Streaming music via Airplay from Ubuntu to Pioneer VSX-922

So after numerous complaints from my wife that the music setup in our house is not user friendly for her and she can only listen to ad-hoc music from the laptop (as a iPod have a playlist synced to it) I did some research and surprisingly found that pulseaudio had a Airplay module (raop)

The Pioneer amp needed UDP and not TCP streaming as per the native module, so I had to compile and create a icon on the desktop to "click and then listen to music"

That approach is sort of user friendly (still a few clicks to swop between the two pulseaudio versions but it works) next step is to fully automate it.

Installation: 
The complete installation instructions can be found here : http://hfujita.github.io/pulseaudio-raop2/

But the steps are summarised below:

sudo apt-get install build-essential paprefs git pulseaudio-module-raop intltool
sudo apt-get build-dep pulseaudio 
git clone https://github.com/hfujita/pulseaudio-raop2.git
cd pulseaudio-raop2
 ./autogen.sh
  CFLAGS="-ggdb3 -O0" LDFLAGS="-ggdb3" ./configure --prefix=$HOME --enable-x11 --disable-hal-compat
  make  

Thenyou need to configure it to discover AirPlay devices on the network

paprefs &

In the Network Access tab, turn on Make discoverable Apple AirTunes sound devices available locally


Then I wrote a little bash script named "music on amp" with a popup instructing her what to do next.

So currently it is a "guided automation" but it works.

Desktop icon: (music_on_amp.desktop)

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Airplay
Comment=Play music to Airplay enabled devices
Exec=/home/user/listen_on_Pioneer.sh
Icon=/home/user/Pictures/airplay.png
Type=Application
Name[en_GB]=Music on AMP

Bash script: (listen_on_pioneer.sh)

#!/bin/bash
# source installed from http://hfujita.github.io/pulseaudio-raop2/
# kill the running pulseaudio
pulseaudio -k
cd ~/pulseaudio-raop2
./src/pulseaudio -n -F src/default.pa -p $(pwd)/src/ &
zenity --info --text 'Dear wife, Please select VSX-922 on next box that will pop up and close' unity-control-center sound
notify-send "Now open Amarok & Enjoy your music my love ..."

I have added a icon & script to change the music back to the laptop (as the Pioneer kept on changing to media source when the laptop send a notification or played music)

Bash script: (listen_on_pc.sh)

#!/bin/bash
# kill the running pulseaudio
pulseaudio -k

pulseaudio -D
# to list the sink
# pacmd list-sinks | grep -e 'name:' -e 'index'
pacmd set-default-sink 1
pulseaudio -D
notify-send "Music will play on PC."

this will kill and start the original pulseaudio and set the source (sink) to the in build speakers.

Pioneer VSX MCACC Flashing

My Pioneer VSX-921 had the flashing MCACC light after a suspected power dip through the night.
Nor could I turn the amp on at all.

After reading multiple posts and trying multiple combinations pressing the "down arrow" and "multi zone off" together for 2 seconds reset the amp to a workable state.