1st post - unusual use model running a multiroom CD player

[trekker12]

Hi,

This is my first post and my entry into the world of Moode and Pi related audio. I'm new to programming as well so I think I've set myself a bit of a challenge.

I currently have 2 Raspberry Pi with audio HATs. The plan is to run a CD player (I'll get to that bit) and a stored library via multiroom.

MoodeHifi is a Raspberry pi 4 located next to our Hifi system and is fitted with a HifiBerry I/O Digi Hat. This is connected to a Saturn Rega CD Player which has a SPDIF Output connected to the Input of the Hat.

MoodeKit is located in the kitchen and is a Raspberry Pi 5 fitted with a 52pi NVDIGI Hat. Installed on this hat is a 256mb NVME SSD on which I have ripped our CD collection. Moodekit is connected to a pair of active speakers.

The intention is to be able to select a CD from the shelf, install into the CD player and then transfer this to MoodeKit as a multiroom transfer.

I know I can multi-room from a stored collection of music on the NVME drive but there is still something satisfyingly old school about selecting a CD and going through the action of placing it in the player and pressing play - its a step below mounting a vinyl record on the player which sits above the CD although I'm not going to attempt to stream that!

I've found a means of ripping the CD and running instant playback via the MoodeHifi Raspberry via this blog https://silvester.org.uk/2024/03/12/comp...pberry-pi/

This worked and I plugged MoodeHifi directly into a speaker via the Output on the I/O hat to test this.

I am having issues running the multiroom part. For some reason I only get silence at the MoodeKit player. Also as it is now a receiver, should I wish to play music only in the kitchen (where sound quality isn't such a consideration) I don't have access to the stored music on the NVME drive so I'd like MoodeHifi to see this, something else which doesn't work. I get an error when I try to set this up as a SMB connection.

I'm wondering if I need a third pi which is directly attached to the router, has its own SSD/NAS and then sends a multiroom signal to one or both Pis as needed? Would that then make MoodeHifi a receiver only so that then wouldn't broadcast the CD recording?

Hope this essay makes sense!

[Tim Curtis]

Couple things:

1. The Multiroom feature is designed to route audio only from MPD and the Renderers (inputs) to the Sender (output). The Hifiberry device routes audio from its input to its output internally completely bypassing MPD or the Renderers. This means it's not possible to use the Multiroom feature to distribute audio from a CD player connected to the Hifiberry device.

2. A Multiroom sender cannot also be a Receiver. It must be a dedicated Raspberry P.i Typically its connected to the Router via Ethernet. It contains the music collection on local storage and also functions as a NAS via SMB or NFS file sharing.

3. The Multiroom feature does not perform clock correction between Sender and Receivers and thus requires a Network with fast, consistent throughput where the ping times from the Sender to each Receiver are within ~1ms of each other. This will ensure the audio is to-the-ear in sync.