Unique and Useful Features of Digital Streaming Thread


There are so many options out there these days for digital streaming (with good sound quality a given) that I thought it useful to talk about unique and/or useful features of specific gear or software as a way to help people decide what is best for them.  

I'll  start.

Plex pay version has a feature called "Plex Mix" that essentially allows you to access your music library like one might access Pandora or more traditionally choose a radio station to listen to.   You pick a track and Plex queues up the Plex Mix based on that track.  It uses tags I know to do this.  The pay version not only adds many tags to your library automatically to enable this, but also has Shazam-like functionality to recognize tracks based on the audio content and auto tag from there.  Awesome! 

FOr example  currently I seeded a Plex Mix from a Ray Connif track and got this nice "muzak" mix queued up from my personal music library/collection to play while working:

  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Ray Conniff - 'S Wonderful on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - Sail Along Silv'ry Moon on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Rat Pack, The - Birth of the Blues on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - The Poor People of Paris (Jean's Song) on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - Moonlight Cocktail on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • eb (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Herb Alpert - What Now My Love on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - My Reverie on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - Canadian Sunset on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various - La Vie en Rose on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Various Artists - Longer on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Connie Francis - My Happiness on Plex Web (Firefox).
  • 10:38 AM mapman001 started playing Keely Smith - Palm Springs Jump on Plex Web (Firefox).

  • It'll keep adding tracks to the mix as long as I keep listening.

    Plus my music server is at home and I am remote at work listening via a web connection.

    Love it!

    128x128mapman
    I suppose we could also talk about things that might make one steer clear of particular products. Its the things that differentiate different streaming software and solutions that I am interested in learning about. Beyond just the sound quality. If the sound quality is not good, I’m probably not at all interested. If found to excel in sound quality for some reason, that’s worth knowing.

    The gear I have used so far that I have found to exceed on pure sound quality (DAC used aside) is original Roku Soundbridge, Squeezebox Touch, and Plex running on original Amazon Fire TV streamer (via optical tslink output to DAC) and also on Iphone 6. When talking about streaming software that runs on many hardware platforms (like PLEX) the audio quality of the hardware platform matters a lot, especially if using a built in DAC.
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