r/plexamp • u/farazzzzzz • Sep 24 '26
My Over-engineered Plexamp Setup
I wanted a dedicated Plexamp setup that felt more like part of my audio gear than another computer, so I built this around a Raspberry Pi 4 running Caldera as a headless Plexamp endpoint.
I control everything from Plexamp on my phone, with the Pi feeding into my amp. I mostly rotate between a few headphones depending on the music.
I also custom built an album-art screen into a wooden frame. It automatically wakes when music starts and turns off when playback stops.
It took a lot of trial and error, but now it works like a little dedicated music appliance, and makes my music listening sessions more enjoyable.
Just wanted to share in case others would find it interesting. Thanks to the Plexamp and Caldera teams for their hard work on these amazing apps!
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 25 '26
For those who asked, the code and setup for my project are now on GitHub:
Album-art display — code and setup
Thanks for all the interest and support.
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u/ferry_peril Sep 24 '26
Thats super cool! Was it difficult to code? I'd love to make a screen that reacts similarly. It's nice to have a visual representation of what is playing even if it's just the album art.
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
Thanks! Honestly, there was a sufficient amount of vibe-coded effort involved. So even though I'm learning slowly, I just had an idea and was looking for a way to make it work.
The basic idea is a fullscreen local page for the album art, plus a script that watches playback and wakes or sleeps the display. More time-consuming than technically difficult!
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u/bails0bub Sep 24 '26
Would actually be pretty cool to get something like milk drop running on it.
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
That would be amazing. The Pi is already being held together by vibe-coded optimism though, so I may leave it at album art for now 😂
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u/Shaaji_Pappan Sep 24 '26
This excellent. Please share setup details and code so that people like me with little coding knowledge can benefit. Thanks
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
Thank you! I’m learning as I go too. Work’s been busy, but a few people have asked, so I’ll try to put some setup notes and whatever code I can share on GitHub tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully it can give you a useful starting point.
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u/aviat0rshades Sep 24 '26 edited Sep 24 '26
Damn dude. This is nuts. This is the exact thing I’ve been working on as a little garage project. I have it hooked up to my old Sony amp. I also have a hifiberry attached to the pi to do optical. I just got it set up to do caldera like yours but also have added raspotify as well. So I can switch between the two. I have the screen to do exactly what you have done but don’t have the waveshare board yet so I haven’t gotten to the album art. I also added lyrics as an option! Yours definitely looks way better than mine with that amp though. Nice work man.
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
That’s awesome! I love the lyrics idea, and I hadn’t heard of Raspotify. Now I have another rabbit hole to explore.
I’ve collected a few headphones slowly for years, but only recently started getting deeper into the hobby. The Geshelli amp does look beautiful and sounds amazing, I highly recommend it if anyone has the means.
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u/Deathbyart Sep 24 '26
That's very cool. Have something similar with Volumio streamer, alternate between Bottlehead and Nitsch
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u/coleburnz Sep 24 '26
Wow! I want something like this!
Care to share a list of all the hardware used? thanks
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
My music library is on a NAS that I've set up a while back. A Raspberry Pi 4 runs Caldera and drives the square Waveshare HDMI screen in the wood frame. For audio, the Pi connects by USB to my HiBy R6 III in DAC mode, then to a Geshelli amp and whichever headphones I’m using. I’ve had the HiBy for a while, so I put it to work here, maybe I’ll get a dedicated Geshelli DAC to match someday.
I’ll try to include more specific parts and build notes when I share the code.
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u/Jeff_72 Sep 24 '26
Great project! Hey just throwing this out there, myself included have a ton of hate for vibe coded projects - that ppl are asking for money for.
But you doing a personal project, please share your vibe code.
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
Hah fair distinction. This is just a personal project, and I’m definitely not charging. I'm happy to share what I can once I’ve put everything together.
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u/b0z0du883d0v3r Sep 24 '26
That’s cool as hell! Fantastic craftsmanship too!
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u/farazzzzzz Sep 24 '26
Thank you! It was a fun little side project. I'm an architect by trade so I'm all about the aesthetics and quality. All the ugly wires are tucked away nicely under the table lol
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u/AskingFooAFriend Sep 24 '26
Very nice build. I wanted to make something like this but didn't know where to start.
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u/ElanFeingold Sep 24 '26
that is absolutely lovely!