New to WiiM, music libraries and servers

[Racerjim66]

Greetings:

We recently built a new house with architectural speakers in four rooms, powered by WiiM amps, all hardwired (no wifi). It was an easy setup, and we are listening to (mainly) Pandora stations, and are very pleased with the performance. I currently also have a WiiM Amp Pro waiting to be installed, which wil also be hardwired to the network, but will also be fed from an older Kenwood A/V receiver (but only using stereo) which will have a turntable, CD player and cassette deck connected.

I also have a collection of ~200CDs, some of which I would like to host on a media server of some type that could feed the WiiM Amp Pro. But I've never gotten around to downloading the content to disk storage. Now in retirement I'd like to have some of my music available to stream from a server.

So, where would I go to learn about how to accomplish this? Hardware recommendations? And which music servers work best with WiiM? Any guidance would be helpful, just need a foothold to get started. Thank you!

Best,

Jim

 

[TimTim]

I don't recall anyone asking for such a feature.

Please prioritise fixing and enhancing the "Legacy" browsing experience before spending any more time on "Advanced" mode. One of your competitive advantages - in this area - over Sonos and BluOS is the ability to use third party UPnP servers, yet it feels like all your development time (for local media) has focussed on "Advanced" mode, which dumbs down third-party servers to MiniDLNA clones.

I second this. There’s great potential but adding new features when other things only sort of work or don’t work just adds to the frustration. Even less frequent updates might be a idea if they actually deliver the promised fixes. When Amazon claims that they will deliver on Friday, they usually deliver on Thursday. Just a cheap psychological trick, really. But if they promised Thursday and something went wrong, people would be disappointed.

Maybe even try to clean up the app at some point. The UI is a convoluted mess.

 

[slartibartfast]

I second this. There’s great potential but adding new features when other things only sort of work or don’t work just adds to the frustration. Even less frequent updates might be a idea if they actually deliver the promised fixes. When Amazon claims that they will deliver on Friday, they usually deliver on Thursday. Just a cheap psychological trick, really. But if they promised Thursday and something went wrong, people would be disappointed.

Maybe even try to clean up the app at some point. The UI is a convoluted mess.

Indeed. Be more like Scotty from Star Trek, under promise and over deliver

 

[allin]

Greetings:

We recently built a new house with architectural speakers in four rooms, powered by WiiM amps, all hardwired (no wifi). It was an easy setup, and we are listening to (mainly) Pandora stations, and are very pleased with the performance. I currently also have a WiiM Amp Pro waiting to be installed, which wil also be hardwired to the network, but will also be fed from an older Kenwood A/V receiver (but only using stereo) which will have a turntable, CD player and cassette deck connected.

I also have a collection of ~200CDs, some of which I would like to host on a media server of some type that could feed the WiiM Amp Pro. But I've never gotten around to downloading the content to disk storage. Now in retirement I'd like to have some of my music available to stream from a server.

So, where would I go to learn about how to accomplish this? Hardware recommendations? And which music servers work best with WiiM? Any guidance would be helpful, just need a foothold to get started. Thank you!

Best,

Jim

My solution includes a usb drive attached to my Synology router. There is a short learning curve to getting the Media Server installed and running but once in place it's fairly bulletproof. You could try the same setup with other routers I imagine but I prefer Synology for security and filtering features. I use a 12TB G-drive formatted to EXT-4 by the router. Synology states 2TB as the max supported but that's obviously out of date info. WiiM can read the files as a DLNA client with the Synology Media app as the DLNA server. One not about WiiM is that when using the Group function all streaming is throttled down to 16/44.1. So if you're planning on using that approach be aware. Also, it's not possible to route to 2 outputs at a time so using optical cabling to achieve high-res in multiple rooms won't work either.
Jeff

 

[Burnside]

My solution includes a usb drive attached to my Synology router. There is a short learning curve to getting the Media Server installed and running but once in place it's fairly bulletproof. You could try the same setup with other routers I imagine but I prefer Synology for security and filtering features. I use a 12TB G-drive formatted to EXT-4 by the router. Synology states 2TB as the max supported but that's obviously out of date info. WiiM can read the files as a DLNA client with the Synology Media app as the DLNA server. One not about WiiM is that when using the Group function all streaming is throttled down to 16/44.1. So if you're planning on using that approach be aware. Also, it's not possible to route to 2 outputs at a time so using optical cabling to achieve high-res in multiple rooms won't work either.
Jeff

I’ve a Synology NAS as well and prefer using Minimserver. Also, I think Linkplay/Wiim multi room groups can support up to 24/48.

 

[dtc]

Hi TimTim, Team

When the WiiM Home App scans your music library, it creates a local database (index) stored alongside your music files. Any enriched metadata we add—such as artist info, album art, or genre—will be saved in this database. This allows for a smoother and smarter experience when browsing, searching, playing, or getting recommendations. Our ultimate goal is to deliver a user experience with your personal library that's on par with modern streaming services. Please stay tuned!

It would be nice to have 2 data options - one to copy the data in local database to the file and one to copy the data in the files to the local database. Having 2 separate sets of data can become confusing. And, if you go to the trouble of enhancing the metadata you should be able to share that with the other location. Note I said option, not automatic syncing.

You also should have an option to allow the user to to customize the display to show some or all of the metadata as part of the playback screen.