VOLUMIO 3.3 UNIVERSAL IS HERE

What does it mean by ALL music lovers? We thought that the values audiophiles believe in, can be of great enjoyment also to a wider music community.  This is why we are introducing our newest release, Volumio 3.3, as Volumio UNIVERSAL. We added new features that give the ability to use our music player in many new playback devices available in the market, both increasing convenience of Volumio as the central hub for music playback that can be appealing for both audiophiles and for music listeners in general.

So, without further ado, let’s see what Volumio Universal brings:

MANIFEST USER INTERFACE FOR EVERYONE!

The Manifest User, who we introduced in the launch of Volumio 3 only for Premium users, will now be available for ALL, both Free and Premium Users. We believe the Manifest UI is the best in terms of aesthetics and music presentation, so we decided everyone should have it. Old UIs are still available but will be decommissioned (maybe becoming optional plugins) soon.

In addition to have it available for all, we worked on making improvements to be more user-friendly, especially on the mobile version. We also redesigned the main menu and designed a new output menu that gives new and improved functionalities which you will learn more about in the next paragraphs.

NEW OUTPUT MENU

In the manifest UI, there is a new output menu with new and improved functionalities:

• Volume control
• Remote Control: the Remote control option on any Volumio device
• Multiroom Control Management with improvements.

And the newest features of Volumio 3.3. Available for Premium users:

• Play Here Function
• Sonos and Chromecast outputs

PLAY HERE FUNCTION

The Play Here function, allows you to stream the audio from Volumio to your mobile device, your computer and also your smart TV. Pretty much everywhere the UI is displayed. For example, if you open Volumio on your computer browser, you can click on the Play Here button found on the output menu and the sound will come out from your computer.

This means that you can enjoy Volumio as a normal music player app when you work on your PC, or via Bluetooth headphones connected to your mobile phone. Since Volumio is a powerful music aggregator, it’s a convenient way to integrate your music from different sources and leave it playing when cooking, working, gardening or having a party. Where audio quality is not needed, and good background music is preferred.

CASTING TO CHROMECAST AND SONOS

With the Casting option on the output menu, you can cast whatever you are playing in Volumio to any Chromecast and Sonos device. Now Volumio is compatible with different endpoints from the single app. As the title says, output whatever audio you are playing on Volumio to your Chromecast-enabled devices (Google Home, Chromecast-enabled Soundbar, Chromecast Audio, etc.) and SONOS devices.

The stream happens thanks to a low-latency HLS encoding which can be sent to any of the above devices. Please note that synchronization is not possible between Chromecast devices and SONOS devices, but you can play to a Sonos Group to have audio synchronized to that group.

This, in a nutshell, it the latest round of features that you will see in Volumio 3.3. In short, those features will make Volumio YOUR UNIVERSAL MUSIC PLAYER.

How to get Volumio 3.3?

If you are a first time Volumio user, you can download it directly here. If you already have Volumio installed on your device, go to System Updates and click on Check Updates. You are looking for v3.378.

What do you think? Do you like what you see?

Let us know in the comments and enjoy!

The post Introducing Volumio UNIVERSAL appeared first on Volumio.

Over the past seven years we have committed to give music lovers the best audiophile experience in an innovative approach. Starting with the Volumio project, the music player software that gave life to our eponymous company and an incredible community, this aspired us to give more. A couple of years later, after a thorough research, our community support and long hours of hard work, we launched the music player and streamer, Primo. It was such a thrill introducing our first complete audiophile product!

But the most wonderful feeling was the great response we’ve received since. When we launched the Primo in 2018, it did not cross to our minds that in less than two years, we would receive the most prestigious award in the Hi-Fi Industry. Today, we are proud to announce Volumio Primo received the EISA Award for Best Digital Source Product 2020-2021! Dreams do come true, it’s a proven fact for us.

It all started as a hobby…

We believe that Volumio is the real proof that if you do something with passion and effort, you can accomplish anything. From deciding to go through an unusual path for the audiophile world and encountering many struggles since the beginning, Michelangelo Guarise, founder and creator of Volumio, described his thoughts after receiving the great news from EISA:

“When we started the Volumio project a couple of years ago, there were many people doubting us (sometimes even laughing at us) for creating something strange; a new principle of having a dedicated OS for low-powered devices. Regardless, we continued with the same approach of being totally different due to the following reasons: the Open Source aspect of it and subsequently, the involvement of the community in the design process. Later on, we tried to create something radical with the Primo, still embodying the philosophy of Volumio: sound quality, great usability and nothing more, wanting to steer away from the audiophile weasels that you can find in many devices. This achievement is truly special because it shows that our philosophy that was seen as absurd and not brilliant in the beginning, turned out to be a winning one. Moreover, it feels important because many people enjoy the Primo.” – Michelangelo Guarise, Founder and CEO of Volumio.

Volumio Primo can be controlled with any device.

Volumio Primo, an EISA award-winning product

In case you haven’t heard about them before, the EISA (Expert Imaging and Sound Association) has been around for over 35 years representing the biggest worldwide editorial collaboration of consumer electronics. Currently with 61 international experts magazines, every year they gather and select the best CE products to be honored with the prestigious EISA awards. And this year, Volumio Primo was chosen as one of the best products in the Hi-Fi industry, winning the Digital Source category award.

While focusing on the range of performances, the EISA Awards judges describe the award-winning Primo in these words:

“This unassuming-looking little black box is a highly affordable solution to all your digital streaming needs, for not only will it play music stored on home network devices, it also allows you to access a huge range of online music services. With simple operation via web browsers or apps, and an on-screen GUI delivered over HDMI, the Primo includes digital outputs to feed any DAC while also playing music via USB stores. Compatible with music formats all the way up to DSD, via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, this small wonder is the perfect way to start your streaming adventure.”

We could not have said it better, the set of capabilities that Primo offers is what captivates the audiophile audience and we are glad the EISA members could see and agree with us.

All goes back to the design philosophy, creating a music player and streamer devices that provides three main principles. Of course, the first one to mention must be sound quality, followed by universality and last but not least, practicality. These simple but essential elements are shown in the Primo streamer through various features, from the ability to play every music format and sources thanks to the Volumio OS, to the set of multiple input and output capabilities. A certainly tiny, but powerful device.

An achievement for many of us

One more last thing we want to say: THANK YOU!

This award is dedicated to ALL who were and are part of the Volumio journey. This award is for the Volumio Team, for every contributor, every users who gave us feedback, every user who is listening music now with the Primo, every member of our community who supported us throughout all these years, and last but not least, to the great partners and Hi-Fi companies that believed in the Volumio project and use our technology.

Are you ready to start your streaming adventure?  

Now let’s celebrate and continue to build a great Hi-Fi future! Cheers!

The post Volumio Primo wins EISA Award for Best “Digital Source” Product 2020-2021 appeared first on Volumio.

All photos courtesy of Lorenzo Chiccoli, follow him on Instagram

When we launched Primo, even though every feature was carefully thought-out, this was to us more of an experiment than anything else. Our goal was to understand if there was an interest for Volumio branded products. You can then imagine our surprise when we saw Primo’s first batch of 20 units go sold-out in less than 20 hours. Not even in our wildest dreams, we could have imagined that.

And our surprise kept on growing in the following months when we could not get the pace of incoming orders (you might have noticed, that Primo has been regularly unavailable in the first months… luckily we now know how to plan production a little bit better…). Our first year of Primo has been literally a rollercoaster of emotions: the joy of seeing it so appreciated by customers and the struggle to learn how to effectively distribute a product worldwide (keeping customer support and satisfaction as high as we could).

There was so much to learn: from logistics management to customs and duties calculations, production planning, certifications, packaging design, supply-chain, distribution agreements. Luckily, in the process, we met and worked with several great partners from production, to logistics, retail distribution and legal advice that helped us achieve what we wanted. So, it’s really fair to say that Primo would not have been possible without the help of our partners.

And most important, Primo’s biggest success is the satisfaction of our customers. So we want to say thanks to everyone that believed in us getting, reviewing, trying and listening to Primo.

But enough talking from us. We think that the best way of celebrating Primo’s first anniversary is by letting who tried it speak for it: we feel so proud about the reviews and comments, from the minimalist compact box design to the functionality in both hardware and software, the Primo has been reviewed as an all-in-one solution for the audiophile.

We received high praises from big members of the HiFi community, from John Darko saying that Volumio Primo is a “very good sound streamer both digitally and analog-wise and a nicely made product”, to Hans Beekhuysen telling the “Primo offers very good sound quality and build quality for the money.” 

AVGuide.ch expressed that “The Volumio Primo is an excellent streaming/player software in a modest device with outstanding sound characteristics and a neat GUI with many possibilities”. Primo has been reviewed as being an easy-to-use device, any music lover can get and use their Primo. According to Digiphonix, Volumio Primo is “an exciting and pleasant product, especially for a first time user of a networked streamer device, someone seeking a good music source that can grow with their audio gear acquisitions over time and also, for the avid listener that already makes use of lossless music files and streaming.”

The Volumio Primo was created to give three main fundamental properties every audiophile should enjoy: the sound quality, the practicality and the wide range of features, all by using best audio hardware combination made of the ASUS Tinker board S and the ESS ES9028Q2M DAC.

To this regard, AV Forums has described the Volumio Primo as “a seriously impressive product that comes enthusiastically recommended.” As well as HiFi Choice saying that “When you consider the flexibility and outstanding sonic performance on offer, the Volumio Primo looks like a very attractive option at the price.”

It’s called Primo not only because of the Italian meaning “first“, being the first of its kind created under Volumio qualifications, but also because Primo means “of top quality or importance”. Volumio’s purpose is to give our community that, the uppermost experience.

We are kindly grateful to you, because with your help, Volumio Primo came to life and now, according to all the reviews, it is one of the top HiFi music player streamers in the market. Needless to say, this gave us the strong motivation to keep on bringing new products to life (the next of which will be Motivo… ). We have many new products in the works and we are uttermost excited for the future ahead of us.

So, once again: thanks to everyone who made it possible. Thanks to anyone who’s listening to music with Primo. Thanks to anyone who talked about it. Thanks to anyone who believed in it. Thanks to anyone who waited impatiently for it.

And… thanks to anyone who hasn’t got it yet but will do it now.

Happy birthday Primo!

The post Volumio Primo Turns One! appeared first on Volumio.

• All Cubox-i variants and Hummingboard supported.
• Spotify Playback
• Direct DSD Playback on compatible Hardware
• UPNP with OhMedia Support
• Improved Library TAB
• Fastest Boot on Wi-fi
• Lot of WebRadios included (thank you jprjr)

Here you can find the complete list of 1.5 and here a complete changelog. This release is available for:

• Cubox-i and Hummingboard (older cubox model will be updated on a best effort basis from now on)
• UDOO Quad
• BeagleBone Black
• Cubietruck
• Compulab Utilite

As usual you can download it on the Downloads Page

As you can see Volumio supports quite a wide range of Embedded Single Board computers. I started looking around for new devices to support. There is a poll going on in this thread. It seems that the next candidate will be Intel NUC. Imagine what kind of Audiophile Music Player with Volumio this can be…

Do you agree? Want something else? Let us know in the poll. And don’t forget to give your feedback on the appropriate feedback thread. Enjoy!

The post Volumio Audiophile Music Player 1.5 for Cubox-i, Cubietruck, UDOO and Beaglebone appeared first on Volumio.

This is a quick showcase of the best creations of  Raspberry Pi audio player projects with Volumio. I feel really proud that Volumio is powering lots of brilliant Audio Players Projects, made by equally outstanding music lovers around the world. I stumbled on some, on Volumio’s Forum. Here are some carefully crafted creations, enjoy!

AN ELEGANT RASPBERRY PI AUDIO PLAYER

It looks as elegant as it could be, and it doesn’t really look a DIY Raspberry Pi audio player, but a more expensive one. Joni Ive would have made it this way, just with little more gradients

But then look at the interior, and you see how much care has put into this… Rectifier with ultrafast  diodes, linear  regulated power supply and Audiophonic’s ES9023 I2S DAC (For some infos visit the Raspberry Pi i2s DACs list..) Love it. Nothing more and nothing less the same Raspberry Pi audio player I will build …

Here’s the BOM:

• Raspberry Pi model B (Amazon)
• Inter-Tech Mini ITX Q-6 (Ebay)
• Audiophonics DAC Sabre ES9023 I2S (Audiophonics)
• 2x 7V 10VA Toroidal Trasformer
• Audiowind A-270 regulator

Kudos to Gerry_222 for his creation!!! You can see the project thread @ volumio.org/forum/volumio-project-t1522.html

BOOMBOX Raspberry Pi audio player

Simple, straight to the point. Gives a new life to an old appliance, just the way I adore. Look at it

Could you ever imagine it will feature this?

This interestin build is a brilliant work of Volumio community member Pondidum, I really encourage you to look at the Project’s forum thread @ https://volumio.org/forum/boombox-cassette-deck-replacement-t1420.html

A STEAMPUNK STYLE RASPBERRY PI AUDIO PLAYER WITH VOLUMIO

I’m a great fan of Steampunk. Love the baroccan way of building stuff this way. And this creation ranks 10\10 on my Nerdgasm scale. Period.
And didn’t mention I just crave for Tubes?

I just love it. Insanely! Kudos Oratius! You can find a detailed instructable on how to build this piece of art @ this Instructable Project Page

HI-END RASPBERRY PI AUDIO PLAYER AND STREAMER

For those of you with Fancy Audio Gear to showcase, here’s the proper companion to it. Not only the enclosure is a perfect example of “Overstatement”, but also the care that has been put into the PSU is considerable. Sure you saw something similar sold somewhere, for the price of a car.

Besides from its look. What I really approve is a dedicated power supply both for the Raspberry PI and the I2S connected S\PDIF transport.

The classy touch, for those who haven’t noticed, is a filtered IEC power connector. Digital Sources may benefit a lot with this addition, depending on your home’s power network and system. Unluckily its creator ptiboubou didn’t share so much about this on the Forum Thread. However, you may have spotted an Hifiberry-DIGI that will take care to stream music to an External DAC. The DIGI has its own power supply, even if it can be an overkill for just a trasport interface. Overall, nice creation indeed!

PORTABLE RASPBERRY PI AUDIO PLAYER

For those on a run, or those on a car (I’m both, really often) here’s a simple yet effective solution.

A Pi, Volumio, USB Thumb Drive, Wi-Fi dongle, a mobile phone battery pack  and your favourite headphones. Serve chilled. You can obtain even better result adding a i2s DAC which can drive adequately headphones. And live fast while enjoying all of your music’s nuances.

These was just examples, the one that got me more interested of the many published on Volumio’s Forum by its awesome community members. There are also technically clever projects showcased in that section, and we’ll have a look at them in another post. As of now, you have some ideas more on how to build an Amazing DIY Raspberry Pi Audio player with Volumio. Less bucks for more Rock.

How will you make your Raspberry Pi Audio Player with Volumio? Which of these projects you prefer? Join the discussion on the Forum or drop few lines via comments below!

The post Amazing DIY Raspberry Pi audio player with Volumio appeared first on Volumio.