View source for News:New Squeezelite Ebuild

{{News
|Summary=Squeezelite streams audio from Logitech Media Server, supporting FLAC, MP3, and hi-res DSD (SACD) formats.
|News Format=Extended
|News Category=Packages
|Author=Drobbins
|Publication Status=Published
|Publication Date=2017/01/06
|Icon=File:Squeezebox.jpg
}}
A new ebuild of Squeezelite (1.8.6.825) has been added to Funtoo's media overlay. This is a significantly updated version of the ebuild which supports a host of new features. For those who are not familiar with Squeezelite, it is a program that will detect a Logitech Media Server running on your network and will emulate a Squeezebox and play music using ALSA, all controllable from the Logitech Media Server Web UI. A Squeezebox is a networked music player created by SlimDevices (which was eventually purchased by Logitech) that was truly ahead of its time and provided next-generation home music streaming capabilities, and worked -- and still works -- extremely well. The system is made of the Squeezebox -- the music player itself (in our case, emulated by squeezelite) and the Logitech Media Server software which streams audio to the Squeezebox in real-time over Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

Squeezelite supports a number of playback formats, including FLAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF and also supported is [[Wikipedia:Super Audio CD|Super Audio CD]]'s [[Wikipedia:Direct Stream Digital|DSD]] format. With the availability of many classic albums encoded in DSD (Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, to name a few,) this is now an exciting option for music listening. All that is needed is a DSD-capable USB DAC, which can now be purchased [http://www.musicservertips.com/product-reviews/smsl-m8-dac/ for under $300 USD], and enabling a DSD plugin within Logitech Media Server. Currently, I'm using squeezelite running under Funtoo on a Raspberry Pi 3 B to stream audio from Logitech Media Server to his hi-fi system over Wi-Fi, with excellent results with both CD and SACD audio. The included {{f|/etc/conf.d/squeezelite}} contains the personal settings I use for streaming which I have found work very well, and along with my included tips in the conf.d file, should help you to get up and running quickly.

As of this moment, it is very difficult to get Logitech Media Server itself running under Funtoo Linux (don't even try it right now -- save yourself some frustration,) so a Mac/PC running a non-Linux OS or a Debian/CentOS system is needed to run LMS. I will be working to resolve this issue in the future.

{{Note|Also be sure to check out [[Package:SACD-Extract]], also part of the Funtoo Media overlay, which can be used to extract LMS/Squeezelite-streamable .DSF files from Super Audio CD Images.}}

Enjoy the music!

Best,

Daniel
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