My ultimate guide to the Raspberry pi audio server I wanted — Pulseaudio TCP
Published: 2020-04-19
Part 2 — Pulseaudio TCP
# EDIT 2025: If you’re reading this in 2025 or later, you might be more interested in this article and part 10 about PipeWire which covers the same features with PipeWire instead of PulseAudio
Since Bluetooth and PulseAudio now works, we can get on making the latter available on network. And it’s actually pretty easy
$ sudo apt install pulseaudio-module-zeroconf
In /etc/pulseaudio/default.pa, all you need to do then is adding the following lines according to your own network
load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1;192.168.0.0/24
load-module module-zeroconf-publish
On my clients, I also install pulseaudio-zeroconf and Avahi for service discovery according to their system.
$ sudo pacman -S pulseaudio-zeroconf avahi nss-mdns #archlinux
$ sudo dnf install pulseaudio-module-zeroconf avahi #fedora
$ sudo apt install pulseaudio-module-zeroconf avahi #debian
Then, on your clients you can use paprefs to enable network discovering
paprefs
On ArchLinux paprefs didn’t work and i just uncommented the following line in /etc/pulseaudio/default.pa
load-module module-zeroconf-discover
Of course for the change to be effective, on both clients and server you need either to restart Pulseaudio
$ systemctl --user restart pulseaudio
or load the appropriate module on the fly with
$ # server
$ pactl load-modules module-zeroconf-publish
$ pactl load-modules module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1;192.168.0.0/24
$ # clients
$ pactl load-modules module-zeroconf-discover
You should now see your pulseaudio sink from all clients through avahi when typing
$ avahi-browse -a |grep Pulse
+ enp2s0 IPv6 pi@Ampli-BT: Built-in Audio Stereo PulseAudio Sound Sink local
+ enp2s0 IPv4 pi@Ampli-BT: Built-in Audio Stereo PulseAudio Sound Sink local
+ enp2s0 IPv6 pi@Ampli-BT PulseAudio Sound Server local
+ enp2s0 IPv4 pi@Ampli-BT PulseAudio Sound Server local
and through pulseaudio with
$ pactl list sinks
…
Destination #49
État : SUSPENDED
Nom : tunnel.Ampli-BT.local.alsa_output.platform-soc_sound.stereo-fallback
Description : Built-in Audio Stereo on pi@Ampli-BT
Pilote : module-tunnel.c
Spécification de l'échantillon : s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Plan des canaux : front-left,front-right
Module du propriétaire : 83
Sourdine : non
Volume : front-left: 65536 / 100%, front-right: 65536 / 100%
balance 0,00
Volume de base : 65536 / 100%
Source du moniteur : tunnel.Ampli-BT.local.alsa_output.platform-soc_sound.stereo-fallback.monitor
Latence : 0 usec, configuré 0 usec
Marqueurs : NETWORK HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL LATENCY
Propriétés :
device.description = "Built-in Audio Stereo on pi@Ampli-BT"
tunnel.remote.server = "[192.168.0.15]:4713"
tunnel.remote.sink = alsa_output.platform-soc_sound.stereo-fallback"
device.icon_name = "computer"
tunnel.remote_version = "32"
tunnel.remote.user = "pi"
tunnel.remote.fqdn = "Ampli-BT"
tunnel.remote.description = "Built-in Audio Stereo"
Formats :
pcm
And can now use Pavucontrol or your desktop sound manager to redirect your audio to the Pi
From Gnome settings
As I told in the Introduction, I used to have audio-video sync problems when using this way to redirect audio through network, but it’s not the case anymore, so maybe having pulseaudio as the only alsa client made things better, or tech improved, I don’t really know, but I really like how easy and flawless it is now.