The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it - ADVANCED APPROACHES

K

A little over a week ago, I started a thread to engage with like minded people here: those that felt the way I did, as explained in my opening post there. That thread was titled: “The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it” and I intended that to be the last thread I open on this site.

A link to that thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/the-sonos-brexit-and-pragmatic-ways-past-it-6836056

That thread has grown beyond expectations. While everyone on it has contributed to keep it profanity free and largely rant free, with an occasional nudge by @Edward R in that effort, just by virtue of its length, it has become unwieldy as all long threads become. And it has many days to run, because the Sonos Brexit event, and the release of detailed information about it by Sonos, are both at least three months away.

I therefore thought that it made sense to break my promise to myself - No More Threads - and make just this one exception to it, by opening this thread. It is meant to discuss such approaches and options that may be employed by advanced users that are comfortable going well beyond plug and play options in pursuit of ways past this Sonos Brexit with or without incorporating any Sonos product in it. The original thread linked above may then be used for options that probably a majority of Sonos users will be able to employ - the plug and play kind of options towards the same objective. Which are those that employ off the shelf third party devices that are self contained, such as Echo Dots as an example, where the only wiring, if needed, is external - a stereo wire running between Sonos and non Sonos devices. And which do not involve any coding or any attempt to get under the Sonos hood. Or which involve server like devices that need a complex set up to get it to work with Sonos. In brief, something that non geeks - and I am one of those - will be able to cope with, belong to the original thread, while the complex options belong to this thread, as its title suggests.

There is no set in stone dividing line between the two approaches and none is needed. I am sure that community judgement can be relied on to keep the two threads distinct, linked by a common ethos, in a way that both end up being more useful than one thread will be.

I will visit this thread, but here I do not expect to further any discussion forward significantly - that will be beyond my abilities. So, lurking mode here, most if not all of the time. And if I find anything useful here that makes sense to the original thread, I will steal with no compunctions!

So, well before Sonos forks out legacy and modern systems into two, a fork to serve all that will be effected by the Sonos fork.

I apologies for the clunky title, which is an outcome of the original thread being blessed with a clunky one.

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119 replies

K

It looks similar, with some more line items.

But there isn't one that says WDmycloud.

C
Userlevel 6
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How about a screenshot?

K

Here it is, and folder names look unfamiliar!

 

C
Userlevel 6
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Hmm … what happens if you type in /Volumes/Public/SharedMusic

K

The count remains 0 after scanning.

C
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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!

K

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.

C
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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?

 

 

chickentender

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.

chicks

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

chickentender

^^^ “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.

C
Userlevel 6
Badge +14

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 ?

 

K

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.

K

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.

K

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.

C
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This spam filter is a pain!

Been trying to follow the setup video - seems they drill down from /   to  Users  in order to set the path - look there to see if you can spot the nas folder SharedMusic

Clutching at straws because I don’t have a mac to try any of this out

K

No, that isn't visible. I am now trying to just use the first one, just the / - it is at 450 and scanning, but the content count is still at 0! Will wait it says scanning over and see what happens.

File formats are Apple Lossless and Apple AAC, that should not be a problem.

C
Userlevel 6
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No, that isn't visible. I am now trying to just use the first one, just the / - it is at 450 and scanning, but the content count is still at 0! Will wait it says scanning over and see what happens.

File formats are Apple Lossless and Apple AAC, that should not be a problem.

I’m still not sure how the mac sets the path to your  nas …  Did you check Settings to see if there’s a mapped drives tab ?

C
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I’ve had an email from the developer … hope he can advise on this.

Is your nas always on and accessible to the mac?

K

No, there is just one tab in mymedia settings - I have now received a email from support that I need to mount my WD to my Mac and then point mymedia to that mount. Why Sonos does not need this is a mystery, but I will now try to google and find out how to do this mounting!

K

 

Is your nas always on and accessible to the mac?

Yes, it is.

K

Google suggests that the fact that I can copy a file on the Mac and paste it to the WD by opening it by just on clicking WD in the Mac Finder window means that the WD is mapped to the Mac, which is the same as mounting it!

Which is also why for setting up the Music library for Sonos from the Mac for music files lying in the WD, it just involved pointing Sonos to the SharedMusic folder on the WD, visible on the Mac - and the Sonos controller can now be told to play music sitting in the WD. 

So this is back to square one.

K

If you see the Mac finder screenshot I have posted, there is a eject like button seen next to the WD - tapping on that would eject - unmount - the WD. So why mymedia is not seeing it from the Mac is a mystery.

K

And I have asked mymedia support these questions, response awaited.

C
Userlevel 6
Badge +14

No, there is just one tab in mymedia settings - I have now received a email from support that I need to mount my WD to my Mac and then point mymedia to that mount. Why Sonos does not need this is a mystery, but I will now try to google and find out how to do this mounting!

 

Sonos uses samba to access the WD directly.  MM needs to access via a locally mounted folder on the PC it’s running on.   

No idea why the WD share isn’t showing under /Volumes/Public - let’s hope the dev has a solution.  I sent him the screenshots you posted.

I’m out again this afternoon until about 5pm CET

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