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Freestanding hard drive music player

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servodude
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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#335672

Postby servodude » August 25th, 2020, 6:25 am

Itsallaguess wrote:
Given that there would then be a choice of either wiring sound out from the HDMI-enabled screen, or picking up the stereo headphone socket of the Vero 4k+ unit itself, and then sourcing that into an AUX input on the existing stereo system, this would then remove any lossy 'wireless' interfaces completely, and deliver the best musical bandwidth to the stereo system, along with a great user-interface and a tiny, discrete, low-powered player...


Interesting, it looks like it also works with the Kodi remote apps
- which would mean you wouldn't need the HDMI out to see what's going on
- is it a Pi in a box? (EDIT: it looks like it's a bit of respin of one; beefed up and with added eMMC )

- sd

Itsallaguess
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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#335674

Postby Itsallaguess » August 25th, 2020, 6:50 am

servodude wrote:
Itsallaguess wrote:
Given that there would then be a choice of either wiring sound out from the HDMI-enabled screen, or picking up the stereo headphone socket of the Vero 4k+ unit itself, and then sourcing that into an AUX input on the existing stereo system, this would then remove any lossy 'wireless' interfaces completely, and deliver the best musical bandwidth to the stereo system, along with a great user-interface and a tiny, discrete, low-powered player...


Interesting, it looks like it also works with the Kodi remote apps

- which would mean you wouldn't need the HDMI out to see what's going on

- is it a Pi in a box? (EDIT: it looks like it's a bit of respin of one; beefed up and with added eMMC )


I don't think it's a 'Pi in a box', but that's only because I've never seen it specifically mentioned, and I imagine it would have come up during the time I've spent looking into the various options I was pursuing before landing on the Vero 4k+ box.

Regarding the potential for headless control, I know you can SSH into it, so there is some level of that available, but to what extent and how useful that might be, I've not done any real research given that the HDMI visual interface is the primary way I'd always want to use it.

There's a very good user/developer forum linked below, where the Vero 4k+ developers really get their hands dirty in supporting the various ongoing discussions, which might glean something in this area if you're interested -

https://discourse.osmc.tv/c/help-and-support/vero-4k/28

As an aside, I note there was a recent topic on Lemon Fool a few weeks back discussing customer feed-back requests, and I've got to say that I was very pleasantly surprised to receive a nice email from Sam Nazarko, the founder of OSMC who make this device, asking me how I was getting on with it a month or so after purchase. That was followed by a couple of really nice email exchanges discussing the Vero 4k+ box and his development of it, and comparing it to a few other options that I was investigating (Nvidia Shield etc..), and it was really nice to feel properly engaged with someone who was genuinely interested in how customers were getting on with his kit...

That was the icing on the cake regarding a brilliant purchase that does exactly what I wanted of it, and much more, and it does so in a way that takes up a 10th of the space of the power supply for the previous hardware solution...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

servodude
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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#335679

Postby servodude » August 25th, 2020, 7:11 am

Itsallaguess wrote:I don't think it's a 'Pi in a box', but that's only because I've never seen it specifically mentioned, and I imagine it would have come up during the time I've spent looking into the various options I was pursuing before landing on the Vero 4k+ box.


Indeed after digging a bit they do look different (https://www.androidcentral.com/raspberr ... vs-vero-4k)
- I was probably swayed in my thinking having used OSMC on one of my first Pi projects

- sd

NomoneyNohoney
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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#340286

Postby NomoneyNohoney » September 14th, 2020, 8:35 pm

Much to my surprise, I appear to be starting a retirement home for Squeezeboxes.

You may recall I was looking for a hard drive music player, and the suggestion was made for checking out old Squeezeboxes. Before I really knew what I was doing, a Squeezebox Boom was on its way.

A freestanding box about 15" x 6" x 6", 30 watts output. Wifi and network connections to connect via PC with the music hard drive. Also wporldwide internet radio stations...
The unit is showing its age, sticky plastic and a dodgy fluorescent display, but it is still the kit I was looking for. I've got a couple of small renovations to do, but the core unit is solid. I'm still trying to learn how the menus work, but the sound quality is great for such a small unit.

If I'm not being misled, as well as the first battered one, I have another allegedly new unit en route from USA. We'll see - I'm not counting my chickens yet. So quickly have I become a proud foster father to two Squeezeboxes!

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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#340431

Postby AllYourBase » September 15th, 2020, 2:32 pm

Decent choice. We're still running 4 Squeezebox Radio players in our house. Kids have pretty much outgrown them now and we all tend to use Spotify on phone/Google Nest nowadays for music, but the Squeezeboxes are still the go to for all the audiobooks we've ripped over the years, along with a few other things which aren't available on Spotify.

AYB.

NomoneyNohoney
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Re: Freestanding hard drive music player

#361312

Postby NomoneyNohoney » November 30th, 2020, 12:17 am

Looking through old posts, realise I never closed the book on this discussion.

Ultimately, I bought a second hand old squeezebox boom unit, for about £50. The sound quality and output level (30W?)is great, but the menu system is very clunky. That has been sidestepped, by using a free Android phone app called Squeezer.
Now, I just select what I want to play using my phone, adjust the volume in the same way, and don't actually have to touch the Squeezebox. Absolutely chuffed to bits with the combination, which suits me very well. Very happy with the results.


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