Streaming music setup from Android Phone

[rahulz5]

Hi All,

I just wanted to post my experience of my streaming setup for music. I guess this would work for videos as well but have not tried it till now. I tried bluetooth but found several constraints, my Pioneer vsx-930 jumped a few seconds and i found that there was a significant quality drop over bluetooth. So i was breaking my head on DLNA setup. Most new receivers are DLNA certified so this would work as long as you use any DLNA certified player.
Apple users would have it easy through airplay. So this is again mostly for android only folks.

My need: I'm lazy, I dont want to sit in front of laptop and setup songs. I wanted to do everything- Access media, Control my playlist and play it on my receiver. I dont have a standalone cd/bd player. I did not like the Windows 7 cast to device option.

Must have: Receiver, Laptop and phone connected on same wifi network

1. Setup your laptop as media server: one small setting update needs to be done to allow access to your laptop/external hdd connected to laptop over network. You can refer this link. How to Turn Your Computer Into a DLNA Media Server


2. Android apps:
a. BubbleUPnP: So far this is the best app for media streaming. I reads all my mp3s. But catch: need paid version to access media server. So if you plan to get licensed version this is best option. I have some mp3s with mp3 tags messed up. So this player saves me in this case alone.
Cast from mobile: Yes
Cast from hdd/laptop: No (need paid version)

b. AllCast: Somehow i could not get this working for me. Maybe it may work you can give it a try

c. AllConnect: This is the best free alternative out there. But, it is not able to play songs with incorrect mp3 tags. Perfect otherwise. You can access playlists, enqueue individual songs, full access from your mobile.
Cast from mobile: Yes
Cast from hdd/laptop: Yes

So now you all set to stream music from laptop or hard disk.

Now, the other problem. I want to access spotify, pandora from india. So I have these other apps, indieshuffle which you can use without any proxy. But how do i stream it?
Note: The above options only play available music, not stream internet music
d. AllStream: this works perfectly, you can stream any music playing on your mobile apps to the receiver. Trial is free, I'm running on trial but i will have to buy the licensed version. This lets me stream music from any apps to receiver. So next step for apps that need proxy setting.
Note: You need to ROOT your android phone. One common scare tactic, all warranty will be lost/phone will crash etc. Yes it may happen software is never 100% bug free So if you dont want to root this wont work. I rooted by sideloading KingRoot. No reboots no hiccups, 5 min job done with few click on the app.

3. Mobile Proxy setup:
a. Hola: This is the best free proxy I found that can use US server. I didnt run into bandwidth or other constraints. Plays Pandora/Spotify without lag in most cases.
b. SIdeload Streaming apps: Pandora/Spotify will not show up on playstore. Just google you should get latest apks and you can install them easily.

Once installed open up Hola, for each app you want to open, you can setup the proxy server you want to use and open from Hola. So now you can listen to Spotify/Pandora from your phone in India.

Hope this was helpful, any suggestions alternatives welcome

So I'm able to now control all my music from my phone

 

[sam9s]

^^ Just replace the expensive bulky laptop for DLNA server and instead get Raspberry Pi 2 and HiFi Berry DAC+ and install Moode, and connect your receiver to it. rest everything remains same. Use same Android UPnP app like Bubble or AirAudio or Allcast to push music to Rpi. This setup will sound much better than laptop, or infact many other expensive solutions ....

Also for spotify you dont need to constantly run Hola on your Mobile in order to access Spotify, just make sure hola (or any other VPN) is running on your PC browser when you create spotify account and then log in to spotify web player while you are connected to Hola (or any other VPN). Once spotify web player is connected, you can close the web player and then can open spotify on your mobile (make sure its connected to your home wifi). This exercise needs to be done once. Once done spotify will keep opening even on 3G/4G even without any Hola or any other VPN service running on your mobile ....

 

[niccolewis]

Just a quick word of warning. You may want to stay away from using Hola as a VPN. Read more about why here - Adios, Hola! - Why you should immediately uninstall Hola.

TLDR:

"Hola works as a peer-to-peer service. It's popular for changing your Netflix region. They also sell access to your internet connection to others.

If you don't understand why this is bad...

Imagine someone being able to use your internet connection (as you) to:
download child pornography,
try to hack into webmail accounts,
try to break into online banking systems,
spam forums and vandalize websites sites

All the while using your PC and your internet IP address. If you still don't understand why Hola is bad, feel free to ask questions or to take our word for it.

Techies have been saying Hola is bad for a long time, but it's suddenly become apparent how spectacularly bad it is."

 

[music4mhell]

Just a quick word of warning. You may want to stay away from using Hola as a VPN. Read more about why here - Adios, Hola! - Why you should immediately uninstall Hola.

TLDR:

"Hola works as a peer-to-peer service. It's popular for changing your Netflix region. They also sell access to your internet connection to others.

If you don't understand why this is bad...

Imagine someone being able to use your internet connection (as you) to:
download child pornography,
try to hack into webmail accounts,
try to break into online banking systems,
spam forums and vandalize websites sites

All the while using your PC and your internet IP address. If you still don't understand why Hola is bad, feel free to ask questions or to take our word for it.

Techies have been saying Hola is bad for a long time, but it's suddenly become apparent how spectacularly bad it is."

And if we use Hola on Android phone ?
Then is it possible to do above attacks which you mentioned ?

Think before you answer, i am talking about unrooted phone and hola downloaded from official google playstore !

Will be waiting for your reply !

 

[niccolewis]

And if we use Hola on Android phone ?
Then is it possible to do above attacks which you mentioned ?

Think before you answer, i am talking about unrooted phone and hola downloaded from official google playstore !

Will be waiting for your reply !

Wow. I'm just trying help out here. I'm not trying to sell anything or say don't do something.

The website that I've linked in my post will provide all the info you require.

I don't understand the hostility in your response to me.

"Think before you answer" - I thought this forum was to help each other out and to provide some info. You can easily run a google search to learn why the Hola VPN service is a very, very bad idea.

Your android phone being rooted or unrooted will not help.

If you still want to use it feel free. I'm not gaining anything by you using or not using it.

 

[sam9s]

Chill ... well I have never used Hola (except for testing maybe few times) probably never will, but if anyone is so skeptical about the same they can very well use any professional VPN like smartdnsproxy, even though you can never say what and how the servers at the other end are monitored, but yes given some trust these services are rated much better than these so called plugins.....

 

[swami]

my setup (if it helps anyone) -

laptop and mobile on same wifi; laptop connected to avr via hdmi (another digital or analog connection will work too)
foobar software (free) on laptop
foobar controller app (free) on mobile
I access all the songs stored on my laptop via foobar controller on mobile from anywhere in my flat and play it at my will

let me know your views/questions/suggestions

 

[Mayank Shah]

Hooked up Raspberry Pi with 3 external hard disks ), 2 are externally powered with spare mobile chargers and Y cables to my DAC. Music for wife and kids run off a laptop running JRiver Media Center to Yamaha AVR. All on a separate network off a spare router. Using an old android tab as a central control, interchangeably using JRiver Gizmo app / Yamaha app. Airplay on the AVR takes care of streaming from apple devices. My favorite is Rune Audio android app though (Needs pi). All apps except JRiver Media for Windows are free. Kodi for windows plays back wirelessly from the laptop to the AVR for free. "PSiphon" proxy app for android may work for you.

 

[superczar]

Hi All,

I just wanted to post my experience of my streaming setup for music. ........

So I'm able to now control all my music from my phone

Why not simply use a Chromecast audio?
It's cheap, hasslefree, offers excellent SQ and is more or less constraint free

 

[rahulz5]

Thanks all for your suggestions
I have some space constraints to manage and some bare bones setup to start with. But all your inputs have thrown some interesting upgrade options.

Is Chromecast quality better than dlna? Currently i'm in experimentation mode.. but surely will check all the ideas put out here

 

[sam9s]

Thanks all for your suggestions
I have some space constraints to manage and some bare bones setup to start with. But all your inputs have thrown some interesting upgrade options.

Is Chromecast quality better than dlna? Currently i'm in experimentation mode.. but surely will check all the ideas put out here

Chromecast 1 had limitations as far as audio goes, Chromecast Audio I am not sure need to check, BUT streaming via UPnP/DLNA has not such limitations, unless the app you are using to stream puts one ...