That’s what I typically do: I have one RPi4 wired to the router which runs MinimServer and transcodes FLAC files to WAV. This is located near the router and is connected to two USB drives. Further, I have an RPi3 (with DigiOne Signature hat) that is connected (via Naim DC1 BNC-BNC) to the nDAC and only runs upmpdcli (and, thus, MPD). This low power RPi3 consumes about 0.2A of current when I switch off all components that I do not need: wired Ethernet, USB, bluetooth, HDMI, internal sound card, etc. Additionally running MinimServer on this transport (with data stored on the internal micro SD card) brings the power consumption up to about 0.25A. Adding a 1TB Samsung T5 (and, thus, switching on the USB bus) drains another 0.20A of current for a total consumption of about 0.48A. Still very little but more than twice the 0.2A that are enough to power the RPi3 when it is used as a pure transport. This is also the default usage: I typically switch on MinimServer and the USB bus on the RPi3 only for testing purposes.
I have 3 RPi3 doing music duties … 1 running Asset with a 1TB drive attached containing ripped FLAC files. The other two running Volumio in my office and bedroom systems. Overall Volumio provides a great set of services either natively or via plug-ins e.g. internet radio, Spotify Connect, UPNP, Shairport, Radio Paradise (incl. FLAC stream), 80s 80s Radio. I also pay the optional (minor) monthly subscription to get Tidal integration which now is able to pass MQA streams to the attached Meridian Explorer DAC.
The Volumio UI could be (a lot) better, especially for Tidal but it is evolving.
Thanks - tried Volumio many years ago on a Mac, probably worth another look now.
Actually, I may not have though possibly a very similar sounding server.
I think the reality is Roon is becoming a bloated power hungry pile of crap that does it the Roon way not the way I want it to.
It’s a glorified media server on the basic level - that should not need massive processing power once the library has been catalogued with occasional additions.
It’s become completely unstable following a few recent updates on my Mac.
Sorry, I know you’re a Roon advocate and all that but it’s actually getting in the way currently for me. Back to Audirvana or something else for now.
Not sure where you get that. From launch they have had a minimum spec nothings changed since then other than you need a more up to date Android device for the remotes. It’s no more hungry than day one. It runs fine on every thing I have run it on. I would say the issue is MacOS not necessarily Roon. But stick with Audivarna, funny that doesn’t work on arm either I wonder why that is?
This thread has piqued my interest. So I just ordered a Raspberry Pi 4B. Since I already have a server running Daphile (LMS) I am going to install picoreplayer (see here) and choose option 1 which enables the pi to be an endpoint to my Daphile server.
One could install the picoreplayer and choose option 2 or 3 which would enable a full LMS (Logitech Media Player) giving it NAS and DNLA capabilities.
There are so many excellent LMS plugins too. I particularly like the upnp bridge plugin which enables me to stream to my Muso, the Material Skin plugin which gives me a top notch controller that I can run on my smartphone, Music and Artist Information which includes lyrics too, Radio Paradise, Qobuz and Spotty (Spotify).
The forum thread for picoreplayer is here.
I’ll report back after I get it set up and running.
I’ve been running Roon on a 2009 MacMini for 2 or so years. I can only recall one problem in all that time- it wasn’t indicating the current song playing and had frozen on a previous song. Connecting to it via an iPad I could see what was playing. A reboot (of Roon) fixed it.
I find it to be pretty stable running on MacOS.
I’ve not had much time to play as yet.
Have enabled Minim Server and can reach its web interface.
I need to add an external drive to the Pi.
Hopeful that one of my many smnaller 2.5" externals will work.
Assuming it will and I can mount it, would you transfer files across the LAN using SSH or is there a way to mount a drive as a network share in GentooPlayer?
What’s the best disk format? ExFat of FAT 32? Can;t natively write to NTFS on Mac.
Finding the GentooPlayer documentation a bit scanty at the minute but this may be as I’m not sure what I want to try out!
So I’ve managed to mount a 1TB drive on reboot. Listed as /dev/sda1:
How do I get MinimServer to use it as the content directory???
Tried various permutations in this interface:
Stuck on specifying the mounted sda1 drive root directory.
Fixed - clear from 1st screengrab now - filesystem /dev/sda1 mounted on /media
Their documentation is sparse. It looks like it’s more of a “player” distro, no file servers (like samba) appear to be included in the image. I think exfat or fat32 will be fine.
FAT32 was fine on an old bus powered 1TB drive - got Minim working just failed to do some network file transfers to it - think I may have figured out why in my sleep, will test later.
What a fun little project. I received my tiny Raspberry pi 4 with 2GB of RAM. I copied the image of picoreplayer to a micro SDHD memory card, inserted into the pi. Then connected the pi to my switch and powered it up. I was immediately able to access the picoreplayer home page.
I then used the menu to turn on Squeezelite (this allows the pi to be an endpoint for my LMS server). I then set up wifi and pulled the ethernet connection and rebooted. The pi connected to my network wirelessly without a problem. Here is an image of the home page connected via wifi with Squeezelite running.
I had to tell picoreplayer that I wanted to use USB output and I had to fiddle with the ALSA volume parameter (thank you Google). I then queued up a few tunes via the LMS plugin called Material Skin. The screen shots are from my laptop. I also could use my phone as a Material Skin controller. These are songs playing from Qobuz:
So as an endpoint for a Logitech Media Server, picoreplayer works just fine. I plugged a cheapo dac/amp to the usb port and listened via my Sennheiser HD600s. The sound was remarkably good.
Next I’ll try to configure the pi as a full LMS server to allow access to a NAS or USB attached music and also enable the pi to act as a DNLA server. Since I already have an LMS server running (Daphile OS) I will not use the pi that way going forward. But I’ll give it a try to test it out and report back.
Here’s a pic of the hardware:
The weekend is over 
and my project to explore the capabilities of picoreplayer is completed. Additional hardware to my previous post was the addition of an 8GB USB thumb drive with some album folders containing flac files. My pi is now running Logitech Media Server (LMS) under picoreplayer. My findings:
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Can picoreplayer running on a Raspberry Pi 4 be used as DLNA server? Yes.
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Can picoreplayer running on a Raspberry Pi 4 be used as NAS? Yes, as far as reading and writing files, but I can’t vouch for performance.
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Does the Naim app see the DLNA server and can I use it to stream music files stored on the server to my Muso-2. Yes.
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Can I stream these files to the Muso-2 using a different controller like the LMS web interface or Material Skin? Yes.
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Can I stream music from Radio Paradise and Qobuz to the Muso-2 via the LMS controller or Material Skin. Yes.
Most of the above functionality was enabled via LMS plugins. The possibilities are too numerous to mention.
The picoreplayer is inexpensive hardware. The 2GB pi, USB-C wall wart power supply and a mini SDHD memory card cost me $74 USD and picoreplayer is free. This kit enabled me to stream music from USB attached and online streaming services to my Squeezebox devices and to my Muso-2. It also functions as a DLNA server that allows me to use the Naim app to stream files to the Muso-2. I could also configure the picoreplayer to only act as an endpoint to my existing LMS server (my previous post). This allows me to easily set up an endpoint anywhere within range of my wifi and with a dac/amp USB dongle listen over my headphones. Overall I was very impressed with the software. Bravo to the picoreplayer developers.
Hi Mike33, thanks for sending me the link. Exactly the sort of out of the box thinking I need. Looks like fun. I’ll order one and explore. Really appreciated.
I can’t understand why you don’t mount a NAS on your Pi over the Ethernet using the fstab file and use one of the standard network file systems like SMB or NFS (ensure cifs-utils is installed) and use that file source for your media server on your Pi… (generally that is the regular way of doing these things) you certainly don’t need to have all the media physically on your Pi… I certainly don’t… unless I mis understand you and that is what you are doing, after all that is the purpose of using a NAS.
The later Pi models have improved I/O (this is more important than CPU for our uses) and makes this a breeze in terms of performance
I do love the Pi, as you can do what you want to do rather than being constrained by a developer or a software vendor, which of course was one of the main points of the Pi’s and the later models are rather powerful… and even an early generation low power Pi has no issue running Asset UPnP server performantly, and mounting 800 Gbytes of media via SMB over the home LAN from a NAS.
The Pi’s are inexpensive and I follow your line of thinking. I have a Pi4 as my NAS with a 2tb USB drive attached running Asset UPNP server. My backup is simply my laptop where the music files are mirrored. I’ve shutdown/removed most everything on the NAS pi so it’s running with little resource use other than ssh for file transfers and Asset.
If I wanted to use picoreplayer, I would just get another pi and run that on the new pi and have it see the files from the Asset pi, in fact, I do that now but instead use Gentooplayer running its OS and apps entirely in ram. It’s great having that type of control.
Hi Simon, Here’s some background. I have been using the Logitech/Squeezebox infrastructure for well over 10 years. So when I decided to have a go at a pi project in response to this thread, I decide to go with picoreplayer as the OS. I already have a Mini/ITX computer as my LMS server running Daphile OS. It serves as a music source for my ripped CDs. It also serves as my streamer (I use the upnp bridge plugin to feed my only Naim device which is a Muso-2). I also have a Synology NAS that I use for non-music files.
After exploring the capabilities of the pi and picoreplayer I realized that it could perform as a full LMS Server giving it DLNA and also streaming capabilities via plugins.
Now that I am finished experimenting, I am going to keep the pi running only as an endpoint to my Daphile OS and use it as a headphone station. There is no USB thumb drive attached now only the dac/amp dongle. I’ve got my eye on a little Topping E30 dac and L30 amp to replace the dongle I’m using now.
After my own experience and after reading some of the other posts here, it’s evident that the pi can be used in many ways in a music delivery infrastructure. It would be an inexpensive, fun and rewarding project especially for those that like to tinker.
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