The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it - ADVANCED APPROACHES



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Hmm … what happens if you type in /Volumes/Public/SharedMusic

The count remains 0 after scanning.

Userlevel 6
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In Finder if you select SharedMusic do you get a list of the WD files?

 

I have to go out for a couple of hours ….  this must be easier than this!

SharedMusic is a folder that contains a few folders all of which contain music files. Sonos isn't bothered with these, once it is pointed to SharedMusic it finds all tracks in all sub folders below SharedMusic.

Userlevel 6
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As far as I understand, /Volumes/Public/SharedMusic  should work 

You could try /Volumes/Public  - see what it picks up if anything

Diid we try just /SharedMusic  ?

What is the line in sonos?

 

 

My problem with Darko is typified in this video - he will keep 5 things, one on top of each other that are basically the same device, say that each one is better than the one below it, and not do a single level matched blind test to back up his subjective opinions. While I could not hear any difference in my Connect compared to a Marantz KI Signature SACD player, back in 2011, which also had a DAC in it that had many alpha numeric characters in its description in the manual. Neither could I hear what a USD 1500 Musical Fidelity DAC did in my system, that weighed more and was larger than most HiFi amplifiers, and even had a couple of valves in. And feet that turned from red to green to tell you when the valves had come to operating temperatures! All this, in my audiophile past life, and it was that Tube DAC that caused my “enough of this nonsense” moment.

So all that he offers is what the HiFi magazines did before I stopped reading them - information about what is available in the market.

No real opinion here on Darko or SQ. Just shared that as an overview for what seems to be quite a capable little unit for streaming. He goes into a number of ways to incorporate it which I thought would be helpful to some. That’s about it.

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I have no experience of using the pi with the raspian graphical desktop.  

The first task you need to achieve is to mount the usb stick.  Once you can see the contents in raspian, then download and install my media.

I can try to install raspian desktop on my netbook to get a feel of how it works … later

(ps: despite your misgivings, just using putty from the Mac is probably easier!)

 The first task you need to achieve is to mount the usb stick.  Once you can see the contents in raspian, then download and install my media.

 

Agreed. It isn't like the Mac, I suspect, where all one needs to do is insert the stick into the port. Small steps, starting next week. Maybe this will be the start of a new hobby as well. With thanks to Sonos, for giving it a kickstart.

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Okay - just tried Pi raspian desktop …. not impressed, I’m afraid!

Honestlly for your purposes, the easiest way to do this will be to install raspian without the desktop.   This will give a clean interface where you will be able to use the keyboard  to type directly the 3-4 commands which will set the pi up with mymedia..

Initially, you have to prepare the SD card for raspian using the MAC in any event.   

As preparationL

You need to install balenaEtcher as a first step on your Mac.  You need this to create the SD card for the Pi (using the raspian image)

Then, you need to download the actual raspian OS - I suggest the following:

https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_lite_latest

 

Will continue this as personal emails.  

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Will continue this as personal emails.  

Is there any reason for you not to carry on posting this very useful info in the forum?

I have a Pi W gathering dust and I’m silently following this with a view to going down the same route as Kumar….

Cheers

John

 

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Will continue this as personal emails.  

Is there any reason for you not to carry on posting this very useful info in the forum?

I have a Pi W gathering dust and I’m silently following this with a view to going down the same route as Kumar….

Cheers

John

 

A pi zero w ?   That’s what I have  …. works fine (unless you have a very big music library).   What do you use as a PC -  win, mac, or …?.

@castalla ; Yes, but does it survive loss of internet?:laughing:

Seriously though, leaving aside this closed/open system thing, what does it do that Echo+mymedia cannot? Or, in a more elegant way?

The more I use mymedia - which is working fine, to the extent that I think I will treat myself to an Echo Show 8 at the present discounted price - the more I see Raspberry making sense as a small box tucked away in WiFi range, always on via a USB charger so it cannot be pulling a lot of electricity, allowing the Echo Show 5/8 to remain open to streaming from NAS as well as from streaming services with album art. Using the desktop Mac works fine, but is a little clunky to use seeing that it is often left with the lid down when not in use.

 

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Yeah that’s the one - mainly purchased out of curiosity (it was only £15). It was back in the day when someone suggested making up a PI based CR100 type controller.

I got the desktop version loaded on to it but then gave up…..

I’m using windows, I have my music library on an always on PC but it’s smallish at about 80GB and 9K tracks

Userlevel 6
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Yeah that’s the one - mainly purchased out of curiosity (it was only £15). It was back in the day when someone suggested making up a PI based CR100 type controller.

I got the desktop version loaded on to it but then gave up…..

I’m using windows, I have my music library on an always on PC but it’s smallish at about 80GB and 9K tracks

So, what do you want to use it for?  If you are using Win then  it should be relatively easy to get up and running.  The music is on what type of PC?

 

Will continue this as personal emails.  

Is there any reason for you not to carry on posting this very useful info in the forum?

 

 

This is so that we don't burden this thread with stupid questions like this one! :

@castalla : commands are shown as sentences that have words in them. Is any space between words always a single space?

And I am not planning to install a desktop - just running a HDMI cable to my TV so I can use the keyboard and mouse on the GUI that the TV will then show.

There is also a detailed set up guide on the mymedia site, so I am hoping I should be ok till the time comes to mount stuff.

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Yes - assume a space is a single space.

Are you getting a micro SD card with Noobs already installed?  If so, then I think the Noobs setup will install the desktop version of Raspian.

The version we want is Raspian Lite which will boot the pi to a command prompt.  See the link previously

^^^ “The Primo doesn’t have that last ounce of liquidity”.   LMAO.  Stopped viewing the video at that point.  These audiophile reviewers are quite amusing.

Hahahaha. They are certainly that.

As far as incorporation, it was the bit later that relates specifically to squeezebox and LMS that folks have been discussing here that seemed topical.
As well as the HDMI output specifically for external screen; there’s been a want of visualization in play locations (not by myself really) and could provide some creative options toward that end.

Userlevel 6
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As far as I understand, /Volumes/Public/SharedMusic  should work 

You could try /Volumes/Public  - see what it picks up if anything

Diid we try just /SharedMusic  ?

What is the line in sonos?

 

And - what format are the music files - mp3?

And - Check in mymedia Settings - is there a tab for Mapped Drives ?

 

Because the LMS server and the NAS are on internal network then an internet down won’t affect media library function 

Just that makes it worth the research to see how this solution gets implemented - any place or link you can point to?

Just the General tab in Settings, and files are Apple Lossless for CD rips and Apple AAC for iTunes downloads.

And see the attached - it shows contents for only the Sample media folder, the 3 songs downloaded. which are the ones that play when the Show is told to Open Media.

/Shared Music returns a cannot be accessed message.

In my case, I need voice as part of any advanced solution as well; I suspect that any that have used voice will say the same. I started thinking voice was a gimmick, but now find it very convenient to start/stop music when I am not at my desk or in any place with a phone at hand, easily accessible for controller use. 

The neat thing that Amazon did for me is that soon after Dots entered my home, they released the bargain priced Echo Show 5 that also brought in album art, that filled in big miss for me from Sonos, after coming from CD players had LED matrix strips that showed track names. And the lack of album art added to the fact that almost all of my NAS content is available via streaming services, meant that the NAS fell into disuse. 

Using it would need voice commanded start and album art - which would also be something that Sonos  cannot do, even with any modern unit. 

Hence this exploration of My Media, not just as a Sonos Brexit measure, but to get the NAS back into play.

Userlevel 6
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Yeah that’s the one - mainly purchased out of curiosity (it was only £15). It was back in the day when someone suggested making up a PI based CR100 type controller.

I got the desktop version loaded on to it but then gave up…..

I’m using windows, I have my music library on an always on PC but it’s smallish at about 80GB and 9K tracks

So, what do you want to use it for?  If you are using Win then  it should be relatively easy to get up and running.  The music is on what type of PC?

Well, I plan initially to just use it as my media storage on a 128GB SD card but may progress to adding LMS at a later stage as that looks interesting. Currently my MP3s are on a bog standard desktop PC with Windows.

Leave it with me for now, I think I’ve got the general gist of where to go - many thanks for your assistance….

Cheers

John

And - what format are the music files - mp3?

And - Check in mymedia Settings - is there a tab for Mapped Drives ?

 

Detailed reply with screenshot caught in spam filter; we need to wait for it to get released.

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Sadly, not really … it’s a all scattered over the slimdevices forum.

Essentially, the steps are to get LMS running on a Pi or such - easy once you have a basic Pi setup using an OS called Raspian (a version of Ubuntu/Debian).  Once the LMS is running with access to your music library, then additional players can be declared to the system using plugins (one of which is UPnP/DLNA with a setting for Sonos).  Everything above that is optional.

It’s just that the basic steps are done via terminal.  For LMS, almost all the setups, management is done via the web interface (like mymedia console)

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Looks like cards larger than 32 GB have to be SDXC: 32 GB to 2 TB

…. from what I’ve gleaned it should work with the official raspian img.

Be sure to expand the root partition as a first step after the system boots.

See  https://elinux.org/RPi_raspi-config