Page 1 of 2
Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:51 pm
by Clifford
I have my subsonic server on my main PC in my home office. I also have the subsonic android client installed on my phone. The remote control option works great.
I would like to control the subsonic playback with my phone using remote control, but have the sound come out of speakers that are not physically close to the subsonic server.
Using another subsonic server would be an option, but the other PC is wifi connected and subsonic does not like accessing libraries using WiFi.
One idea I thought might work is to use WiFi speakers. This should work fine, but how do I tell subsonic to use the wifi speakers instead of the speakers locally attached to the PC?
Another idea would be to purchase a Sonos WiFi player. This is more money than I wanted to spend, and I'm still not sure it will give me what I'm looking for.
Any other solutions I might have overlooked? Can the WiFi speaker idea work?
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:21 pm
by BKKKPewsey
If you plug the wireless speaker transmitter into the headphone socket of server then SS will not even be aware of the change.
Of course then the local speakers will not operate so you may need some form of breakout box.

Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 3:12 am
by Clifford
True enough. I was hoping there was a solution where a player could send audio to a specific speaker pair. The whole idea is to NOT have to walk downstairs and physically change things.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 5:05 am
by GJ51
" but the other PC is wifi connected and subsonic does not like accessing libraries using WiFi."
Why?
All my PC's can connect to Subsonic when/where ever they can connect to the internet. I have also set up tablet pc" as SS servers over wifi that work fine. Do you need help setting up your network settings?
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 9:52 am
by utopian
i have a laptop in the house connecting to SS over wifi..works great..never had a problem...
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:14 pm
by Clifford
I mean having the subsonic server on the WiFi PC. Yes, my Wifi PC connects to ss just fine without problems. However, android RC only controls the server, not a client.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 5:57 pm
by GJ51
Just install another instance of SS on the second PC and follow the instructions in the tutorials for connecting to the same library where the music is stored over the network.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:51 pm
by Clifford
I wasn't able to find how to connect to an existing ss library in the tutorials. Can you give me a link or keyword to search for?
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:06 am
by GJ51
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:20 am
by Clifford
At the risk of asking a foolish question. I have a completely working SS server on my wired desktop and my android phone can connect to it. I am trying to get ss to play the music to another pair of speakers, possibly WiFi. I do have a WiFi connected PC as well, and I could connect to a SS server on that with my phone. However, building, updating and accessing a ss library with over 71,000 songs is painfully slow over WiFi. Yes, the WiFi PC connects great to the (wired) ss server, but I lose the phone remote capabilities this way.
I am trying to duplicate the setup of an iTunes Airport Express setup.
I think(?) you were suggesting I could somehow have a ss on my WiFi PC connect to the library on my wired PC to improve performance. My apologies if I got this wrong.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:45 am
by GJ51
No - you have it right. Depending on your storage capacity, you could just set up another SS site on your laptop and copy the music library, or if you storage capacity is limited on the laptop, you can create the second site and just set the music folders to read the shares on the desktop PC where they are already stored.
I also use my Android phone to connect to a Bose Wave radio with bluetooth, if that gives you any ideas.
So many ways, so little time ...
There are a lot of factors that go into getting things working well. Is your wifi wireless N? Is your router close enough to wire in your laptop?
There are bottlenecks everywhere when you get into moving large amounts of data accross a network. The chain weakest link thing. Testing and tuning are what lets you find the limits of what you can achieve with your particular hardware. It's like playing Musclecars - more horsepower is always better - until the electric bill comes.

Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:36 pm
by Clifford
When you said ss library, you meant the folders of music I have, not the subsonic.data file. Okay. Unfortunately, that won't be possible, the WiFi PC doesn't have the disk space, but I did consider that option.
Yeah, the router and adapter are both N and I'm getting pretty decent throughput. Actually, I have two N routers both running Tomato and acting as a WDS.
Looks like I'm out of luck on this one. I'll have to use iTunes!
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 4:51 pm
by GJ51
Why not just install a second instance of Subsonic on the wifi PC and then set the music folders to the files stored in the wired desktop? Wireless N is more than enough to handle music streaming. Once the index is built, It should work reasonably well. Alternatively, you could make a smaller folder on the wired PC that only gets accessed by the wifi PC that would be a bit faster.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:56 pm
by Clifford
Having a ss server on my WiFi PC is unusable. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.
Re: Extending Subsonic throughout house

Posted:
Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:22 pm
by GJ51