SPOTIFY SUPPORT

That was long awaited. Just insert your Spotify credentials into Settings page (a premium account is required) and there will be no music you can’t listen to. You have full Spotify search and all your playlists listed on the Spotify section of the Browse tab. This amazing feature was made possible thanks to the contribution of Volumio community member ning-you (huge thanks for this) and to an awesome daemon by Schnouki called SPOP. Needless to say, even Spotify’s sound quality sounds impressive on Volumio.

FULLY REVISITED LIBRARY TAB

Volumio community member Jotak did it again. He reworked its brilliant Library Tab ensuring it will work better and reducing significantly the load it applies to the system, mostly thanks to this brilliant feature. It’s really a feature I cannot live without. It comes disabled by default, to enable it just go to settings and tick the library tab, you can also choose to see it as a tab or as an entry in the browse section. Jotak made also lots of other improvements to Volumio, like the following.

UPDATE SYSTEM

Yes, the next Volumio updates (at least not critical ones) will not require a complete re-flash of the system. Jotak developed this system which wil allow you to receive new updates with just a push of a button. Go to settings and check updates, if new updates are found you’ll be prompted to apply or ignore them. Does this sound great just to me? Of course there could be something we didn’t think on, and we need to test this capability. So please let us know what happens when new updates will be released.

UPDATE: To benefit from Updates system you must create a new SD Card with 1.5 release, from now on you’ll be able to update without reflashing!

SOCIAL SHARING

The tunes you listen may sometimes be memorable. Let your friend know about it. Now Volumio features Twitter, Facebook and Google+ sharing mechanism. The last 2 are still a work in progress, since we need a long and necessary verification, but expect them to land soon (via updates!)

REWORKED NETWORKING

Now Volumio can connect to every network without issues, the whole network managemet now works just flawlessly. And let’s you understand the quality of your connection.

UPNP with OHMEDIA SUPPORT

As you already know, Volumio uses the excellent UPNP\DLNA mpd plugin upmpdcli. This awesome piece of code has been recently updated to include OpenHomeOhMedia Support. Quoting from Upmpdcli:

OpenHome is probably supposed to be some kind of industry alliance, but, as far as I know it is exactly composed of Linn Devices, a British supplier of high end audio equipment.

OpenHome has published ohMedia, a set of standards for network audio, which have been implemented in a number of hardware and software products beyond those from Linn.

ohMedia is based on the UPnP base protocols, but it uses different services. The most important difference from the user point of view is that ohMedia has a PlayListservice which manages the play queue much in the same way that MPD does.

Some of the best UPnP control point software packages (e.g. Bubble UPnP, PlugPlayer) include support for both bare UPnP and ohMedia. In cases where a device supports both interfaces, they will default to ohMedia. Using several ohMedia control points on the same device is not a problem, but mixing UPnP and ohMedia control points is sure to end in confusion because of the very different play queue management.

What does this mean? You will be able to control your Playlists and PlayQueues with excellent Upnp client like BubbleUPNP and JamCast!

DSD Direct Playback

Now Volumio can play DSD Audio in direct mode: this allows to play them in bit perfect mode, if your DAC supports them. If not you can choose to play them in DoP mode (DSD Over PCM)now it’s up to you to decide wether DSD is the future of Digital Audio Playback.

Raspberry PI B+ I2S DACs Compatibility

Volumio is now fully compatible with Raspberry PI B+, and all the most famous i2s DACs available. Just connect them, go to settings and enable yours. Harware Volume Mixer works as well.

LOT OF REFINEMENTS AND NEW CAPABILITIES

This release features a big amount of improvements and refinements, both under the hood and in term of User interface. Just to quote some: you’ll be able to add your WebRadios from the WebUi, disable the Startup Sound (another new feature), change the Player Name and more.
This release was prepared in a long period of time, trying to address all the precious feedbacks and suggestions and involving the community actively. I want to publicly say thank you to everyone in our great community: what Volumio is now is thank to you, the passion, the brilliant insights and the discoveries you’ve put into this.

As usual you can download it from download page and leave your feedbacks and partecipate into Volumio development on this thread 

Today, you’ll find just Raspberry Pi release, on the following days I’ll update ALL the other platforms. Stay tuned! 

And this, is the full changelog:

-Full Spotify Integration
-Reworked Library TAB
-Update System Introduced
-OhMedia UPNP Support
-AirPlay issues fixed
-Selectable Player Name
-System services selector
-WebRadios can be added from WebUi
-Clear Whole queue from WebUi
-Social Sharing
-Direct DSD Playback
-Full I2S B+ DACs compatibility
-Better i2s DACs management
-Networking Page Reworked
-Song title in Browser Tab
-Startup Sound
-Shell shock bug fixed
-MPD 19.1

The post Volumio 1.5: the best Audiophile Player ever appeared first on Volumio.

It should have been obvious to me: ethernet and USB controller have been changed, so they need new modules and firmwares to work. So, the solution is simply to update the Raspberry Pi firmware (A.k.a. Kernel, modules and elf files).

To do this, there’s the handy Rpi-update utility by Hexxeh. Is it already included in Volumio. So if you already have an ordinary model B laying around and running Volumio just do:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install binutils

sudo rpi-update

and wait for it to finish…

Your MicroSD Card is now ready to boot with the brand new PI B+ .

Alternatively, I made a minor release (1.41) which will work out of the box both with standard model B and Raspberry PI B+. Plus it comes with latest WebUI and some minor tweaks and bugfixes:

– Removed Library Tab
– Added Player Name configuration (Works also for Airplay)
– Kernel Upgraded, compatible with B+ model
– Fixed unmuting script
– Improved NAS mounting

Since there could be some unspotted bugs and considering this is a kernel change (which affects quite heavily Sound Quality and behaviours with USB DACs) it has to be considered as a testing release, adding that Raspberry PI B+ could have some additional unspotted differences from the original model B.
You’re so invited to provide your feedbacks in this Forum Thread

You can grab Volumio 1.41 on Sourceforge

The post Volumio for Raspberry PI B+ appeared first on Volumio.

And, as everybody seems to know, today the new Raspberry Pi Model B+ has been announced. Let’s examine this from an Audio-centric perspective.

What has changed

First thing we notice: almost everything has changed its position: Power Connector, HDMI, Camera Connector, Analog Jack, USB Ports, GPIO Pins. And now the bad news: that means lots of Pi oriented accessories are not compatible with Raspberry Pi model b+.
Cases, Expansion headers, I2S DACs and lot more stuff will simply not fit. So, if you plan to use Raspberry Pi model b+ with your existing accessories, you’re just out of luck.

But, as always, the solution is just waiting for us at the end of a tunnel. I catched this tweet today from Gordon of IQaudIO, and what this clever scottsman is showing is that we can simply use connector cable to use i2s DACs also on Raspberry PI model b+.

Of course, 5 or 10 cm of i2s interconnect are less preferable than a soldered one, but it may have been worse. So, if you can accept such connection, you’ll be safe also with Raspberry Pi model b+.

Upgrades Overview

Quoting from the Foundation:

• More GPIO. The GPIO header has grown to 40 pins, while retaining the same pinout for the first 26 pins as the Model B.
• More USB. We now have 4 USB 2.0 ports, compared to 2 on the Model B, and better hotplug and overcurrent behaviour.
• Micro SD. The old friction-fit SD card socket has been replaced with a much nicer push-push micro SD version.
• Lower power consumption. By replacing linear regulators with switching ones we’ve reduced power consumption by between 0.5W and 1W.
• Better audio. The audio circuit incorporates a dedicated low-noise power supply.
• Neater form factor. We’ve aligned the USB connectors with the board edge, moved composite video onto the 3.5mm jack, and added four squarely-placed mounting holes.

Here’s what I think:

• More GPIO: Good move. I was short of GPIOs with Model B. And keeping the first 26 exactly the same was just the right thing to do.
• More USB: I can see this upgrade will benefit almost exclusively the ones using their PI as a Desktop Replacement (it clearly isn’t BTW). No need for a USB Hub, and final operating costs decreased for such targets. I just have one little, silly doubt. Since I struggled a lot with USB bus issues on the little PI I am quite worried about the performances of using multiple USB ports and Ethernet altogether. We are in the right direction with the USB fiq split fix, but this issue is still unresolved and its the main Pi’s design flaw. I don’t think people using their Pi for Audio purposes will benefit of that upgrade (unless you’re using a wlan stick, a USB Hard Drive and a USB DAC, but this is the kind of situation I’ll desperatly avoid with the little PI).
  However, a valid addition no doubt about it. I’m just curious to see if internal power regulators can deliver a total of 2 A for 4 USB devices. I’ll investigate about that.
• Micro SD: Yes, love it. Lot of times SD was just not working. Re-inserting it did the trick, changing to a push-push connection is the way to fix this.
• Lower Power Consumption: We are talking of 50% off. Ok, PI’s power consumption were already ridicoulously low, but knowing that Raspberry Pi model b+ has less power requirements is something to plaude.
• Better Audio: That was easy. Really, doing worst was the real challenge here. Raspberry Pi’s onboard jack was described with the worst words human has ever created. However, since we are choosy audiophiles we shouldn’t care lot about that. This can be interesting for something really cheap to play music and doesn’t really worry about Sound Quality.

Conclusions

Is this an upgrade? No, I would rather call it a sidegrade. But this adds flexibility to one of my favourite platform of all times (along with Sega Mega Drive) and could be an intriguing options for some Raspberry Pi owners. But, we should also consider that Raspberry Pi model b+ has several contenders (none really serious tough). So, if you really are looking for something more, you can have a significant upgrade just adding few extra bucks, without waiting for Raspberry Pi 2. I can think on the upcoming Hb-1 (or HummingBoard) from SolidRun. It has a substancially faster CPU and different from Raspberry PI model b+ is compatible with all Model b  accessories (that’s quite ironic, isn’t it) [except i2s DACs, sadly]. Or UDOO, if you feel you’re a demanding maker and were using Arduino with the PI. Not to mention the Cubietruck, which has a massive set of I\Os.

So, if you’re looking for accessories compatibility, you’ll better stick with your current model b. If instead, you’re interested in the additional USB Ports and don’t care to wait for cases and accessories the Raspberry Pi model b+ could be your best bet.

That being said, someone in Florence will be ordering its Raspberry Pi model b+ in a matter of seconds.

The post Raspberry Pi Model B+: upgrades overview appeared first on Volumio.