Free Hi-Res Online Radio Stations

[SAL9K]

Besides Radio Paradise (which is superb, especially with the @mherger plugin), are there any other high-quality (16b/44k, or greater) online streams you all listen too?

I found this list https://www.hiresaudio.online/cd-qua...nternet-radio/. Some work with LMS and some don't (the NAIM stations are pretty good). None seem to provide track or artwork info when playing (maybe this is a streaming URL limitation). Btw, I'm simply using the "+" feature in Material, to "Add URL to queue", and generally use the FLAC stream, when available.

[Paul Webster]

A similar thread around 9 months ago lead to me writing a new plugin - Radio Now Playing - and incorporating into it most of the stations in that list from hiresaudio and working out how to show song information for all (I think) of them.

See

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?115138-Enjoy-Radio-Paradise-Like-Lossless-Internet-Radio-Streams-Read-On

and

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?115201-Announce-Radio-Now-Playing-plugin

[chicks]

The Jazz Groove is free for their lossy, ad-supported streams, but offers FLAC streaming for a small annual fee. MUCH better, as a jazz listener, than RP, at least for me, and well worth supporting.

[kappclark]

A similar thread around 9 months ago lead to me writing a new plugin - Radio Now Playing - and incorporating into it most of the stations in that list from hiresaudio and working out how to show song information for all (I think) of them.

See

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?115138-Enjoy-Radio-Paradise-Like-Lossless-Internet-Radio-Streams-Read-On

and
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...Playing-plugin

Fabulous addition to LMS - Thank you for developing this -- just discovered Classical KC (256 k aac) and several excellent Jazz stations ..... flac streams as well ...

?? can users add to the app ? Right now, I save the radio stations I discover in the favorites folder, then copy to a genre folder (jazz, classical etc) ... Radio (online or terrestrial ) is such a hassle-free way to discover new material ... no shortage of that for sure ..

[SAL9K]

A similar thread around 9 months ago lead to me writing a new plugin - Radio Now Playing - and incorporating into it most of the stations in that list from hiresaudio and working out how to show song information for all (I think) of them.

See

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?115138-Enjoy-Radio-Paradise-Like-Lossless-Internet-Radio-Streams-Read-On

and
https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...Playing-plugin

Holy frijole, this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

[SAL9K]

The Jazz Groove is free for their lossy, ad-supported streams, but offers FLAC streaming for a small annual fee. MUCH better, as a jazz listener, than RP, at least for me, and well worth supporting.

Thanks for the recommendation, Jazz and Classical are the reasons I went for a Qobuz subscription, as they do those genres really well. Unfortunately, the free stream is 64Kbps, which isn't that great. Although, I do like their track selection so far, Stan Getz' version of Misty was the first track I heard! I think I'll listen for exposure to new stuff.

[Paul Webster]

?? can users add to the app ?

Almost but it is not trivial.
Each group (top level in the menu) is configured via a configuration file.
My intention with this plugin was to reduce the amount of Perl code that has to be written to add a new station group.
That has been largely achieved but there is often something new that I have to put in to handle some unique feature of a new source. I try to write that new feature in a generic way and add a new optional element in the configuration file to control it ... so if it happens that the "unique feature" is needed when integrating a new station group then I achieve reuse and no new code needed.
It is certainly a lot easier than writing and maintaining a new plugin for each station group (which is what I was doing before) and it means that end-users who install the plugin might find that a station that they were listening to for years but without song info or cover art will find that the information appears by magic by simply upgrading the plugin.

One user has used one of my configuration files to add more stations from that particular broadcaster plus made new logos and provided me with the resulting files which I incorporated into a new release.

At some point (and not in this thread) I'll write some documentation for the configuration files so that it becomes a bit more practical for people to make their own.

Edit:
I just played https://jazzgroove.org that was mentioned earier in this thread.
LMS shows track details while it is playing ... but there is no cover art ... so I'll take a look to see if I can add it. I would expect to be able to do that without having to write new code (so just a new configuration file).
However, matching jazz track information to find cover art from external sources is not always reliable (as you will see if you try EuropaRadioJazz)

[Paul Webster]

As you will see from this screenshot ... trying to get cover art for Jazz is hard ...

I created a configuration file for The Jazz Groove - Mix 1 and left it playing for a few tracks.
The plugin found cover art for only 1 of the 4 tracks.

They do have cover art on their site - but linking to it is tricky and using their metadata is also hard ... so there won't be anything from me much better on this one for a while (if at all!).