Hello from Delco - Tell me what you like best!

[donholloway]

Hi everyone!  My name is Don.   I live in Delaware County, PA.

I have a long history of computer music, synthesis, and digital audio.  (Because I'm old). 

I had put it away for 25 years and focused on feeding my family.   I recently got involved with a church choir and got re-introduced to the power of music.

I ran across the Moode community, starting from the protodac.  The community looks wonderful, so I tore down a Mopidy box and built a Moode instance.  I am trying to get up to speed on all of the options.  I have not built a protodac yet, rather started with an rPi 4B with a DAC+. 

Rather than do my usual "go very deep down rabbit holes before I know what I'm doing" approach.  I thought it might be helpful to ask those of you that have spent time with it what you like best about the platform, and in particular, capabilities that you think that most people don't know about.

I'm interested in building a high quality audio system that provides some of the flexibility of modern phone based apps and subscription services while focusing on faithful reproduction and the ability to support a local music library of specific music.  

I had the honor of spending some time back in the 90s with Rupert Neve who shared some key points that have become the foundation of much of what I now try to do.  First, he explained that much of what people often express as absolute limits are really limitations of technology not of people. In particular this was directed at popular beliefs about practical frequency ranges worth paying attention to. This belief was grounded in his Christian faith that perfection could not be achieved by people.  He believed that systems should try to have flat frequency response well above 100kHz.  

So I want to use a local NAS to store as high quality of digital music as I can.  I gather that Moode has multi-room (if I dedicate another rPi) so I can have a local very high quality listening, yet still send stuff around to my wife's art studio, etc. If friends and family come to visit, they can use Airplay and Spotify with the Sonos and other room systems. 

Suggestions are both invited and welcome.

Don

[Nutul]

Hi Don, and welcome aboard.\

moOde is a wonderful piece of audio-related software; can do many things. There are some limitations about multiroom, as I see:
1. moOde can stream one thing to many rooms.
2. the moOde multiroom sender/server cannot be a player itself :-(

for all the rest of your needs, I believe it won't disappoint you :-)

[donholloway]

Hi Don, and welcome aboard.\

moOde is a wonderful piece of audio-related software; can do many things. There are some limitations about multiroom, as I see:
1. moOde can stream one thing to many rooms.
2. the moOde multiroom sender/server cannot be a player itself :-(

for all the rest of your needs, I believe it won't disappoint you :-)

Thanks Al,

Thanks for the heads up, I have vaguely been aiming towards some kind of snap cast, but haven't thought it out very much.  It sounds like the multi-room implementation as it stands is not what I hoped (although I hadn't really thought it out very clearly)

[DRONE7]

yet still send stuff around to my wife's art studio

you may still be able to do this as well using the HTTP Streaming option.

M>Configure>Audio and scroll down and turn on http streaming

[the_bertrum]

You can drop certain players out of the multiroom system as required, so 4 players can all play the same thing, or you could drop one out and three playing the same thing and one playing its own files/stream/whatever.  Explore and experiment, moOde is great for that.

I have to say though that I think there are absolute limits to what people can hear, limits set by physics and biology.  I also acknowledge that a lot of people get a lot of pleasure from playing beyond those limits however, so fill yer boots.

ETA: What I like best about moOde?  The seemingly endless parade of enhancements and new features we get to play with thanks to Tim and his small band of talented developers.

[donholloway]

yet still send stuff around to my wife's art studio

you may still be able to  do this as well using the HTTP Streaming option.

M>Configure>Audio and scroll down and turn on http streaming

Bob,

Thanks.  I'm hopeful that once I understand the platform better I can figure out something that works.  I'll try to give back by documenting what I figure out.

Don

[donholloway]

You can drop certain players out of the multiroom system as required, so 4 players can all play the same thing, or you could drop one out and three playing the same thing and one playing its own files/stream/whatever.  Explore and experiment, moOde is great for that.

I have to say though that I think there are absolute limits to what people can hear, limits set by physics and biology.  I also acknowledge that a lot of people get a lot of pleasure from playing beyond those limits however, so fill yer boots.

ETA: What I like best about moOde?  The seemingly endless parade of enhancements and new features we get to play with thanks to Tim and his small band of talented developers.

Robert, 

Thanks for sharing about multiroom possibilities.  

For what its worth, Neve couldn't explain why we are affected by anomolies at the higher frequencies.  One possibility is that they color what is happening in the "audible" range.  Another is that other parts of our nervous system might be responding to them.  He had some empirical evidence with some of his mixing consoles (people with 'golden ears' could hear a bad module that tested perfectly) and he cited some Japanese research into gamalan and other metallic sounds.  In practice it simply means to test components for a wider frequency response than one would think.  As you say, either it works, or it doesn't.  

Definitely liking the interface and community.  Thanks.

[the_bertrum]

people with 'golden ears' could hear a bad module that tested perfectly

So how was the module declared "bad" if they passed all other tests?

Anyhow, yes it is the why and how of these claims that interest me. I accept that maybe harmonic from the ultrasound range could fall in the audible range and that can have effect, or maybe that we sense them through our arm hairs. Infrasound can certainly have detectable effects on people. All these things are measurable and testable and given the price of the equipment that is sold to access these esoteric frequencies, you'd think they'd do the research so shut people like me up