[Solved] Need some simple questions cleared up

Hello all,

Ben here from Southern California. I came across Volumio while looking for an alternative to music servers. They get pricey so fast… Right now I just want to try the pi b+ with Volumio on a small set of powered speakers and see how it goes. Ideally I’d like to have a volumio device in each room that I want speakers (cheaper alternative to Sonos, Airport express with more flexibility). Is it possible to control them all at once? Can volumio play tracks from a harddrive connected to an airport extreme? Does volumio organize the tracks at all?

Lastly (for now) and I’m sure this is a rather dump question but when I get my pi do I only install Volumio? Volumio would be the OS? Or is Volumio a program/app?

Thanks for your help,

Ben

Hi Ben,

here are some quick answers to your questions :

There is a project to achieve this. Have a look at this post http://volumio.org/forum/sound-home-android-app-for-multi-rooms-and-other-t21.html.

As far as your airport extreme is capable of sharing the content of your hard rive via Samba or NFS, there is no problem.

Yes Volumio is based on MPD and MPD creates its own library based on the tags present in your songs.

Volumio is an OS. Basically it is a Linux Debian plus some software installed by default (MPD and some other goodies)

Thank you very much! So when I setup a pi the only software/os I use is volumio?

What do you all think of the path I’m headed down?

Yes.

Or you can install a other OS.

Very cool. Thank you. If I test with just the 3.5 analog out am I not going to be happy at all? Or will it perform at least as good as the audio out on a mac/pc?

Test it with the 3.5 analog out, if you think the sound is not really good you can buy a DAC.

I have a dac coming but I’m not sure if it’ll be supported as it only has usb or coaxial. I forget which dac chip they are using.

kickstarter.com/projects/20 … he-way-you

What are the requirements for volume to read files on a external hard drive? If i copy an iTunes library can it read straight from that or do i have to change the file path?

Dunno…
Try it with a few files, if it works you can copy your ITunes library (for small librarys use a usb stick, if you use a hard drive you mostly need an usb hub with a extra power supply)

connect the usb stick/hard drive, boot up your volumio and update your mpd database

That was my problem. Harddrive was too big and unpowered. All square now, copy of iTunes library works just fine. Next step is to setup a drive on the airport extreme.