Building a DIY Logitech Media Server Network Streamer

Imagine you’re living in the mid-naughts and you’ve managed to build a large collection of digital music. You want a way to listen to that music in any room in your home. What do you do? A popular solution at the time was a Logitech Media Server (LMS), which could stream music to receiver devices over a local network. Redditor Smashtheplant still uses an LMS and wanted a new player without the high cost of a consumer device. So, they used a Raspberry Pi to build their own LMS audio streamer.

An LMS (now “Lyrion Media Server”) is less appealing today than it was 20 years ago, because internet music streaming services, like Spotify and Apple Music, are so practical. But there are still a lot of people with extensive digital music libraries — particularly audiophiles that care a lot about sound quality. Storage is cheap now and it would be possible to copy the library to individual devices, but then library management becomes a chore. For those reasons, an LMS can still provide value to the right users. However, Logitech discontinued their Squeezebox line of streamers several years ago, making DIY devices like this an attractive option.

This looks fantastic and takes advantage of relatively affordable hardware. The three most important components are a Raspberry Pi, a HiFiBerry Digi+, and a 5” touchscreen from BIGTREETECH. The Raspberry Pi runs the LMS client software (piCorePlayer), which the user can interact with through the touchscreen. There are also two buttons and rotary encoder on top for tactile control. The Pi connects to the network through built-in Ethernet port or a USB WiFi dongle. Those components all fit into a beautiful 3D-printed enclosure.

You may have noticed that the list of components above didn’t include an amplifier or speakers. That’s because the HiFiBerry Digi+ provides an S/PDIF digital audio output via an RCA-style coaxial connection on the back of the device. Smashtheplant connects that to an external DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) with its own amplifier. This ensures top-notch audio quality, as the Digi+ supports up to 192kHz/24-bit. With lossless files, the experience should be perfect.

If you want to build this yourself, Smashtheplant was kind enough to upload the STL files to Printables.