Best method of media playback

My preferred choice of playback of local audio/music files

  • Playback directly from a personal cloud storage without use of any physical media

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    26

Kannan

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I am creating a poll for various options of media playback with specific focus on audio files.
Which would be technically more appropriate irrespective of the fact that it is linux/debian/windows/mac based.

Here are the options.

Playback via
1. NAS based hard drive
2. Hard drive connected to routers
3. Hard drive directly connected to the USB port of the transport/playback device say a streamer/PC/etc
4. Hard Disk directly connected to internal SATA bay if such an option is available in the transport/playback device.
5. Playback of the files from a personal cloud storage

Further, any differences between externally powered HDD or a HDD that draws power from the host.
 
Stand Alone PC - with frequently used audio files on the same O/s SSD.
- with Backup on multiple harddisks ( SATA internal/ USB ext )

Will this be option 3 ?
 
Stand Alone PC - with frequently used audio files on the same O/s SSD.
- with Backup on multiple harddisks ( SATA internal/ USB ext )

Will this be option 3 ?
Option 4 for frequent files stored on OS drive
 
Aren't option 1 and 2 same.

The router is a machine which has a hard drive connected via usb but for rest of machines in the same network its seen as a NASS.


for me either option 1 or 2 but at times it's difficult to see the network drive for some reason or maybe my networking knowledge is not good as I always struggle with it
 
Option 3 works best for me as:

a) It’s easiest - the HDD is always connected to the streamer and accessed through the streamer’s app on the mobile. No fiddling with networking needed.
b) Cheapest, probably of all the options.
c) Sounds better in my use case as compared to streaming from PC. The HDD is externally powered.

Con: Limited by the streamer’s app’s basic functionality in searching music. My workaround is properly organising the folders to suit my usage (by genre and artist). And since I listen to entire albums at a time, don’t miss the superior organising/retrieval of platforms like Roon etc.

I hate starting my PC to listen to music. It’s just antithetical since I associate PC with work and music with relaxation.
 
Option 3 works best for me as:

a) It’s easiest - the HDD is always connected to the streamer and accessed through the streamer’s app on the mobile. No fiddling with networking needed.
b) Cheapest, probably of all the options.
c) Sounds better in my use case as compared to streaming from PC. The HDD is externally powered.

Con: Limited by the streamer’s app’s basic functionality in searching music. My workaround is properly organising the folders to suit my usage (by genre and artist). And since I listen to entire albums at a time, don’t miss the superior organising/retrieval of platforms like Roon etc.

I hate starting my PC to listen to music. It’s just antithetical since I associate PC with work and music with relaxation.
I have a similar setup with externally powered drive connected to USB port of my transport and playback controlled from a MPD client from my phone.
 
Option 2 (Hard disk connected to router) worked very well for me with USB 2. When I changed to a drive with USB 3, it started interfering with the wifi signal. It took me a lot of head scratching and googling to finally discover that this is a documented issue with USB 3.
Now the drive is connected directly to my RPI
 
When I changed to a drive with USB 3, it started interfering with the wifi signal.
you can either switch all wifi devices to 5G band if that option is available or use a shielded USB 3. extension cable to place your hard disk well way from the router.
 
There was no option to select a hybrid setup.

I have made my streamer based on RPI4 which has a I2S dac. I have also enabled NFS service on this streamer. Since I use mpd, the RPI4 is quite underutilized I have made it a NAS server too with just the NFS service enabled. All other devices use the RPI4 as a NAS device. By installing minidlna on this RPI4, the media is accessible by any hardware that has DLNA. e.g. My panasonic tv, all my android phones too can use the media on this device. By installing LMS server it serves as a logitech media server too. By install raspoty, my wife can also play spotify in the bedroom tv.

So I have a hybrid setup with a hard drive directly connected to RPI4 and the RPI4 acting as a File server too.
 
Option 2 (Hard disk connected to router) worked very well for me with USB 2. When I changed to a drive with USB 3, it started interfering with the wifi signal. It took me a lot of head scratching and googling to finally discover that this is a documented issue with USB 3.
Now the drive is connected directly to my RPI
Some devices share the USB bus with the network. e.g. RPI3 and below. If you use high speed data transfer on the USB, the ethernet and wifi speed suffers because of shared bandwidth. On the RPI4, the usb bus and the network controller bus have independent bus with each having it's own data transfer rate.
 
I personally follow a method which is simpler and more convenient for me.
I have connected a 10m HDMI cable from my the HDMI output of my PC and have connected it to the HDMI input of receiver. I play my files directly from my PC without any issue. Browsing through folders, arranging music files or creating playlists from PC is easier and convenient for me.
You can also think of this option.
 
I was using option 3 until I got an audiophile switch after which all my music are moved to a microSD card that is plugged into another computer in the network. This way when I access them from the computer connected to my music system, data are routed through the Ethernet switch(Innuos PhoenixNet).
 
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