PiCorePlayer LMS Server - Sync performance and setup

[s2kiwi]

Hi all,

I have 8/9 players (various raspberry pis and 1 squeezebox) through the house which run synchronised most of the time.

Up to now I've been using the group players plugin for this. I've set a lower kbps rate for the group player so when all 8 are running it down samples. I'm doing this mainly as I've found things were struggling with synchronisation when playing FLAC when I wasn't doing this. Probably due to 2 of the players being on wifi?

I've been considering removing the laptop and switching to a RPi (picore player) to be the LMS server (all music is on a NAS anyway). However, I'm nervous about doing away with the transcoding because of the sync issues I've had previously. I'm assuming transcoing on a RPi is a no go?

Does anyone have any advice on how best to set this up, or how to best optimise things?

Cheers

[mherger]

> I have 8/9 players (various raspberry pis and 1 squeezebox) through the
> house which run synchronised most of the time.

Use the most powerful of your Pis (should be a 3B at least) and give it
a try. You'll see whether this works or not, and is easily configured
using pCP.

--

Michael

[s2kiwi]

> I have 8/9 players (various raspberry pis and 1 squeezebox) through the
> house which run synchronised most of the time.

Use the most powerful of your Pis (should be a 3B at least) and give it
a try.

Yep, good shout - I'll just give it a go.

Is there any additional configuration I should consider for best performance, or just run with the defaults?

[garym]

Yep, good shout - I'll just give it a go.

Is there any additional configuration I should consider for best performance, or just run with the defaults?

defaults likely best.

[timinski]

defaults likely best.

I have similar issues as what I understand s2kiwi is experiencing. I have LMS on a Core2 Lubuntu server and a couple of RPi2B+ PiCorePlayers with HiFiBerry DACs. I get the same results whether or not the Pi's are on WiFi or on POE LAN connections. Basically the PCP's sound echo'd if played together via sync.

Can't seem to get the audio to sound as if coming from a hardwired analogue stereo amp.

Any thoughts?

Thanks very much for your help.

Timinski,
Charlevoix, QC Canada

[Jeff07971]

I have similar issues as what I understand s2kiwi is experiencing. I have LMS on a Core2 Lubuntu server and a couple of RPi2B+ PiCorePlayers with HiFiBerry DACs. I get the same results whether or not the Pi's are on WiFi or on POE LAN connections. Basically the PCP's sound echo'd if played together via sync.

Can't seem to get the audio to sound as if coming from a hardwired analogue stereo amp.

Any thoughts?

Thanks very much for your help.

Timinski,
Charlevoix, QC Canada

Is it way off ?
Remember the speed of and volume of sound has a large effect here

Jeff

[timinski]

Is it way off ?
Remember the speed of and volume of sound has a large effect here

Jeff

@Jeff07971:947370:
-- It's off enough to be annoying and unusable. Sort of like being in a tunnel...but worse. I currently only listen to one pair of speakers wired to one Pi (they're Pi3B+ models -- made a mistake earlier). That Pi is fed from the server via PoE and sounds amazing. Haven't fired up the second Pi / speaker pair because I am now at a loss as to why the symptoms occur.

[Paul Webster]

If the offset in the sound is consistent then try adjusting the delay via
Settings/Player/PlayerName/Synchronize

[timinski]

If the offset in the sound is consistent then try adjusting the delay via
Settings/Player/PlayerName/Synchronize

Ok. Thanks for the suggestion. Will give it a try and report back with details on what was done.

[Randyak]

Hi Squeezebox Fans,
First to say hello to everybody, as I am a new member.
First things first, here's my setup:
Server:

• LMS 7.9.1 (Beta) runs on Synology DS218+

Player:

• 2x Squeezebox Boom
• 2x Squeezebox Radio
• 1x Squeezebox Controler
• 1x Raspberry Pi 3B+ und Allo Digione Transport. Software is piCorePlayer v4.1.0 running Squeezelite v1.9.0-1121-pCP. This device is connected via electrical SPDIF to my Denon AVR-X4400H

I have an issue with synchronisation which is really annoying to me
If I listen to music with my pi3B+ Allo Digione Combo, sound is really great and I enjoy it very much.
BUT, if I synchronize several players, such as my Pi3B+ in the living room and my Boom in the kitchen, they are not perfectly synchronous. The effect is hearable due to an open space design (living room, dining room and kitchen) and very disturbing
If I synchronize only original Logitech Hardware such as my Booms and Radios, everything is real fine and perfectly synched. Only the 3rd Party Stuff doesn't work properly.
I read a lot of threads in several forums throughout the Internet. Will say I read the whole internet and wasn't able to find anything helpfull to solve my problem. I tried almost every setting to fine tune, no help.
This is my last try. If no one out there has a clou, I will sell my 3rd Party Hardware and buy me a squeezebox touch, which hopefully is perfectly synched with all my other original Logitech Squeezebox gear.
Excited to hear from you
Kind regards
Andreas