Plexamp Headless on Moode 9+

[Tim Curtis]

@ehsan2023,

I did some testing with a Plexpass account in this thread. There are some issues.
https://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread....6#pid56046

I also experienced a very hot volume curve. It's really loud just after 0.

If your audio device supports hardware volume then limiting max ALSA volume can provide a better experience. Remember that when renderers connect to moOde, ALSA volume is set to 100 (or a max limit if one exists) so that when client volume is 100 the output volume will correctly be 0dB (100).

I added "ALSA maxvol (%)" option to the Plexamp section of Renderer Config to deal with the hot volume issue. Bluetooth has similar options.

   

I'll plan to keep the Plexpass sub for a few more weeks in case anyone wants me to run more tests or implement code to improve the feature.

[ehsan2023]

@ehsan2023,

I did some testing with a Plexpass account in this thread. There are some issues.
https://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread....6#pid56046

I also experienced a very hot volume curve. It's really loud just after 0.

If your audio device supports hardware volume then limiting max ALSA volume can provide a better experience. Remember that when renderers connect to moOde, ALSA volume is set to 100 (or a max limit if one exists) so that when client volume is 100 the output volume will correctly be 0dB (100).

I added "ALSA maxvol (%)" option to the Plexamp section of Renderer Config to deal with the hot volume issue. Bluetooth has similar options.



I'll plan to keep the Plexpass sub for a few more weeks in case anyone wants me to run more tests or implement code to improve the feature.

Hi @Tim Curtis

An update on Plexamp testing with the latest 9.0.5 update.

The ALSA volume set to 40% makes a huge difference in managing the loudness. Thanks for that 

But the GUI still always showing Plexamp as active for me despite ALSA is released in moodeutl --hwparams  and even the GUI audio information detects that Plexamp is not playing.

[Tim Curtis]

Thats because of the issue below described in post #2 in the following thread:
https://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread....6#pid56046

Code:

1. When Plexamp initially starts it opens and hogs the ALSA output until something is played and then stopped at which point it then releases the ALSA output after ~15 seconds. Hogging the output on initial start means that it can't be handled a true session based renderer like Airplay  or Spotify Connect which initially start w/o opening ALSA output. They only open the output when play initiates.

This means it has to be treated as a connection based player (hogs ALSA output) like Bluetooth, RoonBridge or Squeezelite (w/o the -C option) and not a session based player like Airplay or Spotify Connect.

A fix for this would need to be done by Plexamp devs so that when the player starts it should wait for a play request from the client before opening the ALSA output. Then moode could use the plexamp_status.py utility to detect when play has started or stopped to determine when to display the renderer active overlay.

[new_bloke]

Hi,

Can I just check that I've understood correctly? Are you saying that the UI will always show the Plexamp renderer as active (with the overlay), or is there some trick to dismiss it? I've only seemed to be able to manage this by stopping the renderer. If I then want to use the device as a plexamp player again, I first have to re-enable the renderer from the config menu.
If there's any testing that you'd like help with, I'm more than happy to - I have a plexpass already. I'd very much like to have this working like the other renderers (Spotify / airplay) if at all possible.

Cheers,

john

[Tim Curtis]

Thats correct. It will always show as active because when it initially loads it hogs the audio output as if its playing something but the actual player status is "not playing". This means that checking player status can't be used to determine when to dismiss the renderer active overlay and return control to MPD.

[the_bertrum]

I don't know if this makes sense for Plexamp (don't use it or even know what colour it is), but if the Bluetooth client disconnects the renderer overlay will go away. Is that the same for Plexamp?

[Tim Curtis]

IIRC it's same as Squeezelight. It will remain running even though the client goes away.

Bluetooth + bluez-alsa is a true connection based renderer. When a bluetooth connection is established bluealsa-aplay (the bluetooth audio player) is started. When the connection goes away either by the user manually disconnecting or any other means (phone turned off, bluetooth turned off, etc) bluealsa-aplay is terminated. This makes it easy to detect when to display the renderer active overlay and when to end it.