Options for multi-room audio?

[haggis999]

There is a huge range of DACs available at all price levels from more conventional sources, so I doubt if I would be tempted to go for a Wolfson card - especially as I don't really want to get any more involved with Linux than absolutely necessary!

Unless my post on the Linn forum throws up some nasties on the SQ front, I will probably go ahead get a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. This would let me experiment with both upmpdcli and MediaPlayer, which I could test by connecting the RPi to my Oppo using an HDMI connection.

[haggis999]

Simon,
How would the user interact with Songcast in the setup we have been discussing?

It appears that each RPi in a multi-room installation would have a unique name as a UPnP renderer on the network. I therefore assume that the normal BubbleUPnP device selection interface would let me direct music to any or all of these, one after the other, but I have no idea how you would trigger synchronised playback of a track or playlist.

David

[simoncn]

(03-07-2015 10:33)haggis999 Wrote:  Simon,
How would the user interact with Songcast in the setup we have been discussing?

It appears that each RPi in a multi-room installation would have a unique name as a UPnP renderer on the network. I therefore assume that the normal BubbleUPnP device selection interface would let me direct music to any or all of these, one after the other, but I have no idea how you would trigger synchronised playback of a track or playlist.

David

One of the renderers would be the Songcast sender and the other(s) would be the Songcast receiver(s). The control point would direct the music to the Songcast sender only and the sender would play the music and also relay it to the receiver(s) for them to play in sync with the sender. The details of how to configure the sender and receiver(s) would depend on which renderer software you are using. I can't advise on how to configure this setup because I haven't used Songcast on either of these renderers.

[haggis999]

Thanks, Simon. That gives me a much clear mental picture of how all these components work together.

[NeilT]

(01-07-2015 22:12)audio_elf Wrote:  Unless you're looking at the price range of Linn, you're best bet would be either Sonos or BlueSound - though neither work with MinimSever/BubbleUPnP.

I've been successfully playing music through a Sonos Play 1 via BubblrUPnP and MinimServer.

[Kryptik]

Aftrnoon all. My first post in this forum. I think there may well be people in this forum with a wealth of experience greater than my own, but I hope I can contribute something of value on this topic.

I've recently acquired a Google Chromecast Audio and been impressed to such an extent that I now have a handful of them for the purpose of synchronised multiroom use. I've found the implementation simplicity personified and the experience seamless.

I use Minimserver on the PC (obviously), BubbleUPnP as a control point and wirelessly connect to a single, or 'grouped' multiple Chromecast Audios. The initial setup of the CCA (Chromecast Audio) is done using the Chromecast app, as is the grouping of them if using more than one. Consequently this is restricted to Android users only.

In my main listening room I have the CCA connected via TOSlink (to mini-TOSlink) to a DAC.
The TOSlink limit of 24/96 restricts the quality of passthrough possible.
Using the optical connection bypasses the CCAs internal DAC allowing mine to do it's job.
In the living room I connect the CCA to my AV amp.
In the kitchen it plugs into the aux connection of the radio using 3.5 mm mini headphone out.

In BubbleUPnP they appear as individual renderers and the groups are displayed too as their own entries.
You can stream different music to each one, or the same stream to the group, all at once.

The CCA as a means to do just the network transport of data is fantastic and since the December firmware update that enabled multiroom I can't fault it at all.