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[elsalvador99]

Hi Guys,

I have seen a few posts on this subject, but they're very old & have no real answers.
I'm using MC27 & it's pretty solid, plays 5.1 stuff all day into my lovely amp.

Now I'm setting up for a party & now we have a playlist we want to send to multiple targets.
I had read somewhere that you could coordinate it from the server end & send to multiple DLNA renderers (other MC27 instances).

However, I don't seem able to make it do that, so two questions arise:
1. Can MC27 (or a newer version) be persuaded to do something like this, or...
2. Anyone suggest an alternative approach which might work ?

Thanks in advance
el-99

[eve]

Hi Guys,

I have seen a few posts on this subject, but they're very old & have no real answers.
I'm using MC27 & it's pretty solid, plays 5.1 stuff all day into my lovely amp.

Now I'm setting up for a party & now we have a playlist we want to send to multiple targets.
I had read somewhere that you could coordinate it from the server end & send to multiple DLNA renderers (other MC27 instances).

However, I don't seem able to make it do that, so two questions arise:
1. Can MC27 (or a newer version) be persuaded to do something like this, or...
2. Anyone suggest an alternative approach which might work ?

Thanks in advance
el-99

How 'tight' are you looking for with this sync?

A big consideration is how much 'pollution' between 'zones' there is. In other words, can you hear one zone from another?

[retiredteacherguy]

You should be able to use the ZoneLink feature to send to your multiple renderers. I only have one DLNA device but I have used ZoneLink to send to both it and my office which is directly wired. However as Eve mentioned, there is some floating. You can try to adjust the timing but in my experience even then they will float apart over time (perhaps if all the devices are DLNA that’s not the case?). If the two areas for your party are within earshot of one another you might notice the difference in timing.

[eve]

You should be able to use the ZoneLink feature to send to your multiple renderers. I only have one DLNA device but I have used ZoneLink to send to both it and my office which is directly wired. However as Eve mentioned, there is some floating. You can try to adjust the timing but in my experience even then they will float apart over time (perhaps if all the devices are DLNA that’s not the case?). If the two areas for your party are within earshot of one another you might notice the difference in timing.

Yeah, it's not really sustainable if you can hear one zone from another. It's inherent to how these systems work.
I use network audio transport for EVERYTHING (with extremely tight sync), every time these sorts of questions arise I just have to facepalm.
There's a number of reasons it isn't particularly straightforward or possible with the protocols consumers are using.

[eve]

Probably the cheapest way to do this is with multichannel d/a (hell you could even use a receiver over hdmi), split it into multiple fake audio devices (stereo or mono), feed your speakers with that.
If you don't need unique playback per zone, just clone the channels as needed, otherwise create fake audio devices.

[retiredteacherguy]

Probably the cheapest way to do this is with multichannel d/a (hell you could even use a receiver over hdmi), split it into multiple fake audio devices (stereo or mono), feed your speakers with that.
If you don't need unique playback per zone, just clone the channels as needed, otherwise create fake audio devices.

On the Mac I've used Loopback to create more audio streams and send them out via different DACs. Then everything is tight. But ultimately I've ended up using one dac that has coax and toslink outs, and sent one to my office setup and one to my theater. Just more reliable for me and I didn't like having to involve Loopback into the chain of events.

[eve]

On the Mac I've used Loopback to create more audio streams and send them out via different DACs. Then everything is tight. But ultimately I've ended up using one Mac that has coax and toslink outs, and sent one to my office setup and one to my theater. Just more reliable for me and I didn't like having to involve Loopback into the chain of events.

CoreAudio is different than Windows audio. It's like lightyears ahead of it lmao. There are slight timing variations DAC to DAC, in practice it's probably imperceptible.
Don't even get me started about how easily it supports network audio transport standards versus the headache that is AES67 (or god forbid AVB) on Windows.

I say this as someone who really for the most part refuses to touch MacOS personally.

[elsalvador99]

Hi Y'all,

Thanks for all the suggestions, and "yes" the zones can be heards from each other, so they need to be "tight".
I have tried several different methods & found only 1 which worked (and didn't cost ££ extra).
(belana sound / volumio / dockers / with DACs and without, many failures!)

Default raspbian & Snapcast is the way to go...(using the "apt install" versions from the standard repositories, not the latest, but they work!).
Very simple mechanism, basically a broadcast across the network to multiple targets (er...multicast? No, multiple unicasts I think, TBC).
It's the mechanism which Volumio uses, but being a commercial org now, they've locked it out of the user's hands & charge for this "premium" feature.
Volumio is great, very reliable, pretty, easy, but for stand-alone I think.

So basically any source is attached to the snapserver as a sound device, and all the snapclient devices use the stream as a sound source & the local sounds device as the target. (VLC used to do something similar).
So pi-zero is fine as a snapclient, even with a HiFi DAC board.
Ditto for windows as a snapclient (snapserver for windows isn't a simple download, it might be compiled perhaps, but not by me).
Ditto for an Android phone as a snapclient sending to bluetooth.
Also pi2 is fine as a snapserver.

In my case I exported the prepared playlist from MC27 and saved all the MP3 files in a folder.
Popped that folder onto the sdcard inside the snapserver, told MPC/MPD about the files, made a playlist & bingo!
It can be controlled by an MPD client on an android phone, so skip forward, back or choose next song etc.

Might even be possible to use it as a DLNA renderer, with snapserverfifo as the audio device? (not tested).

So thanks to MC27 for helping make the playlist & me massively tidying it up so it was a consistent MP3 source.
All ready for the party now!