Best Android TV app for network music?

by darknessgp

Alright, I've searched google and here and can't find a great answer.

My setup, I've got a NAS that houses my music collection and I've got a MiBox running the latest non-beta software.

My issue, I really want an app that can play music off of my NAS (either Samba or SSH connection works) and gives a nice interface rather than just browsing folders to play stuff.

What I don't want/need is what googling ends up getting articles for, steaming music apps. I'm playing network content, so spotify, pandora, etc.

What I've tried, Kodi and plex. I run a remote plex server as it is, so adding the second local server is a little painful to have to remember to switch back and forth between them.

Kodi somewhat works, but the UI feels lacking for a music player and it tends to act a little goofy, like press back on a video file stops playback but in music it goes back to the menu UI with no way to then stop the music thanks to not having a real pause/play button.

So, I'm reaching out here to see if anyone has any recommended music apps that may fit my need.

JimboLodisC

Why would you need to setup a second Plex server? Can't you just use the one you already have?

If I had a desire to listen to FLAC files, I'd probably go with Plex. But right now I'm fine with 320kbps so I use Play Music to stream. If anything's missing, I can upload a copy for free.

elister

Kodi is nice, it will play all the mp3s in a folder and no need for a play list. For a tablet or phone, the UI kinda sucks, best on a media player.

VLC will also work, but it needs a playlist, otherwise once the file is done playing, VLC stops.

brjoce

Have you tried media monkey? I have a somewhat similar situation but I have media monkey installed on a win 10 PC and media monkey installed on Android phone. I stream local flac and mp3 files from my nap server to my phones or even to cast from phone to various Chromecasts in the house. I'm not sure if it's on Android TV, but i believe my Sony music Android TV app recognizes it. Like I said I use chromecasts so I haven't had a reason to venture beyond testing it with Sony's built in app once.

pawdog

You can try Archos media player it can pick up the files on your nas and make a nicely organized music player without the need for a server.

prideofpomona

I've struggled with this issue as well. So far I think that Kodi is the superior network player, but you really have to play around with the skins to get the look and the features that you want. I find that a lot of the skins are so focused on the video playback that the music playback is just left on the backburner.

I'm using the latest release of Kodi with the Arctic Zephyr skin. I spent a lot of time organizing and cleaning up my local content with MusicBrainz Picard and it works great. I did customize my music playback screen to my tastes, so I have the artist slideshow enabled, the playlist shown and the lyrics plugin enabled.

I also use Spotify as a radio type source, but Kodi blows it out of the water in terms of style. I would also highly recommend the yatse phone app. Once your collection is loaded in Kodi you can use the app to play music and its really cool to sort through my collection with artist photos and album covers. I find it to be very intuitive- if I hand my tablet/phone over to someone who has never seen my setup they have no trouble using it.

witness_this

Give Emby a go. Good Plex alternative.

jonyak12

I have a NAS setup with all my music and movies/TV and then just use VLC to play them all. VLC is super easy to use, but it doesn't have the fancy interface that other stuff has.

I found it easiest. I really have not figured out what the benefit of PLEX is.