As an LMS (Touch) user, I have been looking at alternatives. The main listening is done in my lounge, remote from the music server, connected via Ethernet.
The closest I got to a working alternative that can make use of custom tags (for classical music) was: - flacs still on my Vortexbox as usual (but not using the DLNA server provided) - foobar2000 on my main deskptop Linux PC (under Wine), reading the flacs from the Vortexbox, with the UPnP plugin, using foobar's customised DLNA menu facility (which can read custom tags) and acting as the server over Ethernet - one or another UPnP controller on my (wireless) laptop Linux PC or SmartPhone controlling foobar2000 - my hi-fi pre-amp supports UPnP (over Ethernet) but the menu is worse than useless, hence the use of a laptop (or smartphone) as a controller This all almost works, except that the controllers are all very unreliable (crashing regularly, failing to read the menus, and so on), so near useless for regular listening. foobar2000 is a wonderful, peerless, tool, and I wouldn't be without it, even with LMS. I use it for playing music near the server, checking tags (set using puddletag or mp3tag) and format conversion. I have built up (filter) menus not unlike those I have in Custom Browse in LMS. I can listen to my music in other rooms via wired PCs and foobar2000, without using UPnP. This doesn't provide any synchronisation, but I have rarely wanted to do this except to prove LMS can do it well. If I have to I could also run foobar2000 on my laptop in the lounge, plug the laptop into the Ethernet, and play music out via the async USB DAC in my hi-fi, but that leaves wires all over the room which I don't like. The reason for describing how my non-LMS system would work is that I wonder whether ickStream will have the ability to plug the main hole in this solution, i.e. provide a reliable UPnP Controller, or provide some other solution to drive my pre-amp direct without using my LMS Touch, with customised tags and menus. LMS 7.8 on VortexBox Midi, FLACs 16 or 24 bit. Touch on Ethernet (in another room), digital out to a Musical Fidelity M1 CLiC. Old wireless laptop running Linux Mint Debian controls server using Chromium. Squeezelite on Ubuntu & Windows desktops plus the laptop. Meridian Explorer USB DAC to listen directly to Vortexbox & other PCs as required. Spare Touch in loft! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PasTim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=41642 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98467 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
