Is WiiM or Pi better for playlist management? (And other WiiM-Pi questions.)

[Rowlandville]

I'm preparing to buy a streamer and DAC -- or maybe an all-in-one. Not sure which.

My focus is a WiiM Pro with an external DAC. But I have questions. All help will be appreciated.

1) Can I create playlists that blend local music and streaming music in WiiM? In Pi?

2) Can I import playlists? In WiiM? In Pi?

3) Can I connect an external hard drive rather than use an NAS? Would I need a USB to optical converter cable or would I simply plug the hard drive USB into the DAC?

4) It appears I can use the WiiM as a Pi. Correct?

4a) Does converting to Pi completely overwrite the WiiM interface?

4b) What are the benefits and deficits of switching from WiiM to Pi?

4c) Are there benefits of using WiiM for Pi vs using a Raspberry Pi device for Pi?

Thanks for your experience and insights. I need them.

 

[cc_rider]

No, you cannot overwrite the WiiM's firmware with anything.

You want great playlist management, use your Raspberry Pi 4 with piCorePlayer or other LMS distro, with the Material Skin to control it, and the WiiM Pro as a Squeezelite target.

 

[Rowlandville]

No, you cannot overwrite the WiiM's firmware with anything.

You want great playlist management, use your Raspberry Pi 4 with piCorePlayer or other LMS distro, with the Material Skin to control it, and the WiiM Pro as a Squeezelite target.

What is a Squeezelite target? Do you run both Squeezelite and WiiM? What benefit is there to that?

 

[cc_rider]

The WiiM Pro runs Squeezelite, which is the native target for LMS, so it appears as a native player to LMS.

Here's the LMS Material Skin running in a browser, playing a Tidal playlist to my WiiM Pro. The playlist can be made up of your files or Tidal or Qobuz or Deezer files, or any combination thereof.

 

[Rowlandville]

So you know what I'm thinking I'll buy is a WiiM Pro mated to a PecanPi streamer-DAC. I had thought I would get the PecanPi without the built-in Raspberry streamer that comes with it so as to just use it as a DAC. But, if I understand you correctly, I want that streaming element to run Pi.

Generally, this is what I think you're saying:

The WiiM will be my player (for lack of a better term). But the Pi will control the music interface: the streaming service (probably Qobuz), my local files, and all associated files (playlists, albums, artists). So the UI I see will not come from WiiM but from Pi. And I need that PecanPi streamer to make that happen.

Is that right?

 

[cc_rider]

No, you don't need a PecanPi. Just a plain-vanilla Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 running piCorePlayer or any other distro that supports the Logitech Media Server software. You can even install it manually if you wish.

Frankly, it's a lot of extra work just to build playlists, which Qobuz, Tidal and Deezer all allow, and the WiiM Pro can play. But, some folks, for reasons I'll never understand, still want to use their local ripped files, and mix them with online files, which LMS supports brilliantly, but WiiM by itself doesn't.

 

[Brantome]

I’m confused where a WiiM Pro fits into this If this “pecanpi” is going to be used as an LMS Server and a DAC - why would you use the WiiM as a Squeezelite player only to feed its output back into the DAC on the Pi? Why not just play to the DAC directly without the WiiM?

 

[Rowlandville]

I’m confused where a WiiM Pro fits into this If this “pecanpi” is going to be used as an LMS Server and a DAC - why would you use the WiiM as a Squeezelite player only to feed its output back into the DAC on the Pi? Why not just play to the DAC directly without the WiiM?

That's how confused I am still about how the pieces fit together. I didn't realize the redundancy until you pointed this out. Makes perfect sense. Thanks.

I have read conflicting posts on boards about the stability and quality of sound of the different Pi variants: PiCorePlayer, MoOde, Volumio, etc. So it just seemed easier to go with WiiM. But it doesn't achieve the playlist mix I want and, apparently, won't let me export playlists. (I've devoted a lot of time to their creation. Their preservation is kind a thing to me.) But now your question makes WiiM seem redundant.