Summary first - I’m looking for software to use for web-controlled music playback. Main requirement is playback via a DAC on the hosting device and a half-decent UI for it (though streaming would be nice…).
Hardware-wise, I’ve currently got a Pi Zero W paired with a HiFiBerry DAC+ Zero, which has been fine for me quality-wise, routed as an aux input to an old HiFi. That, plus plenty of space elsewhere to host split apps - currently running Emby as a main streaming host for other media, and the media is just on a NAS pulling over NFS.
I’ve been using Volumio for a while, but have been frustrated with a few things (UI, playlist management, etc) so I’m looking for a change. Streaming from Emby/Jellyfin via DLNA looks like it might be a decent fallback, but I’m wondering if there are any nicer ways to handle it.
Any ideas? Open to switching a few bits of infrastructure around, of course :)
Most of my devices are apple so I use shairport-sync to make airplay2 receivers on low power mini-pc/sbcs. Plug in a USB DAC (chi-fi topping dacs are incredible) and its lossless streaming from wherever. I have them in my office, kitchen, media room, upstairs etc. As far as the “source” for streaming, i just use nPlayer app that can connect to smb shares (full of music/video/etc), its much less to manage. Wife approval factor was high since any phone/device can connect to any airplay reciever without config as long as its on our home wifi. For power savings I have them scheduled to only be on during hours I would normally use them (sleep + wake on lan schedule). How dedicated to web control are you?
No Apple devices here except that a work-owned iPhone for dev purposes :) Web control’s not completely mandatory, but I do prefer being able to slap a window on a spare monitor when I’m at my desk, given the main speaker I’d be using with this is in my office anyway. There are some DLNA sources that look decent enough and work in a similar fashion though, and might form part of whatever solution I go with.