Pulsaudio pacmd sound stream player support

[Dirigibility]

pacmd is handy to stream sound from one linux to another since it's in most repos and on desktops.
I use it to stream sound from Ubuntu VMs with Spotify to Rpi's connected to speakers all over the house.

The pacmd server runs on the Rpi and the client connects to it via:
pacmd load-module module-tunnel-sink server=SERVERIP:port

It creates a dummy sound card on the client machine.
Sound quality is good (PCM), it's reliable and it doesn't require any extra software besides what's in the distro already.

So Music assistant just needs to invoke the command above to connect to a remote pacmd server.

*On the Rpi side (or any computer connected to the speakers/amp) you run the command bellow to listen to the streams (or use the Pulsaudio extended GUI):
pactl load-module module-native-protocol-tcp port=PORT listen=SERVERIPADDRESS auth-ip-acl='127.0.0.1;CLIENTIP' auth-anonymous=1

SERVERIP=IP of Rpi player
CLIENTIP=IP of the MusicAssistant.

[OzGav]

Why not use snapcast if you RPis everywhere or picoreplayer?

[Dirigibility]

I understood that I will need to also install the Snapcast client side on each computer connected to speakers. But maybe I'm wrong.

[OzGav]

Sure but you have to have something installed on them. picoreplayer is the other option which doesn't use an intermediate server. Super light weight and will run on any RPi.

[Dirigibility]

Pulseaudio is already installed by default by all major distro's including Ubuntu, Fedora and Raspbian. It's tested by distro maintainers before releases.

It's there on the client device straight after install, no extra tinkering or apps required.
I like the comfort of knowing that when the client distro upgrades it's most likely to keep working, as sound and video subsystems are core to the distro.

Simpler to maintain and more secure.
Not as nice for simultaneous streaming as Snapcast.

So in short, I wish Snapcast adds the option of using PA-stream towards the clients without having to install Snapcast on the clients.
Guess I'm on the wrong Github page :-)

[marcelveldt]

Like any other feature request, let's see if there is enough interest. This is definitely something we could easily add but every feature is adding maintenance burden.

[rubin110]

I was honestly surprised to see that Pulseaudio wasn't an option. I already have rpis around my house doing other things, all which have pulse already installed. It has made it easy to pipe audio from my laptop/workstation over to another machine.

Based off of the docs and forum posts I just skimmed through for HA, I thhhiiinnnkkk it's possible to create at least 1 media_player for the local instance of pulse, and then have some switch entities to flip between different hosts as the audio sinks, which I'm assuming can get exposed out to MA as a player.

When I've got some free time (sometime between now and the rest of this year) I'll give it a try and report back.