Chromecast Audio

[Bourneendboy]

I'm currently using a R-pi for Spotify and accessing FLAC files on an external hard drive. While the FLAC files are great, Spotify integration isn't, unable to search.

I am aware the CCA can be used with Spotify, but am I able to access the hard drive to listen to the FLAC files?

Cheers,

Bill

[lovejoy]

Probably the best way around this is to use Google Play Music with the Chromecast. Google will of course want to sell you a monthly subscription but you can actually store up to 50,000 songs for free and Google Play Music supports FLAC and indeed most other formats. I've got a load of music stored there in AAC format which works wonderfully for me as a back up of my collection and gives me access to my music on my phone when I'm on the move.

[Bourneendboy]

Probably the best way around this is to use Google Play Music with the Chromecast. Google will of course want to sell you a monthly subscription but you can actually store up to 50,000 songs for free and Google Play Music supports FLAC and indeed most other formats. I've got a load of music stored there in AAC format which works wonderfully for me as a back up of my collection and gives me access to my music on my phone when I'm on the move.

Now that sounds interesting! I'd be happy to use Google Play Music, as have used successfully in the past. I'll have to read up or even try getting my Flac files on.

[mikeyb]

Probably the best way around this is to use Google Play Music with the Chromecast. Google will of course want to sell you a monthly subscription but you can actually store up to 50,000 songs for free and Google Play Music supports FLAC and indeed most other formats. I've got a load of music stored there in AAC format which works wonderfully for me as a back up of my collection and gives me access to my music on my phone when I'm on the move.

That's interesting as I thought they converted the uploaded files to 320 mp3's. Mind you it's a while since I uploaded anything to my account.

[mikeyb]

They still convert the files

https://support.google.com/googlepla...00462?hl=en-GB

[lovejoy]

Ah I hadn't realised that. Good to know. I tend to keep a FLAC library on my phone for when I'm travelling on a 64GB micro SD card. I often use Google Play music to play those files but because they're actually stored on the phone I'm not using the cloud storage part. If I find I'm without something from my main library which I want to listen to, I'll then go and stream it via the cloud account. Can't say I'm too worried about the conversion and compression with music on the move. Might become a bit more of an issue if you want to use that as your main system, but I suspect that you wouldn't be using a Chromecast as a main source...

[Bourneendboy]

They still convert the files

https://support.google.com/googlepla...00462?hl=en-GB

That's a shame!

[mikeyb]

That's a shame!

Remember that conversion is only for files uploaded to Play Music, not sure if the CA can play the full res files from your NAS or other storage.

[Bourneendboy]

After a lot of reading on this, I've realised it doesn't offer anything the Pi can't already do and possibly not as much.

[loonytunes]

The CCA will never do as much as any computer, which of course a R-pi is.

I use the CCA purely as a convenient streaming source for Spotify and Qobuz (both apps can 'cast' from the CCA) - in this regard the CCA is perfect.

At the price of a CCA you can find out for yourself - you will probably use the CCA to cast Spotify and the R-pi for the rest; running the two together would compliment one another quite well.