Which software to use to serve up my flac files?

[splotzot]

Hi everyone!

I've recently bought a WiiM Ultra which I'm planning on having setup on my vintage hifi system to give it some modern capabilities, it's also to give my TV audio a boost as well as I'll be able to use HDMI Arc from the TV to the WiiM. We're a Spotify household so being able to use Spotify Connect is great.

My question is this - I'm currently ripping my entire CD collection to flac using EAC and I find myself at a bit of a stumbling block, and that's how to serve up all these files to my WiiM Ultra.

My current line of thought is to build a server, I already have a Micro PC in the form of a Dell OptiPlex 7060 (similar to this), it's been upgraded with an additional 1TB SSD drive, but I'm now falling flat about what software to use to serve up my music files as there is a lot of choice. I don't want to put Windows on it.

I've read about Roon and LMS and I'm not convinced one way or the other, but also, couldn't I just created a Linux box with MiniDLNA installed? I'd prefer to keep controlling apps to a minimum on my phone to make things easier for my partner.

Would Plex be a better option? I could in theory playback music using Plex on my TV connected to the WiiM Ultra? It would involve creating another Plex media server (I already use Plex on my desktop for streaming films, but keeping that turned on 24/7 isn't an option) on my Dell 7060.

Would virtualising all of this on Proxmox be recommended? IE install Proxmox as the base OS on my Dell then create a vm with MiniDLNA installed?

Also, what's stopping me from just copying my entire library to a large enough USB Drive and plugging that into the WiiM Ultra?

I'm fairly technically competent so barrier to entry isn't a worry, I'm just a bit overwhelmed with all the options!

 

[splotzot]

Why don't you just remove plex from your desktop and install it on the mini pc and have it serve both your music and videos?

I use Emby in that way. Whenever I (re)try out music servers including roon, plex, navidrome, both lms, minidlna, in the end I always stick with emby because
a) it'll be running anyway because of the films and
b) it does everything I want. None of the other's offer me anything worth switching for, or do anything any better.

If you're running plex anyway and it will do everything you want it to, why mess about?

Two words - storage capacity, my main desktop has 2 x 6TB hard drives and a 3070 for transcoding, it's stuffed full of my videos, I can't connect my internal HDDs (easily) to my mini PC. My Mini PC would just be for music and maybe some other non-related services.

I guess a way around all this would be to buy a NAS but that isn't going to be happening anytime soon due to cost, I'm trying to do this with my current hardware setup without purchasing anything else.

Plex does appeal to me, especially because I've already got the app on my TV.

 

[splotzot]

Try out Asset Upnp and MinimServer if you decide to go down that road. I also prefer Asset of the two, though, it seems, most people recommend Minim.

Nice one, I'll check them both out and see what is going to be best for my setup.

 

[slartibartfast]

I'm a long time (20+ years) LMS user. You don't have to scan your library very often, so I wouldn't use the scan time as a measure of how good a server is. (FWIW, I have 23,000 tracks on 1800+ albums and it takes 11 seconds to do a compete rescan). I would use reliability and support as measures, as well as ease of maintenance and use. With any server, you will need to be careful about the way you tag your files. Decide on how you will and make sure new files are tagged to your standard before adding them to the server. If you're downloading files and trusting the tags to be correct and acceptable, you'll be disappointed. Get yourself a copy of MP3tag to do tagging, and Foobar2000 to do replaygain tagging.

I tried using Plex for video several years ago. It started great, but the Plex people decided they wanted to become a streaming service and then it went to shit. I started having to log into Plex cloud servers just to play stuff from my own server. I replaced Plex with Jellyfin and it has been reliable and serves video as well a Plex ever did without any ads or logins.

I have a 10 YO small form factor PC for a server that runs Ubuntu server (headless) with Jellyfin and LMS and it has worked with 100% reliability and simple maintenance (once every couple weeks I run sudo apt upgrade) for over 5 years. Jellyfin upgrades with the server software, and LMS uses a slightly different process that it conveniently tells you what to do when it infrequently updates.

Wiim products show up as players on LMS without any screwing around. I have a Pro plus, Amp pro, and Amp Ultra and they all just work with LMS, Tidal, and Pandora.

I organize my audio files on the server in sub directories: genre, band, year - album, files. For multidisc sets I number the files per disc like 101, 102..., 201, 202,... etc. Single disc files are 01, 02, 03, ... - always use leading zeroes! File names are always track no - title. Keeping file names short helps any server avoid confusion and too-long file name problems. MP3tag can translate tags to file names easily. When I want to play a multidisc set, I just select it and all the files play in order- I don't have to select the individual discs or add them to a playlist.

How do you manage a full clear and scan in 11 seconds? The database optimization at the end of the scan takes longer than that for me even on a "new and changed" scan

 

[R. Neal]

Plex is nicely integrated with wiim. That's what I use.

 

[simbun]

I want to be able to control it via Android

Given you're on Android I'd start with the WiiM Home App (WHA) and MinimServer (don't choose "Advanced" in the WHA) or Plex. Try both as they use different APIs so offer different functionality in the WHA.

If you find the WHA lacking but want to stick with one of the above servers I'd try BubbleUPnP with MinimServer or Symfonium with Plex.

The next step up would be to replace Plex in the Symfonium solution with Lightweight Music Server; the biggest benefit of which will be tagging support as Plex is quite limited in this respect.

 

[mrehorst]

How do you manage a full clear and scan in 11 seconds? The database optimization at the end of the scan takes longer than that for me even on a "new and changed" scan

My mistake, it wasn't a clear and rescan. Clear and rescan took 7:24
My server is a 10 YO Dell Optiplex 3020 PC with an i7 CPU and 8 GB of RAM and the OS and server programs are on an SSD. The music and video files are on USB HDDs. The OS is headless Ubuntu Server, and servers are Jellyfin for video and LMS for audio.



That was the first clear and rescan I've done in maybe 3 years. I can wait 7 minutes. I'm not sure why I'd need to do rescans and especially clear and rescan. LMS works pretty reliably on my setup.

 

[slartibartfast]

My mistake, it wasn't a clear and rescan. Clear and rescan took 7:24
My server is a 10 YO Dell Optiplex 3020 PC with an i7 CPU and 8 GB of RAM and the OS and server programs are on an SSD. The music and video files are on USB HDDs. The OS is headless Ubuntu Server, and servers are Jellyfin for video and LMS for audio.

View attachment 30405

I will be changing to an SSD after Christmas so expecting a speed increase

 

[anonyless]

My mistake, it wasn't a clear and rescan. Clear and rescan took 7:24
My server is a 10 YO Dell Optiplex 3020 PC with an i7 CPU and 8 GB of RAM and the OS and server programs are on an SSD. The music and video files are on USB HDDs. The OS is headless Ubuntu Server, and servers are Jellyfin for video and LMS for audio.



That was the first clear and rescan I've done in maybe 3 years. I can wait 7 minutes. I'm not sure why I'd need to do rescans and especially clear and rescan. LMS works pretty reliably on my setup.

ODroid HC4 SBC(arm64) 4GB ram running on 16GB SD card + 14TB 7200rpm drive
quick scan took 9 seconds. 5304 folder / over 61k audio files

 

[mrehorst]

ODroid HC4 SBC(arm64) 4GB ram running on 16GB SD card + 14TB 7200rpm drive
quick scan took 9 seconds. 5304 folder / over 61k audio files

ok

 

[slartibartfast]

ODroid HC4 SBC(arm64) 4GB ram running on 16GB SD card + 14TB 7200rpm drive
quick scan took 9 seconds. 5304 folder / over 61k audio files

What is the alternative to a quick scan and how does it differ?

 

[anonyless]

What is the alternative to a quick scan and how does it differ?

actually you don't even need to run a quick scan manually when you make changes to the library, as it constantly scans for changes.

a "full scan" is done once - when you define a new music storage location (or after you just installed the server), or on major changes to database structure - that is, a new Navidrome version release . I never had to perform a full scan for no reason

 

[mrehorst]

So clearly database scan times are not something to select one server over another.