Advice Needed Re. Music Streaming

[WiteWulf]

Morning all, I recently upgrade our home theatre system to a set of Samsung HW-N950 speakers (Atmos/TrueHD/DTS:X/DTS-HD MA capable soundbar with wireless sub and surrounds). Our previous home theatre system didn't really sound good with music but this sounds great with Spotify playing through it, so I wanted to look into getting my HD audio and surround sound music playing over it. The music is almost all in FLAC format, mostly 24/96 stereo, but some 5.1 surround stuff (also multi-channel FLAC, but some DTS files that I should get around to transcoding to multichannel FLAC).

Years ago I used to use RasPlex on a raspi connected to the AV kit to play these files, but since I moved to the built-in Plex client on the TV it no longer plays nicely with these files (either transcoding down to 48kHz or messing up the surround channel assignment).

Can anyone suggest an affordable alternative? The files are all sat on my NAS, so can be accessed via SMB/CIFS or DLNA (or the Plex server). I've tried chromecasting from an Android tablet accessing the files using DLNA but it's stuttering with the HD stuff (it's basically transmitting the wifi three times: server->wifi_ap->tablet->wifi_ap->soundbar). The soundbar doesn't have a wired ethernet port, so it's stuck on wireless.

I've also got an Nvidia Shield (2019, Tube model) connected to the soundbar (that's on a wired network connection). I think this may be the key, but I'm not familiar with what's available on android TV.

[Deckard]

AVForums I feel would be more your friend for a query like this....

[WiteWulf]

Yeah, but you know how you ask your mates first because it's preferable to politely asking a question in middle of a room full of arguments and discussions and getting flamed or ignored?



FWIW, it's looking like Kodi on the Shield could be a good option. They've continued to develop the music side of things, unlike Plex, and it will output 24/96 multichannel to the soundbar. Only problem I've found with it so far is that it doesn't work with the TV turned off for some reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[VNVObit]

currently use a PiZero for that purpose running picoreplayer (would need LMS though).

Does your soundbar have a usb in?

[WiteWulf]

currently use a PiZero for that purpose running picoreplayer (would need LMS though).

Hmm, I'd rather keep it in Plex and use SMB, DLNA or Chromecast to get it to the soundbar...

Does your soundbar have a usb in?

Nope, just the one spare HDMI, and wifi/bluetooth. Wifi seems to support chromecast and Spotify Connect.

Chromecast spec, on paper at least, suggests it will support up to 24/96 for 2 channel stereo. I've no idea what it can do for any more channels than that, though.

[Deckard]

Yeah, but you know how you ask your mates first because it's preferable to politely asking a question in middle of a room full of arguments and discussions and getting flamed or ignored?



FWIW, it's looking like Kodi on the Shield could be a good option. They've continued to develop the music side of things, unlike Plex, and it will output 24/96 multichannel to the soundbar. Only problem I've found with it so far is that it doesn't work with the TV turned off for some reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have never found AVForums anything but friendly and well-informed tbh. Last time I was there a guy was happy to dropbox me a B9 update file and another guy gave me his iPod customised Rockbox setup.

[VNVObit]

currently use a PiZero for that purpose running picoreplayer (would need LMS though).

Hmm, I'd rather keep it in Plex and use SMB, DLNA or Chromecast to get it to the soundbar...

Does your soundbar have a usb in?

Nope, just the one spare HDMI, and wifi/bluetooth. Wifi seems to support chromecast and Spotify Connect.

Chromecast spec, on paper at least, suggests it will support up to 24/96 for 2 channel stereo. I've no idea what it can do for any more channels than that, though.

suppose it'll depend on your wifi (don't know enough about Chromecast)- my soundbar is capable of receiving Chromecast (and has app for that ) but found it a bit hit or miss so moved back to the zero which has a reasonable buffer before going to speaker.
Speaker has its own mesh wifi for satellite speakers but find that really hit or miss (and occasional delay) with rather fiddlely controls (each has their own volume control which is a PITA)

Only use PlexAmp when out from the house or with my DAP (android based and don't want to buy another squeezelite implementation as haven't see a free one on the google store)