I have gathered quite a lot of 24bit/96k and 192k .flac files on my server and I like to stream them to my Galaxy S4 and Ipad when I am at home.

Is this feasible? Would I have to ue DLNA or something like Squeezebox?

If you don't mind transcoding to mp3, Subsonic might work well. It's a server-client based system but it would be accessible from anywhere. The are Android and iOS apps, plus it has a web interface as well.  To use the apps you'll need the Premium service which sadly went to a monthly fee ($1/mo).  If you're transcoding flac, you probably want to add the flac decoder as I believe there were problems using ffmpeg in the past

Yeah, on my Mac, I use 'All2MP3' to just go ahead and encode the FLAC files and then move the MP3s to unRAID.

It just seemed simpler.

I'm sure there's something similar for PC's.

 

 

Your original question might really be in two parts:

 

1. What sort of 'interface' do I want to use on my 'player devices'?

  So for example, you can 'play' songs by browsing through a set of nested folder in windows explorer, but why would you want to?

  Most folks are looking for an 'iTunes' style interface into music.

  As dikkiedirk points out, he streams to Android and iOS so he's look for an unRAID streamer with a 'plug in' appropriate.

  If you have Logitech devices that play songs, the Logitech unRAID server plugin might make sense.

I use PLEX to stream both movies and music to my Roku, and subSonic to stream to my tablet.

 

 

2. I have FLAC files, how do I stream them from the unRAID?

a. Check the Wiki for streaming plugins that work in unRAID v5.

    http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID5_Plugins

b. check the plugins' website to be sure it'll do what you need.

c. and then check the Forums for any recent advice on the plugins.

Different plugins have more/less capability to transcode on the fly. Sometimes that's convenient, sometimes not. Your mileage my vary.

I don't want to convert to mp3. I like to stream the flacs as they are.

Streaming flacs will take probably ~3x's the bandwidth of streaming a normal sized mp3 (and it's arguable that most people can't tell the difference between a high quality mp3 and flac - especially on the so-so quality coming from most mobile devices). Not a lot of programs support flac streaming but I believe squeezebox does (although I don't think that it is maintained or supported anymore). You could install the server on unraid and find apps for your devices that work.  This would provide a nicer interface than setting up a network share to unRaid from each device and downloading the files to your your device to play locally.

 

 

Please read instructions on that page: http://www.squeezeplayer.com/

to use Squeezebox (Logitech Media Server) infrastructure remotely.

 

 

While I haven't tried remote access I've been using LMS locally and I am extremely pleased with it.

 

For remote streaming (car or work) I just use Subsonic as the quality is less important then.

I use Twonky Media Server for FLAC streaming via DLNA.  I can connect to it either with dedicated internet radios, or to Android devices (can use Skifta, PlugPlayer, Bubble UPnP and other players), or to iOS (PlugPlayer on iOS supports FLAC).  It has to be paid for after the free period, but it seems a very stable solution.  I am using unRAID 5.0.4 at present but have used Twonky reliably since 4.7.

 

I don't use the more recent version 7 of Twonky, I prefer version 6 (slightly easier to configure).  Setting Twonky up on the cache drive is not too hard, but you may need to edit the configuration files by hand (using vi or similar).

 

I am also evaluating a beta version of AssetUPnP for Linux and have that running on my server as well.  Don't know what the price will be yet though.  It may end up being the solution that I stick with.

I don't want to convert to mp3. I like to stream the flacs as they are.

 

There is an mp3fs plugin on the forum somewhere. They get converted on the fly.

 

Streaming flacs will take probably ~3x's the bandwidth of streaming a normal sized mp3 (and it's arguable that most people can't tell the difference between a high quality mp3 and flac - especially on the so-so quality coming from most mobile devices).

 

I can hear a difference, granted it's small for the highest quality mp3s.

If I'm not 'just listening' it doesn't bother me.

once I'm in just listen to music do nothing else mode or DJ at high volume mode, I can hear the difference.

The louder the music is and the better the speakers are, the more apparent it is.

 

Then again, I can hear frequencies that most people my own age cannot.

 

For a mobile device, I would use mp3's and mp3fs so the encoding is done on the fly.

For our household mobile devices (Ipads and Iphones) we use Plex to stream our FLAC collection.

I don't know if Plex transcodes the FLAC content into mp3 but the low quality audio out from the i-devices is not making much of a difference...

True- the application is not free of charge but is cheap enough so that everyone can afford it having in mind the price of the device itself.