Just installed. So far OK app but your premium version price is a non-starter sorry to say. One thing I refuse to do is rent software and yes I just saw the one time deal on a lifetime purchase (last time I did one of those the lifetime ended up being 8 years before the company went belly up (Bigfoot dot com email for life). It seem that every app these days want to rip into your monthly income and chip away at your earnings with monthly fees to the point it is impossible to catch up. Microsoft started it I think so now I use open source options. Seriously thinking of jumping ship after a week of using this to other alternatives (like Moode Audio) to seek the capabilities that Volumio is holding back - most of the fluffy premium service stuff is of no use since I also do not rent from tidal or spotify etc (more renting) but there is a possible show stoppers like Bluetooth and Search functionality that will likely cause me to move on sorry to say. I do like what I see but not at those prices for the limited functionality being held back. Hereis what I am trying to achieve:
and here is the capability I hope to achieve with the same deck (yup, same machine):
Does anyone know what player app this fellow is using to get the moving cassette gif type setup working on his screen? Looks like it is a Samsung Android smart phone flipped sideways (after freezing the screen it looks to be called Media Monkey - hoping to achieve something like this with a pi or is it too early on in the pi world compared to Android offerings?
Still working it. Not sure yet if I will stay with Volumio because ultimately I would like to find an app with a video plugin to allow me to emulate a playing cassette. Will include a similar fellow in Europe who did this with a smartphone flipped sideways. Mine is still a work in progress but i have most of the major problems solved save for the spinning cassette skin.
Here is what i am hoping to emulate in a pi environment instead of Android like this fellow did with the Media Monkey app. I don’t think Volumio has the stones to do this quite yet…
I don’t think there is a guarantee that ANY company will be around forever. I think the team at Volumio are fairly committed to this project, the software and the hardware.
I used to use Virtuoso which was a good trade-off for 26 euros per year vs the free version. However I thought the one-off Lifetime Premium version was fairly reasonable (for ~199 euros). It would pay for itself in 7.6 years. The alternatives like Roon are far more expensive (although would be great with Roon Arc etc). Things work pretty well for my setup, still some minor bugs without bugs (searching and integrating own library in the algorthims) and plugins aren’t 100% reliable but the team seems very eager to help.
Yeah, not feeling it. Seems like it glitches out a lot to be worth such a polished price. Still experimenting on the free side with an open mind. Doubt I will ever pay though…
Regrets
That’s fair, I think it’s the nature of DIY devices as well. Should feel more premium on Volumio’s devices (but aren’t cheap!). Plenty of other options around, you could get a trial of Roon and see how much better it really is… Or play around with Plex and other uPnP stuff (which is always hit and miss). Shame Foobar2000 hasn’t got an upgrade to include proper casting, I like the way that operates for my own collection and the cataloguing/searching is a lot better.
Or just get an apple TV and do away with the tinkering :P.
