Max2Play Home › Forums › Max2Play on Raspberry PI › Max2play user tutorial for Justboom DAC
- This topic has 11 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 9 months ago by
Heiner premium.
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Posted in: Max2Play on Raspberry PI
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23. Januar 2019 at 2:44 #44045
I am new to Max2Play. I just bought a Justboom DAC Bundle with a Pi3+ and an preconfigured premium image in the shop. Main reason to go for Max2Play was the advertized simplicity. So far I must admit that I am really frustrated after spending several hours without being able to listen to even one piece of music.
After connecting all the pieces and speakers (RCA cable) and booting for the first time things seemed to be fairly straightforward. I could access the web-page (not with „max2play“, because all my browsers did not recognize names that do not have a domain and launch a google search that brings me to the max2play.com homepage, but that was an easy one as my router shows me all active DHCP leases so I used the IP address).
I could see that the image was activated and the JustBoom DAC was preconfigured. I clicked on „Starter“ to go with the easy setup, rebooted and went on to activate the Spotify Connect Plugin. Entered my username and password and clicked on autostart (I have a premium account) and set the output option to hw:sndrpijustboomd. Saved, rebooted, waited for the device to show up in my spotify client. Nothing happened. The debug log just says
#### Librespot Output ####
#### Librespot Command Line Options ####
error: Required option ’name‘ missing
Usage: /opt/spotifyconnect/librespot [options]No time stamp, no further info. Googled for the error message and realized that lots of other people experienced error messages like this since many years. None of the threads provided a comprehensive solution except „reinstall your image“. Tried with the ALSA mixer but just got a massive error message in debug. OK so I gave up on the Spotify plugin although this is my primary use case.
At least I wanted to test some local music to see how the DAC works. Searched the help and how-to sections on how to setup the music player MPD for Justboom, but found nothing. I copied a few mp3 to a USB Stick and tried play to it in the web-interface of the player. They seemed to be playing but no sound. Went to the audiocard settings page that was outright confusing. Tons of options and no mention of the correct default settings for my JustBoom DAC. Trial and error lead to nothing. Then I tried to setup Ampache to see if that could improve things. Another fail. After endless setup messages and the installer getting stuck it turned out that Ampache is a huge package that will take days to fully understand and that it also does not play my songs.
This I the part where my frustration mounted. When I open a preconfigured image for my bundled configuration and select the „simple“ setup I would not expect to get stuck so badly. I wasted serveral hours to achieve nothing. If I have to take my time to understand every setting that gets passed under the hood of max2play then I have misunderstood the purpose. I could have installed Raspbian and setup Spotify on my own from the command line as there are tons of tutorials on the web on how to do this with the help of config files provided by Justboom.
So please could somebody help me out with a step by step tutorial on what I have to setup based on the default image of max2play to be able to see my Pi/Justboom DAC as an audiodevice in my Spotify client? What do I have to setup to be able to listen to a local MP3 in MPD?
Thank you in advance!
Martin23. Januar 2019 at 10:03 #44046Its not easy. But once you get it going it works great. Hang in there. I have a Hifiberry Amp2 card. I would be happy to help you on Skype if you like. I spent many days trying to get a sound out of it.
23. Januar 2019 at 13:16 #44069Hi there! I really appreciate your offer, but spending days (!) to get some music out of a „simple“ system is not what I wanted. It’s not that I am a total noob when it comes to using Linux based systems, but I am simply not in a maker/developer mood when I just want to *use* systems that claim to be user friendly. I also have a Google Chromecast Audio. It took me 3 minutes make it play my Spotify playlist, but I did not like the small TRS output and I wanted to try out how different DACs perform.
I prefer to wait until a step by step tutorial for my (supported) hardware combination is available or until there is a new relase that simply works by default (which seems to be an almost blasphemous expectation). If I have time to spend I will not spend it on permutating hundreds of menu settings in a front end like max2play but I will set it up from scratch based on available Raspian tutorials.
23. Januar 2019 at 13:23 #44070Ok no worries. I paid my money for the year so was determined to make it work. All the best.
23. Januar 2019 at 14:16 #44076I received my licence bundled with the hardware. So I think it is fair to expect that a working default configuration and/or a setup tutorial is provided by the maintainer of the software. Let’s wait and see.
23. Januar 2019 at 14:54 #44084Hello Martin,
There are various help materials for all our various applications.
For MPD, I made a youtube video.
You can use the Filesystem/Mount menu to add any sources of music. There’s also a video for that process as well as several other tutorials in our wiki:
YT video
WikiWhich help materials did you follow that caused the confusion?
We recommend using the Squeezebox Server and Squeezelite as it is our primary mode of playback and supports all major protocols like Spotify, DLNA/UPNP, AirPlay, etc. There are also various guides on this setup. Namely our new blog series on setting up a three zone multiroom system. You can follow along the first zone Living Room with JustBoom Digi for your setup. Just make sure to select the DAC instead of the Digi in your case.
23. Januar 2019 at 15:11 #44088Hello Heiner,
thank you for the input, I have actually watched this video. It does not explain how to setup the DAC hardware in MPD. I do not have an issue with MPD itself it just does not produce any audio output on my Justboom DAC. For Spotify connect there is also no tutorial on how to use it with the starter setup. I need screenshots that show exactly what needs to be filled in the hardware/driver settings and I need a fix for the error message that the Spotify connect plugin produces.
I also was not aware that you recommend Squeezbox for simple setups. The Max2Play default for starters is MPD. I have never used Squeezbox and I do not need a multiroom setup, I just want a Spotify device that I can hook to my main stereo. Are your saying that I should not use MPD to achieve that, because it is not supported?
23. Januar 2019 at 17:43 #44098When you set up MPD, it should automatically set the right output device and be able to produce sound.
However, if you want to use the Spotify Connect player simultaneously, you need make sure that MPD does not block the output.
Therefore, users who want to use Spotify and not JUST SPOTIFY are better off with the Squeezebox solution as it offers all portals, protocols and features under one roof.
MPD is just for playback of audio files and radio streams.
Spotify Connect player is just for Spotify Connect.
Shairport is just for AirPlay.
Squeezebox is for all of the above.
23. Januar 2019 at 18:11 #44099Ok I get that. Unfortunately MPD does not procude any output by default on my system with the image I have received so posting the recommended settings would certainly help. But what I learn is that technically I do not need MPD because Spotify connect is a stand alone player. On the contrary, I cannot use these two players in parallel (which seems odd because that is what mixers are for, but maybe that is different on the Pi driver model).
But what about the Spotify Connect issue I am having? There is basically nothing to configure on the plugin page except what I have posted above. The error message cannot be a user driven issue, but it must be caused by the way the plugin is implemented. Did you test the plugin on the current max2play image with the JustBoom DAC?
24. Januar 2019 at 0:02 #44107Just a quick update. The Justboom DAC is perfectly fine and I could finally test it. I decided today to install a fresh Raspberian Stretch Light image (just 360MB to download). I never have used this image before and it took me 15 minutes to get my Justboom DAC running with raspotify by following the tutorials on the Justboom and raspotify homepages. And the actual installation of raspotify only took 3 minutes, the rest was for the base config of the image and enabling the Justboom audio driver. This is what I call simple and well tested. That being said I want to return to exploring all the other features that max2play offers after the Spotify Connect Plugin error is solved, so any inputs are still very appreciated.
29. Januar 2019 at 11:34 #44222Just a quick FYI for anyone looking for step-by-step instructions on setting up their device.
Our intern Mario is currently writing a series of articles for each of his rooms to facilitate multiroom audio with Max2Play on a budget.
The first room is the living room and the bundle is a JustBoom Digi HAT.
This setup is the closest to an ideal starting point for Max2Play as he explains all the steps and configurations in detail.
It includes setting up audio output, using Kodi, getting started with the Squeezebox Server and Jivelite.
There is also the first article in the series which explains the rudimentary aspects of Max2Play and Raspberry Pi audio.
They are both well worth reading in my opinion 😉
Article 1: Step-by-Step Multiroom Audio Setup with Max2Play – The Basics
Article 2: Step-by-Step Multiroom Audio Setup with Max2Play – The Living Room
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