If you’ve been here before you may already know that we enjoy a multi-zone music system based upon the long-abandoned Logitech Media Server and Squeezebox network music players.
Actually, that’s only partly true. We still run LMS, but the Squeezebox hardware has gradually been replaced with a fleet of Raspberry Pi SBCs fitted with HiFi Berry DACs, paired to small, powered audio monitors. The four indoor zones all follow this pattern.
Some time ago I received a Raspberry Pi B+ as a gift. It had been on my amazon wish list, and for good reason. It looked like one practical approach to emulating the venerable Logitech Squeezebox, which to this day serves as the basis for music playback hereabouts.
Since we were not expanding our music playback scheme there was at first little motivation to got ahead with this effort. That is, until the analog outputs of our existing fleet of Squeezeboxes started to fail. Eventually the analog outputs become unusable, the result of failing electrolytic capacitors. Three of our five SB3s now suffer this malady.
So, not long ago I set to the task of emulating a Squeezebox using a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, a HiFiBerry DAC and a 4 GB micro-SD memory card. To this core I added a suitable case, a power-over-Ethernet splitter and piCorePlayer. All in, this rig cost under $100.