Thank you RoderickGI for the suggestion about the prebuffering.
I am using this solution for now.
I guess what think I want to do to eliminate the Airfoil in between is
... have JR MC25 act as you said a conduit by which audio from a remote/external
source (tablet, phone, another computer,...) is beamed or sent via the network
to a computer running MC25.
MC25, as you said , will distribute the audio to the various speaker systems that
are networked.
That is how I am doing this but Airfoil is doing the work to distribute.
I was just hoping to easily find a way for JR MC25 to use Zone feature to
create a container of networked speaker systems and the audio will be forwarded
to all the speaker systems in that list instead of just one speaker.
I have 2 Linksys Range Extender RE6500 that have analog 3.5mm jack/port,
I have Audiocast (analog) and I have Yamaha R-N803 and even Chromecast Audio (both
can be analog or digital). Adding to the complicated mess, I even have an
old Apple TV and Airport Express as well as various SmartTVs show up in the list
where audio can be streamed to (Samsung, Sony, Philips )... a headache with all this stuff
let alone various computers that are open to receive audio...
So basically Airfoil , Neutron, iTunes/Apple Music can see all of these
devices. iTunes can allow me to select 1 or all of them for audio to be
sent to all. Airfoil can do similarly.
Neutron can only connect to one speaker system at a time and I assume
the same for JR MC25 unless I can group the speakers systems in one
container for audio to be blast to all of them in the set.
I will try to follow what you suggested. I just thought it would be
a bit easier since JR MC25 seems to do a lot of stuff -- stuff I would use
dbPoweramp to do and JR MC25 just seems overwhelming as it does
too much that I am sure it could possibly do what I am attempting.
Thank you. So far I am content with the 4 second delay to accomplish
my current goal with this now. RoderickGI figured out what what I was
trying to do.
Finally, about Whaale, it works fine and actually does what I want to
accomplish all using the smartphone to distribute audio to various speaker
systems... I may have to purchase it ... but it is a bit cramped and hard
to keep track of what song is playing and associating that song to be sent
to various speaker systems networked and all on a small screen. I am not
sure if I may go this route as I would just prefer to have a computer server
do the forwarding of the audio to speakers. JR MC25 and Airfoil seem
to do all of this better and cleaner.
You can't do;
3. Android Device containing Media Files > via Wi-Fi and DLNA > JRiver MC acting as ? > via DLNA > DLNA Renderer(s) > connected Speakers managed by the DLNA Renderer.
You might be able to link multiple DLNA Renderers (as linked Zones) for example 3., but I'm not sure. If the speakers you are distributing to are active speakers capable of decoding digital audio, and act as DLNA Renderers, then the last two steps are combined in one device. Or multiples of a Renderer+Speaker set.
I didn't re-read all your posts, but I think you are asking for the last example above. In that example, MC is not a DLNA Server, Renderer, or Controller, just a conduit. MC can forward sound like this on a Windows PC using Windows App, but not from an Android App streaming via DLNA into MC, and then out to networked speakers. Whaale can't do that either by the look; "The app can only play music on multiple speakers that is provided by the sources integrated into the app."
Basically, your two requirements to store the media files on the Android device, and distribute audio to multiple networked speakers using DLNA are incompatible. MC only supports DLNA for networked devices.
Regarding the 6 second delay, there is a setting in "Options > Audio > Settings > Prebuffering" that you might be able to reduce without causing audio quality issues.
BTW, I assume that you use Airfoil to capture what streams out of MC and then distribute to the various networked speaker systems. You said into, but I don't think you meant that.
PS: I'm no expert in this. I'm just giving you my best guess, and I suppose pointing out that what you specifically want MC can't do, without third party Apps in the solution.