Snakeoil Firmware - 1.1.4 (Blind Testing Update 4)

[agent_kith]

Introduction
Another month, another release. Release was delayed by a few weeks as I spent most of the month trying to get the Meraki network to co-exist peacefully with my existing Unifi network stack (tl;dr: never ever mix different brands if you want to save yourself from grief).

All up this is more bug fix. But there is some notable new features:

1. (Activated edition) Combined with the custon Snakeoil native DSD kernel, you can now dynamically enable your native DSD DAC to stream DSD natively without a kernel  re-compile! Check out how to do this ini the Snakeoil reference guide.
   
2. (Free Edition) If you're using Raspberry PI with OLED, you can simply add mpd_oled in the options field to have the spectrum analyzer configuration added automatically to the MPD configuration file
   

The best is yet to come. Until then, you can enjoy this latest iteration of Bind Testing (U4).


Download
  snakeoil-1.1.4-armv7l.fw (Size: 13.52 MB / Downloads: 25)
(SHA1: fb806de0602c25c30f7ba324d48b2575b3881df9)
  snakeoil-1.1.4-i686.fw (Size: 14.49 MB / Downloads: 14)
(SHA1: e0acd4f7c7834eba2a5ffa7381248cff08f425cb)
  snakeoil-1.1.4-x86_64.fw (Size: 14.54 MB / Downloads: 112)
(SHA1: f31ced6650bc0a0a812b12e41d84457a20fd3bb2)


Changelog

1. 0000315: [web-service] Fixed problem where current kernel is not showing up in the kernel configuration for i686 setup
   
2. 0000314: [web-service] Run ntfsfix before mounting NTFS volumes
   
3. 0000313: [players] Add mpd_oled to MPD options in Raspberry Pi to add spectrum analyzer block on MPD config file
   
4. 0000309: [players] Include MPD 0.21.4 player
   
5. 0000312: [web-service] Only start stop Ravenna Butler client if the correct kernel is running
   
6. 0000310: [players] Include albumartist tag in MPD 0.21.4
   
7. 0000308: [players] Update MPD 0.21.x to 0.21.7
   
8. 0000304: [web-app] Fix MPD software mixer options stripping quotes (") when saving
   
9. 0000307: [players] Also install upmpdcli-tidal when (re)installing upmpdcli
   
10. 0000303: [players] upmpdcli package is missing in Raspberry Pi
    
11. 0000302: [players] MPD v0.21 not working in Pi as it is missing some libraries
    
12. 0000295: [web-service] Show SHA1 checksum when installing modules and Kernels
    
13. 0000293: [web-app] Fails to trap the tilda character in audio device name properly
    
14. 0000301: [web-app] Dynamic Native DSD Configuration
    
15. 0000296: [web-service] Fixed file permissions in /var/lib/squeezeboxserver
    
16. 0000294: [players] Update new private key for Spotify repository
    

[Bromf]

Confirmed working...   after adding new firmware Added mpd_oled in the options box for alsa configuration in the Music player tab and rebooted.....spectrum analyser working

[Gigipack]

Hello boys, another great job for the  Snakeoil Squad !  I use also Daphile and Volumio, but Snakeoil has a "magic" sound for me !
For the future, have you thought about the function of upsampling the audio, example 24/96 or higher ?
Bye from Gigi -  Padova (Italy)

[agent_kith]

Hello boys, another great job for the  Snakeoil Squad !  I use also Daphile and Volumio, but Snakeoil has a "magic" sound for me !
For the future, have you thought about the function of upsampling the audio, example 24/96 or higher ?
Bye from Gigi -  Padova (Italy)

We can't claim the credit for this. The sound quality mainly comes from MPD, Squeezelite/LMS. Snakeoil OS merely optmises the OS to make these players shine even more.

Upsampling audio is done by the players, not the OS. All the players can perform upsampling. With squeezelite you can specify this in the options field. With MPD you have to enable custom ALSA configuration, and then specify the output accordingly (using the format option).

If you have a fast processor, HQPlayer (and I believe Roon) can do more.

[mkysimes]

This is awesome! Bubbleupnp can now see MPD/upmpdcli on the pi and now I'm having fun switching between all of the different options! 

Thank you for this great update! 

I'll definately be toying around with this for a while, but I did find something kind of strange in BubbleUPNP. When I use it to stream tidal to squeezelite Bubbleupnp correctly reports that flac format is being streamed. When I stream to MPD/upmpdcli it says 320kbps. I did check the renderer settings but there is none available when connected to MPD/upmpdcli. Strange, but it still sounds pretty good. 

I will investigate this and see if I can find anything in why flac wont stream to MPD/upmpdcli. If anyone else has noticed this or knows a workaround I'm all ears. 

in the meantime, I'm loving this software! Thanks again for all of your hard work!

[agent_kith]

This is awesome! Bubbleupnp can now see MPD/upmpdcli on the pi and now I'm having fun switching between all of the different options! 

Thank you for this great update! 

I'll definately be toying around with this for a while, but I did find something kind of strange in BubbleUPNP. When I use it to stream tidal to squeezelite Bubbleupnp correctly reports that flac format is being streamed. When I stream to MPD/upmpdcli it says 320kbps. I did check the renderer settings but there is none available when connected to MPD/upmpdcli. Strange, but it still sounds pretty good. 

I will investigate this and see if I can find anything in why flac wont stream to MPD/upmpdcli. If anyone else has noticed this or knows a workaround I'm all ears. 

in the meantime, I'm loving this software! Thanks again for all of your hard work!

320 kbps could be the compressed bit rate. That could mean FLAC, it could also mean MP3. MP3 at 320 kBps is not really discernable for some people but there is a bit of quality loss with trained ears.

Hopefully your DAC will tell you what it is? e.g. with my DAC I know it's MP3 if the bitrate is 44100, but at 24 or 32 bits (Cannot remember which at this stage). But if playing redbook it will be 44100 at 16 bits.

[mkysimes]

This is awesome! Bubbleupnp can now see MPD/upmpdcli on the pi and now I'm having fun switching between all of the different options! 

Thank you for this great update! 

I'll definately be toying around with this for a while, but I did find something kind of strange in BubbleUPNP. When I use it to stream tidal to squeezelite Bubbleupnp correctly reports that flac format is being streamed. When I stream to MPD/upmpdcli it says 320kbps. I did check the renderer settings but there is none available when connected to MPD/upmpdcli. Strange, but it still sounds pretty good. 

I will investigate this and see if I can find anything in why flac wont stream to MPD/upmpdcli. If anyone else has noticed this or knows a workaround I'm all ears. 

in the meantime, I'm loving this software! Thanks again for all of your hard work!

320 kbps could be the compressed bit rate. That could mean FLAC, it could also mean MP3. MP3 at 320 kBps is not really discernable for some people but there is a bit of quality loss with trained ears.

Hopefully your DAC will tell you what it is? e.g. with my DAC I know it's MP3 if the bitrate is 44100, but at 24 or 32 bits (Cannot remember which at this stage). But if playing redbook it will be 44100 at 16 bits.  

Yeah, it's strange the way Bubbleupnp handles streams differently for each renderer. My dac reads 44100 at 24 bits but it doesn't give me any more info like compression rate or container. And that stays static weather Bubbleupnp is showing Flac or whatever. The only time it changes is obviously if I change the sample rate to say 192 khz or something.

What is strange is that using Squeezelite, an Amazon Firestick, or just local (streaming directly to the phone), Bubble is showing as it should: FLAC - 44.1 - 16bit - Stereo. Streaming to Volumio results in a variable (changing) bitrate, usually between 600 and 1200 kbps. Streaming to MPD in Snakeoil shows 320 kbps or below. I had one song report 96 kbps but it certainly didn't sound that low of quality. 

Must be an MPD/UPMPDCLI thing. I'll do some more reading when I get some time and report back.

-Mike

[agent_kith]

Yeah, it's strange the way Bubbleupnp handles streams differently for each renderer. My dac reads 44100 at 24 bits but it doesn't give me any more info like compression rate or container. And that stays static weather Bubbleupnp is showing Flac or whatever. The only time it changes is obviously if I change the sample rate to say 192 khz or something.

That 44.1/24 is likely MP3. Let me know what you find. Unfortunately despite a four day long weekend coming up, I doubt I can test this out myself. But if I do, will let you know what happen.

[agent_kith]

A few weeks back, I remember somebody told me there is a problem with powering off USB ports in the Snakeoil menu. I finally took a look at it, confirmed the problem and commited a fix. USB powering on/off will work properly again in Blind Testing U5.

[Dmitry Novikov]

A few weeks back, I remember somebody told me there is a problem with powering off USB ports in the Snakeoil menu. I finally took a look at it, confirmed the problem and commited a fix. USB powering on/off will work properly again in Blind Testing U5.

That was me. Will wait for U5!