Today vs 2012; What's different today in the Squeezebox world?

[artmaltman]

I did disable MOG at some point. After which I was told that while MOG
was dead in the US, it still existed in some way in NZ or Australia. But
that's been years ago. Might be dead by now, too...

> Yes, and what about Napster, Deezer, Amazon CD store, MusicIP, Orange
> Liveradio and Slacker, etc?

Of these I believe all but Amazon are still very much alive. Amazon CD
store should work, too, as it's not a service, but some implementation
on our end. But whether it's used or not, I don't know.

But I'd agree that we could probably flag many of them disabled by default.

--

Michael

[artmaltman]

Today vs 2012; What's different today in the Squeezebox world?

What's the current situation with Squeezebox Touch and LMS? Would any of you be willing to give me a short summary? I've been out of touch with this community since 2012!

I used to use my pair of Squeezebox Touch's relentlessly until mid-2012 when I moved from a large home in California to a smaller apartment in Manhattan. They have been gathering dust in closet ever since. Last week I cleaned them up and plugged them in and they look like they will work fine. LMS version 7.7.6 downloaded and runs on my MacBook pro with Catalina, v10.5.5 though I've yet to try to play music.

QUESTION: what's changed other than Logitech obviously dropping support. Per the forums, it looks like there is a huge community continuing to update the software and loving these units. Does the old functionality still exist? New functionality? Should I be running a newer LMS (and why?)? I see some references to Tidal, is that a thing on the Touch?

I used to use them to play the iTunes music database on my Mac. One Touch in the bedroom powering Audioengine 5's, sounded great. The other in my high end tube audio system, using a high end DAC, and it was glorious; always better than Bluetooth music because wifi has better bandwidth, I believe. The Touch's units would synchronize perfectly. But today iTunes has been replaced with "Music". Implications?

Would any of you kindly update me on the current situation, and/or point me to forum entry(s) that do this? I have searched and not found it.

Thank you very much.
Art Altman

[garym]

1. In many ways the squeezebox/LMS ecosystem has never been stronger. The rPi revolution (and piCorePlayer), among others, has solved the discontinuation of the hardware. The usergroups at this forum are doing amazing work.

2. LMS can allow one to play spotify, tidal, and Quobuz streaming services.

3. You should run either LMS 7.9.3 or LMS 8.0 (there have been so many program improvements over the last 8 years, that using an old version is just not needed or warranted....newer versions are very stable). The "material" plugin gives a nice more modern user webinterface.

http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.9

http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=8.0

4. You can point the LMS music library to wherever you have your itunes music files stored, and LMS will scan this location and make those files available to use. no need for any special "use itunes xml file" etc.

5. Load up LMS, set it up. fire up your Touch players and have fun. As you can see from my signature, I'm still using my Squeezebox players with great results.

EDIT: with catalina, you'll need 7.9.x or later, and there are some permissions evidently needed to access files. See:

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?112405-Problem-Can-t-find-files&highlight=catalina

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?112102-LMS-on-MacOS-Cataline-10-15-4&highlight=catalina

[bpa]

QUESTION: what's changed other than Logitech obviously dropping support. Per the forums, it looks like there is a huge community continuing to update the software and loving these units. Does the old functionality still exist? New functionality? Should I be running a newer LMS (and why?)? I see some references to Tidal, is that a thing on the Touch?

Significant change in development - development is done by community, no big release backed up by big testing team, lots of continuous updates with feedback on bugs from community. 8.0 is latest version which has most development. 7.9.3 only gets essential support.

Most new development are driven external internet services - Spotify, Tidal, Deezer etc and huge variety of streaming live and on-demand and podcast services. New service often require new support of internet standards such as security https with TLS 1.3 and so latest version of LMS has latest support.

There is support via plugins for playing via Airplay, Chromecast and uPNP devices.

RPI based players have choice of an array of "hats" with DACs of varying quality.

[Apesbrain]

I'll just add that the Touch remains a very competitive device for the purposes you've described. Its DAC is fine for direct output to a set of small powered speakers, and if connected to an external DAC it is completely up to the demands of a great system. The Raspberry Pi solutions come into play if you want to add a zone, or if a Touch stops working; their sound quality is as good or better than the Touch.

For me, the big improvement of the past eight years has been the convenience of using mobile devices as control points. There are apps for Android and iOS that duplicate the library and control functionality of LMS. There also is now, as mentioned, a contemporary "Material Skin" installable via plugin that looks great on the desktop or in a mobile browser.

There is nothing I need from Squeezebox that it can't do, and this community is great!

[artmaltman]

My jaw dropped

Well, this is amazing. Thank you all for the detailed updates. I am so pleasantly surprised!

More info is always welcome. I will start with downloading the newer versions of LMS. Should I go for 7.9.3 or 8? I don't want to get involved with beta's just yet because I'm not familiar with how things are supposed to work, so the risk of bugs is just too much for me.

Thanks so much.
Art

[TimT]

Well, this is amazing. Thank you all for the detailed updates. I am so pleasantly surprised!

More info is always welcome. I will start with downloading the newer versions of LMS. Should I go for 7.9.3 or 8? I don't want to get involved with beta's just yet because I'm not familiar with how things are supposed to work, so the risk of bugs is just too much for me.

Thanks so much.
Art

Go for 8.

[mherger]

Today vs 2012;What's different today in the Squeezebox world?

> More info is always welcome. I will start with downloading the newer
> versions of LMS. Should I go for 7.9.3 or 8?

I must mention that LMS8 is the latest and greatest, of course, but it's
far from finalized. It's stable as of today, but this could change at
any time. If you want to take the risk, I'd suggest you check the status
before updates. I'm going to announce bigger changes when they hit LMS8
nightlies.


--

Michael

[garym]

Well, this is amazing. Thank you all for the detailed updates. I am so pleasantly surprised!

More info is always welcome. I will start with downloading the newer versions of LMS. Should I go for 7.9.3 or 8? I don't want to get involved with beta's just yet because I'm not familiar with how things are supposed to work, so the risk of bugs is just too much for me.

Thanks so much.
Art

I've thought about moving to 8, but I'm mostly running 7.9.3, and it does everything I want. So good enough for now (for me)

[Daverz]

What's the current situation with Squeezebox Touch and LMS? Would any of you be willing to give me a short summary? I've been out of touch with this community since 2012!

For the Touch the biggest change was the Enhanced Digital Output app, but looks like that was launched back in 2012, so you may know about that already.

The Touch is still pretty capable with the EDO app installed. I still use mine for my headphone system. I use an RPi4 (headless) running piCorePlayer for my speaker system.

For me, the biggest changes in LMS were:

* LMS 7.9 including a Composer menu.
* Qobuz
* Material Skin, finally a decent web interface
* Music & Artist Info (I can read all those PDFs in my music folders)

[garym]

For the Touch the biggest change was the Enhanced Digital Output app, but looks like that was launched back in 2012, so you may know about that already.

The Touch is still pretty capable with the EDO app installed. I still use mine for my headphone system. I use an RPi4 (headless) running piCorePlayer for my speaker system.

For me, the biggest changes in LMS were:

* LMS 7.9 including a Composer menu.
* Qobuz
* Material Skin, finally a decent web interface
* Music & Artist Info (I can read all those PDFs in my music folders)

I'd say it is very capable even without the EDO applet. (in case the OP doesn't know, the EDO applet will allow the Touch to play 24/192 files (normally limited to 24/96 files). EDO will also allow the one to connect the Touch to the USB input of a DAC. (full disclosure, I've not used the EDO applet on my Touch players.)

[artmaltman]

Radio works but LMS rebuffering ...

Radio seems to work ok, nicely actually, but when I try to play music from my iTunes database on Mac via LMS, it keeps rebuffering.
Running 7.9.3 thinking it sounds more stable than 8 right now, but, willing to try 8 if you think that might help. 2015 MacBook Pro 13" 16gig I7 running 10.15.5 (latest MacOS).
I did a "rescan".
Is there a clear solution here or a matter of debugging?
I assume the wifi connection is ok since the radio plays quite well.
Thank you.
Art

[garym]

8 vs 7.9.3 not likely the issue with rebuffering. Provide more detail. Where are your files located? how attached to Mac. Wired vs Wifi. and you mention radio, but before you talked about Touch players. Playing local files or streaming? and you mention radio plays well. What is buffering? your Touch player? Or a software player on your Mac. Sorry, need more specific info to help.

edit: there is a squeezebox player called a "radio". Perhaps you don't mean that and instead mean that you can play internet radio via the Touch players OK. It this the case? Regarding playing your own music, don't try to use the itunes integration approach. Instead, go to LMS > settings > basic settings > media folder, and enter the parent directory of the folder holding your music files.

[artmaltman]

Yikes, this is funny, I did not realize how ambiguous my comment was. Computer connected to internet via wifi. Touch connected also via wifi. By "radio" I mean the radio function on the Touch. Some stations play nicely, others though I just get a "teststream" notification. I have now unchecked the "use itunes" box in Library, which I think is what you were suggesting. Just did a rescan and yes I point it to the itunes media folder which contains the music folder among other folders. The rescan happens oddly quickly.

[artmaltman]

... buffering is happening on the Touch itself.