John Darko
Last September, Audiolab announced its flagship streaming DAC: the crisply-dressed 9000N (โฌ2799). You can read more about the hardware here because today’s story is about a recent software update that formally activated Roon Readiness and added support for Plexamp. The latter has come about due to Audiolab’s collaborative work with Hong Kong’s Lumin who, last year, put Plexamp in its high-end D3 streamer.
The Eversolo DMP-A8 also runs Plexamp – but unofficially via a side-loaded .apk file – and I had Audiolab in mind when I said in my DMP-A8 video that it wouldn’t be the last time you’d hear me talk about Plexamp this year.
We first covered Plexamp in 2020, demonstrating how it could talk to an existing Plex server to behave as a private streaming service. Music sitting on a Plex server can be streamed (or offlined) by Plexamp running on a smartphone, no matter where we are in the world. Tidal integration is also part of Plex’s deal but offlining its streams from within Plexamp is not. What about Qobuz? Nope. And yes, before you ask, Plexamp is gapless with music playback.
So far, so Android and iOS.
In 2021, Plex (the company) released versions of Plexamp for MacOS, Windows and Linux, the latter with the option for a headless install. Dropping the GUI requirement opened the door to Raspberry Pi software developers and streaming hardware manufacturers like Lumin and Audiolab.
The upshot was that any instance of Plexamp could hand off an audio stream – from a Plex server or Tidal – to any other instance of Plexamp, including headless versions running on Linux-driven hardware. In other words, each instance of Plexamp could remote-control another instance. I’ve used Plexamp on an iPhone to control the audio sent by the Plex server to an Android phone. Why? Because I could. Plexamp is to Plex, what Spotify Connect is to Spotify.
The big push for Plexamp’s broader adoption came last year when Plex (the company) made Plexamp free to download and use with the advanced features – including offline/downloads – paywalled by a Plexpass (โฌ119 lifetime or โฌ4.99/month).
Quoting from that announcement:
“Step 1: Add your music to your Plex Media Server.
Step 2: Download Plexamp.
Step 3: Make the hills come alive with the sound of your music.”
The version of Plexamp running on Audiolab’s 9000N is headless – it has no GUI. Instead, we must send Plex music streams to it using Plexamp running on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android or iOS.ย However, “Headless Plexamp on Raspberry Pi” is currently listed under Plexamp’s advanced features and it’s unclear at the time of writing if/how this will impact 9000N users running Plexamp sans Plexpass. Will Audiolab users have to pay for a Plexpass to use Plexamp with the 9000N or can they get by with the free version? We’ll let you know as soon as we do.
This story will continue when I find time to put my hands on a 9000N, which likely means Audiolab will need to furnish me with an extended loaner. In the meantime, know that Plexamp support on any device is a big deal for those not wanting to drop bigger cash on Roon.
Further information: Audiolab
