Can't play FLAC files when using a wireless speaker as a DLNA renderer
Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 3:39 pm
I'm using MMW, run under Win 10, in conjunction with a Harmon Kardon Aura, a wireless speaker that is a certified DLNA client. I've been using this set up for about a year. The Aura can be set up as a wifi or a bluetooth speaker, but sounds better under Wi-Fi. By selecting the AURA as the Player in MMW, the songs in my MMW library are output to the speaker, which is about 20 feet away from the computer running MMW. Once I connected the Aura to the network, it showed up as a selectable Player in MMW. I didn't have to do anything else to configure.
This worked well for several months. The Aura recently lost the ability to connect to the WIFI network, and since it was still under warranty, HK sent me a replacement unit. The new Aura connects to the wi-fi network and shows up as a Player in MMW. But, for some reason, the Aura won't play .flac files. When a .flac song comes up in the playlist, there is a long pause, and then MMW moves to the next song. If the next song is .flac, it will move on again until it hits an .mp3 file. My library is approximately 1/2 .mp3, 1/2 .flac. Never had this problem before. .mp3 files play without a problem.
If I set up the Aura as a bluetooth speaker for the Win 10 computer, the .flac files play (once I return the player selection to MM's internal player). And if I select MM's internal player as the playback device, .flac files also play fine through the computer's sound card.
I don't think the problem is the Aura. As far as I can tell its just a dumb speaker, it doesn't have any software to decode file formats--it just plays what the DLNA server sends it. (But I may be wrong about that)
To complicate the diagnosis, at the same time I swapped out the Aura units, I upgraded to MMW 4.1.24. So I don't know if the problem is the Aura, the new version of MMW, the configuration of MMW or something else.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
This worked well for several months. The Aura recently lost the ability to connect to the WIFI network, and since it was still under warranty, HK sent me a replacement unit. The new Aura connects to the wi-fi network and shows up as a Player in MMW. But, for some reason, the Aura won't play .flac files. When a .flac song comes up in the playlist, there is a long pause, and then MMW moves to the next song. If the next song is .flac, it will move on again until it hits an .mp3 file. My library is approximately 1/2 .mp3, 1/2 .flac. Never had this problem before. .mp3 files play without a problem.
If I set up the Aura as a bluetooth speaker for the Win 10 computer, the .flac files play (once I return the player selection to MM's internal player). And if I select MM's internal player as the playback device, .flac files also play fine through the computer's sound card.
I don't think the problem is the Aura. As far as I can tell its just a dumb speaker, it doesn't have any software to decode file formats--it just plays what the DLNA server sends it. (But I may be wrong about that)
To complicate the diagnosis, at the same time I swapped out the Aura units, I upgraded to MMW 4.1.24. So I don't know if the problem is the Aura, the new version of MMW, the configuration of MMW or something else.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.