, so can natively support 24/192 files. It saves processing overhead that would be used up by resampling on the fly.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 13, 2017 21:43:39 GMT
Ah yes, I forgot that you use LMS. Glad the Pi is working well for you.
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 14, 2017 11:21:35 GMT
I found out how the kill the player on the Pi, so I did. All I have to do was turn off Squeezelite. As a result the whole shebang became unstable and unpredictable. Albums I lined up to play on a specific player didn't, but they did start playing on the other player. The graphics lag when controlling things from a web browser was unbelievable. And the Spotty app started doing a "now you see me, now you don't" act. I have since restarted Squeezelite, and as a result stability and speed have been restored. I'll put up with having a redundant player showing up in the player list
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 14, 2017 12:24:15 GMT
I have just spent the short while necessary to build and configure this new Pi. It's running the latest version of Volumio: VERSION: 2.285 RELEASE DATE: 07-10-2017
I have to say that set-up now is superb. You no longer have to fumble around looking for the correct settings for your hardware and it looks for any available drives for you. I have it playing from my NAS and the only thing I had to actually type was my network password everything else is just a click in response to a prompt. Very slick.
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Post by Tim on Oct 14, 2017 12:54:46 GMT
I'll be joining the Pi gang soon
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Post by MartinT on Oct 14, 2017 13:38:33 GMT
Great, Tim. Lots of help and advice here.
Based on ChrisB's enthusing, I've just ordered a HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro to upgrade my Digi+. That should reduce jitter even further.
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 14, 2017 13:43:13 GMT
The player I've just assembled with Digi+ Pro and a Pi3 playing the latest version of Volumio into my Accuphase DAC via coax sounds superb. It's a good step past the Pi that I just unplugged, and as I just said to Martin via PM, it's giving me the best sounding rendition of Spotify that I have ever heard. Files from the NAS have also got the Pi much closer to the Accuphase transport playing Cds than before. No direct comparison yet, but it's certainly an improvement.
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Post by MikeMusic on Oct 14, 2017 14:44:44 GMT
I really love plugging stuff and and it works The technical stuff I leave to those vastly more capable
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 14, 2017 20:35:59 GMT
Had a further dig around, and found out that the Squeezelite had set itself to run on the TinySC I had running on the main Touch downstairs, and had managed to get the same IP address. I turned off the embedded server on the Touch, and removed the SD card. I then looked for Squeezelite, and found that it had reallocated itself on the Pi IP address. Went into admin on PiCorePlayer and disabled Squeezelite followed by a reboot of the system. Then I accessed LMS from my web browser and found that Spotty had dropped off again, so I went back to pCP admin, rebooted the system, went back to LMS and saw that Spotty was back, wentback into pCP admin and disabled Squeezelite. I tested both Touch players on the system, making them play material from each of my sources, namely BBCiPlayer, Spotty, and my local file library, and this time things ran very quickly and without hitch or lag. I think the Squeezelite attaching itself to an embedded server on a local Touch player must have caused a shedload of IP conflicts that ground the system to a near halt. With things now running in a manner I have become accustomed to, I am rightfully pleased
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Post by MartinT on Oct 14, 2017 20:51:06 GMT
I noticed while updating my Volumio build that there are Squeezelite and LMS plug-ins for it.
Just installed the new Spotify Connect plug-in v1.6.4 and it now pulls album artwork into the Volumio interface. Very nice.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 16, 2017 6:21:13 GMT
In trying to update my older Pi, I did not get the auto hotspot that Volumio now creates in order to facilitate setting up. I've had my suspicions about the nano dongle that I bought for it not being fully plug-and-play compatible with the Pi, so I've decided to ditch it for the same dongle that I use in my Pi 2 that gives no problems whatsoever and has very good reception. Another one is on the way.
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Post by ChrisB on Oct 16, 2017 6:52:16 GMT
I had to order one this weekend too! I got this one, which is the same as the one I use on one of my other Pis and plugs and plays without problem.
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Post by Stratmangler on Oct 16, 2017 6:59:30 GMT
I noticed while updating my Volumio build that there are Squeezelite and LMS plug-ins for it. My interest level has gone up considerably. What does the LMS plugin do? What's the Volumio interface and navigation like?
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Post by MartinT on Oct 16, 2017 7:06:20 GMT
The Volumio interface is nice, clearly oriented for touch when used with a tablet. It seems to work well with every browser I've tried and is even very usable on a phone. Functionality has come along greatly. What I like about it is that Search will yield results from your NAS, from Spotify, from Web radio and from YouTube if you have those plug-ins enabled. Album artwork is displayed wherever possible.
The best thing is how it hides the RPi gubbins from you and just works. Sound quality has also been given priority to great effect. There are lots of S/PDIF and DAC options or you can just use the USB out.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 16, 2017 7:16:29 GMT
Here you go, there's a thread here for every plugin. You can get Volumio here.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 16, 2017 7:19:05 GMT
There's a new version of Volumio just yesterday.
2.295 (15-10-2017)
FIXES
Fix issue in wizard if i2s DAC was already active Fix undefined background condition Show Wizard only on first boot
NEW FEATURES
Add NanoSound I2S DAC Add TerraBerry DAC2 I2S DAC
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