Plex Integration (In-App and as Plexamp Player)

[jxrxme]

I really love the WiiM Amp so far. Most music I listen with the Amp is using Plexamp + Chromecast to WiiM Amp.

A native Plex Integration would be highly appreciated. Integrated in the WiiM Home App and additionally as Plexamp compatible player in the network since listening to music with Plexamp is way more fun.

I would absolutely beta test this feature.

 

[huw]

It is a display bug:

Actually doing some reading about how the audio is processed in Music Assistant it appears the 16-bit file is processed as 32-bit float then converted back to 24-bit but the ADI-2 DAC is correctly detecting that with volume normalisation and all DSP turned off there are only 16-bits of audio data.

 

[pieterv1]

Actually doing some reading about how the audio is processed in Music Assistant it appears the 16-bit file is processed as 32-bit float then converted back to 24-bit but the ADI-2 DAC is correctly detecting that with volume normalisation and all DSP turned off there are only 16-bits of audio data.

Yes I figured there was at least some transcoding going on, since you get the choice to set the output stream format in either Flac or WAV. But it's nice to see at least the bits check out - as they should

 

[huw]

Yep more information here:

Feature Request: Option to bypass audio processing and maintain original sample rate/bit depth · music-assistant · Discussion #3327

Title: Feature Request: Option to bypass audio processing and maintain original sample rate/bit depth Description I would like to request a feature to bypass all audio processing in Music Assistant...

github.com

 

[pieterv1]

That's also explains why it is converted to a continuous audio stream (as detected the WiiM)

Personally I don't mind too much - as the bitstream should be identical indeed. And while you can't do any searching/scrubbing through the single tracks in the WH app (you can in the Plexamp app itself), you can still select previous/next track with the WH app or remote.

 

[huw]

That's also explains why it is converted to a continuous audio stream (as detected the WiiM)

I think that is only when "Flow Mode" is enabled:

Technical Information - Music Assistant

Indepth Information Regarding Certain MA Functions

www.music-assistant.io

"native endqueue support" sounds like normal gapless playback - the streamer gets the next track before the last one ends so it can make sure there's no break.

 

[pieterv1]

Alriiiight, by disabling "queue flow mode" for my WiiM Ultra's UPnP player settings (in Music Assistant), I was able to get artwork and correct bitrate shown on the display & WH app! It seems to be the case indeed that the audio is always going to be 24 bit at least, due to everything being transcoded to Flac/Wav, but this will have 0 effect to the sound as long as you keep all the DSP, normalisation & limiter turned off.

It also passed the "Daft Punk - Alive 2007" - test (gapless playback)

The Music Assistant Plex endpoint is treated just like the headless Raspberry Pi player I used to run - with the ability to take control of it from multiple Plexamp apps (eg controlling playback from my computer & phone simultaneously).

Still a few minor things which could be improved:
- Scrubbing through the waveform & skipping to previous/next track inside Plexamp have a tiny bit of lag, probably because of the audio processing.
- There's no way to skip tracks & search from the WiiM device & WiiM app though. (this worked with Squeezelite)
- Volume control in both directions is still a bit hit or miss for both UPnP & Squeezelite methods
- It takes a bit of time to initialise the connection & pick up the playback position
(and for the purists there's the fact that the audio is always being transcoded)

Otherwise it's a great solution which should work with any UPnP compatible device