Also consider the Lissen app for audiobookshelf on F-Droid. I’ve been using it and find it to be a much more enjoyable experience

For whole-home audio, be sure to look at Lyrion! Formerly Logitech Media Server, it’s now a community-managed project. It’s easily the best open-source whole-home audio solution out there

lyrion.org

150,000 track collection owner here.

CDs are king, but the cost adds up. A lot of artists I follow are on Bandcamp, which I use to purchase my music. I assume everything I buy there will eventually be removed, so I don’t rely on them for archiving it.

But then, there’s the piracy route, which I do for a good portion of my library. Rutracker is absolutely fantastic for lossless. Soulseek is solid, but you gotta use it in a smart way for some releases. Some keywords don’t turn up any results for some reason. So, to find certain albums/artists, try searching for a particular song, then browse by folder on those results to find full albums, if that makes sense.

Why not use Qobuz or Deezer to rip music? Qobuz-dl and Deemix let you rip FLAC from those services if you have a streaming acct. I use Deemix with my Deezer acct to download a TON of music I cant find anywhere else.

Its a lot of work, I agree. But it’s doable. At this point, as services get shittier, pirate. They need to learn that as their services get shittier, people will leave. Give them a financial reason to get better ;)

I honestly just pay for deezer. Any song I want to DL with Deemix for 12$ a month? Absolutely yes. Plus, my wife uses that account to stream on her phone, so it’s a win win

Deezer can have better quality than Soulseek, but I’ve had a lot of success on Soulseek though. If you doubt a DL, you can always spectrum analyze it to check for obvious fake files

These rips, even in FLAC, never contain logs or cues. If you’re downloading FLAC for archival purposes, these files are essential. Private trackers and SS are the only way I download music. Scene rips are a waste of my time

Hope you enjoy the descent into the LMS rabbit hole! Come see us over at the forums if you need any help ;)

LMS would fit the bill perfectly. LMS, or Lyrion Music Server, formerly known as Logitech Media Server, is open source software that’s been given to the community by Logitech themselves. It used to be used to stream music from your computer to Squeezebox devices, but now you can stream it to nearly any computer, including…

Raspberry pis! By using piCorePlayer, you can turn your pi into a server for LMS, a player, or both at the same time!

I’ve been using LMS for years and can’t praise it enough. I’ve got whole house audio. My server runs on a Pi 4 and streams music from my NAS, but you can even stream it from a connected drive, Spotify, Deezer, or Qobuz!

Also, don’t fret about LMS’s…dated…UI. There’s robust themes out there, including the legendary Material Skin https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material

Since you can use a Pi, you can connect any amp and speakers to it. Hifiberry makes great DACs that you could use for a cleaner sound, but any modern USB DAC would do well IMO.

You can still get Squeezeboxes cheaply on eBay, BTW. The Squeezebox Boom and Radio both are all-in-one WiFi enabled devices that can connect to your LMS server and stream music. Their sound quality is excellent, even for 10+ year old hardware.

If you have any questions, hit me up or check out the forums: https://forums.slimdevices.com/

https://lyrion.org/ https://www.picoreplayer.org/

Deemix has a container that has a WEB UI

I’m using them inside. I record to microsd on each camera, and use homeassistant to view them. I’m eventually going to build a NVR for them

I’m using Reolink E1 Zoom cameras. My router’s firewall keeps them offline, and I manage everything through HomeAssistant. Very happy with my experience on a budget

PiCorePlayer and LMS are the way.

36 TB usable space on my NAS… Music doesn’t even make a dent

I’m an old man. “Back in my day”, we heard by word of mouth, the radio, browsing at music shops, etc.

We can still do that in the digital age. When someone posts a random song, anywhere, check it out. Try checking out internet radio of genres you like (I’m finding a lot of Classical this way currently). Check out Bandcamp and IRL music store every once in a while just see what calls to you. Sometimes, let the cool album art guide you ;)

Depends. I tend to listen to whole albums, so I let LMS give me a random album if I wanna hear something new. If I’m in the mood for whatever, I do random mixes in LMS. LMS also has a music similarity feature (with plugins) that will play related songs after an album, too, so that also helps me find new stuff that sounds like stuff I already like

If I wanna listen to something and I don’t know what, I just let LMS give me a random album and see what I get!

You pretty much calculated spot on! ;)

Storage is cheap, and music (even in FLAC format) is small. You can fit tens of thousands of songs into a terabyte.

I download anything and everything. An artist I enjoy? Entire discography. I’ve only heard one song? Entire discography–there may be more I might enjoy! An artist in a genre I like but I’ve never heard? Entire discography.

I’m at over 125k songs, and I still feel like my collection is a sliver. I eventually want to reach 1m songs and truly become my own Spotify. Finding songs I’ve never heard before and that I end up loving in my own collection is a joy I can’t describe.

Frost Guards for the win!

For my pi, PC, and phone, I use Squeezelite. For the pi specifically, piCorePlayer is the OS that I use to run Squeezelite

For the pi, and DAC will do. I personally use a Hifiberry DAC which connects via the GPIO, but any USB DAC will do the job

I’m using a Raspberry pi, my desktop computer, my phone, some Logitech Squeezebox devices, and Google Home Minis all through my house