As some of you may know, my replay system is based on MPD running on a low power, fanless, headless, dedicated micro server connected to a Naim DAC via a UBS to SPDIF converter/isolator.
I am extremely satisfied with the sound quality of this solution but there was an annoying problem: the system of tags supported by MPD is, for classical music, essentially unusable.
I knew I could have tried a JRiver-based solution but I wanted a lightweight solution and I was not prepared to abandon MPD.
In another thread, Eloise and Andrew Everard pointed out that Minimserver supports a system of tags which is already suitable for classical music and and, in fact, can be easily customized. Eloise also explained that the Naim app (and, in fact, many pupular control point applications) supports the "intelligent browsing" mode peculiar of the Minimserver.
This is something I was not aware of and was a crucial piece of information. The other crucial piece of information was realizing that, with upmpdcli, one can take advantage of a UPnP server without losing the advantages of MPD: upmpdcli is a lightweight media renderer front-end for MPD, see http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/index.html for details.
The bottom line: with Minimserver, upmpdcli and MPD, one can easily setup a server/streamer solution that can be controlled both via MPD clients like MPaD (iOS), ncmpcpp (Linux), MPDroid (android) and by control points like Linn Kinsky (iOS), mconnect (iOS), Bubble UPnP (Android), etc.
Since there is virtually no data transfer over the LAN at replay time, this solution does not require wired connections between the server/streamer and the router. The reliability and the sound quality of the underlying MPD server are fully preserved.
This setup is for me the almost ideal music server. And now that everything is up and running and double checked: Thank you Eloise and Andrew!
Posted on: 10 January 2016 by gert
This is very interesting. Upmpdcli is new to me. The support for openhome is great. Gapless playback, seeking, it seems, everything you need is there.
Can this system deliver 192/24?
Do have the DAC connected to the π via USB directly, or does it require an π-soundcard with digital out?
Posted on: 10 January 2016 by nbpf
This is very interesting. Upmpdcli is new to me. The support for openhome is great. Gapless playback, seeking, it seems, everything you need is there.
Can this system deliver 192/24?
Do have the DAC connected to the π via USB directly, or does it require an π-soundcard with digital out?
Gert, until the day before yesterday Upmpdcli was new to me as well.
I run MPD, Upmpdcli and Minimserver on a low-power fit-pc3, not a Raspberry Pi (I also have a Raspberry Pi and a Minimserver running on the Pi in my LAN, but this is another story).The Naim DAC is connected to the fit-pc3 via a M2Tech hiFace Evo USB to S/PDIF converter/isolator. Both the fit-pc3 and the M2Tech are powered by TP PSUs.
The fit-pc3 is a very small, fanless microserver certified for Linux and Windows. It comes in a black aluminium case (the surface finish is almost identical to that of Naim devices, but I still have the server in a cabinet to keep the wirings out of sight) which acts as a heat sink. If you google "tiny green pc", you will see that they meanwhile have a new model called fitlet-H with 4 cores and even lower power consumption.
My understanding is that Upmpdcli is just a UPnP client / MPD frontend. It fully relies on MPD for music replay. The audio output section of mpd.conf, in my case:
audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "M2Tech hiFace Evo USB-SPDIF Interface"
device "hw:2,0"
auto_resample "no"
auto_format "no"
mixer_type "none"
replay_gain_handler "none"
use_mmap "yes"
}
, completely determines how files are processed. With this setup, I get 192/24 if I replay a 192/24 file, 44.1/16 if I replay a 44.1/16 file and so on. While replaying via Upmpdcli and Minimserver, MPD is still full accessible. One can inspect the queue, check status, kbit rate, etc. and control replay.
Gapless replay works fine if the control point cares to add a whole playlist to the MPD queue. Kinsky does this by default, mconnect apparently not. But this is a matter of control point (configuration?), Upmpdcli itself supports gapless via MPD.
The only missing feature so far is the capability of opening the booklet of the album of the currently playing item from the control point. MPaD supports this by just pressing a button. On my Debian laptop, I have written a simple script (mpc and wget) that allows me to open the booklet by just selecting an item from the start menu. I am not aware of Minimserver control points supporting this feature.
Best, nbpf
