Audio media server?

Factual Questions
1

I moved into a house that has built-in speakers in every room, with impedance-matching distribution system. All I need to do is add a sound source and an amplifier. I can come up with an amp, no problem. Here’s what I’d like to do: I want a music system controllable from our phones and/or computers, without spending a small fortune.

I have a leftover Android phone and also an iPhone 4. Ideally I could use one of them (preferably the Android) as a music server, pulling media from a hard drive connected to my wireless router, and controllable from an app or web page from anyone on the wireless network.

I found something that looks close, an Android app that controls Google Play Music app (you run both on the same device), and the app is controllable over the network. Two problems:

  1. if a comment is correct, it no longer works as of some recent Google Play Music app.
  2. I don’t know how (or if it’s possible) to get Google Play Music to pull the media from a wifi-connected hard drive. I don’t want to put all my music on Google Drive if I can avoid it. (Not really sure why, except that I don’t want to be tethered to the Internet, my internet service has a bw cap, and I’m peculiar.)

I’m not even sure what such an app would be called. I’m willing to buy a device if there’s something appropriate and reasonably priced.

Clue me in, please!

3

Yeah, I use the free version of Plex. It runs on my desktop (5 hard drives) and I control it from phone or tablet.

6

Thanks! Plex looks very interesting and I’ll be looking into it in detail.

Odd, yesterday there were other responses, cluing me in about DLNA (thanks!)

Evidently my router runs twonky, which is a DLNA server, so my media files should already be available on my internet to DLNA-compatible devices and software.

Also, I learned that what I’m really looking for is a DMR to run on Android, and a DMC to run on Android and iOS. That is, I want to use an old phone (Android or iOS but pref. Android) as a player to sit in the closet with router, amp, and speaker distribution network, and DMC controllers on my (android) and my wife’s (iOS) phones to control it.

Ignorance is losing the battle, thanks again! I’ll definitely appreciate any more input as well.

7

Spammer. He was jumping in other threads to promote different software.

8

OK, thanks. Glad he did, though, which tipped me to DLNA faster. I’d have eventually got there via Plex, most likely.

I looked into Plex. Looks like a nice system, but it didn’t discover the DLNA server provided by my router, so it’s out. The next few I tried did right away. I did even look through settings to see if there was something to make it more promiscuous. I get the impression Plex works only with Plex, at least in some cases.

I ended up using (at least for now) BubbleUPnp. I tried PixelMedia as the receiver, but it won’t play WMA media, and most of my media is currently WMA (though I do plan to rerip all my CDs one of these days, and won’t use WMA this time.) Other than that it seemed to work well.

I tried AirWire as a controller but it confused me; didn’t see how to pause or stop after playing something.

Then I tried BubbleUPnp as receiver and it just worked. Tried it as controller, and it just worked. Win. Well, I had to pay (under $5) so the server would play more than 30 minutes without needing to be restarted, but that was long enough for me to check it out and see that it worked for my application. And it’s nice that I pay just once and use it in paid mode on two devices (receiver phone and controller phone).

Now I’ll have to find a good simple controller for my wife’s iPhone.

Thanks again, everyone (including the spammer!)

9

BTW, I obviously have to figure out how to configure the DLNA server in my router. It’s advertising ALL media files on the hard drive, which is (currently) my big backup drive. Among other things, it has a number of sampled keyboard instruments, so hundreds of samples of one note per file. A bit annoying to scroll through them all when looking for actual music!

But on the good side, if you really want to hear a C# played fortissimo on a 1977 Rhodes Mark I Stage Piano and know how to find it, you’re golden. :slight_smile: