Foobar2000 on Windows 10 with UPnP output to a Zen Stream

2023-05-17 18:33:24

Hi

I bought the Zen Stream to pair with a Zen v2 DAC to provide lossless audio to my stereo equipment via an Ethernet connection

The product works as expected when I use the Audirvana software from my Windows 10 Desktop – lights on both the Zen Stream and DAC come on and audio can be heard

However I am unable to play music with the Zen Stream as an output from either iTunes or Foobar2000 installed on the same Windows 10 machine

In Foobar2000 the Zen Stream appears as two objects in the output dropdown list (via the UPnP Renderer plug-in) as opposed to one entry for my Pioneer amp and when choosing the Zen Stream as the output from Foobar 2000 the progress bar for the audio track moves along the track for about 10 seconds then stops

Deslecting one of the Zen Stream entries in the devices setting in the preferences setting deselects both

At no point do the relevant lights on the Zen Stream or the Zen DAC come on as they do when using the Audirvana software and no audio is heard

Foobar2000 plays absolutely fine using my Ethernet connected networked Pioneer LX87 Amp

iTunes from the PC is the same – i can see the Zen Stream as a AirPlay compatible device but when selecting that device no audio comes out of the Zen Streamer and none of the lights are on for either the Stream or the DAC

Playing audio from my iPhone using the Zen Stream as an AirPlay compatible device does work and all the lights are on for both the Stream and the DAC

Something about the Zen Stream talking to iTunes and Foobar2000 on my Windows 10 desktop is not working

Do you have any advice for getting Foobar2000  working with the Zen Stream?

Re: Foobar2000 on Windows 10 with UPnP output to a Zen Stream

Reply #1 – 2023-05-21 14:47:25

not sure if it may help.

I recently got an Auralic Vega on loan, I use Foobar and I got crazy on a similar issue, namely: I was seeing two seemingly identical "vega" devices, and none of them worked (in the upnp media renderer output, at least).

The solution was to install the other upnp component:
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_upnp

This instead would list the two devices as different:
one is called "vega" (and it doesn't work, or I haven't find a way to make it work), but the other is named -say- "vega:playlist".
this component will add a context menu "enqueue song in device playlist", and if you do and target "vega:playlist", it works fantastically well (e.g. the remote device gets full control of playback, e.g. you can pause, stop, skip... and display full metadata).

anyway, the reason I'm mentioning all this is because my "workaround" is not super-satisfactory (I consider it a bit weird that THE ONLY way to stream audio to an expensive DAC is some old piece of software from 2015, which just seems to accidentally work...)

I'm curious to hear if anyone has different suggestions and/or workarounds.

Re: Foobar2000 on Windows 10 with UPnP output to a Zen Stream

Reply #2 – 2023-05-21 15:34:45

Hi Mycroft

I hope you are well. Thank you for your help and thoughts.

This was the solution proposed by iFI Support via this article - https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/h5h5A-lWVdJxdyQ5G-7CzQ  (google translate helps)

The plug-in is a neat piece of functionality and represents great work by the author who is used on other platforms

However I found it to have serious limitations in my 10-15 hours of testing and researching on Dr Google and other sources, at least for me - the implementation of the UPnP 'player' is clunky and unreliable and plays some formats some of the time and one needs to set up the profiles carefully to make sure it doesn't transcode all one's quality files into MP3 when playing them out to remote devices. The monkeymote remote for driving Foobar2000 from a mobile device does not know what to do with this approach either - so for me I lost control of Foobar2000 playlists etc from the remote on my iPhone when using the UPnP plug-in. It imposes restrictions AFAIK on DSD playback to DSD64 and like the UPnP renderer seems to have an issue with 24bit 44.1kz files - will not play them - or only sporadically

When compared to the hassle free approach of the Audivrana software - I am shifting that way and asking them to take my money for hassle free playback to remote devices

I will still use Foobar2000 for local playback, DSD transcoding to FLAC and other activities (as well as returning to the 64bit version of Foobar2000 - which sadly so many plug-ins do not support but is the right approach on my desktop)

Many thanks