In case you missed it, there is a great piece of ESP32 software that popped up recently, called Airplay-ESP32. A key feature of that is an Apple AirPlay 2 protocol implementation. V1 was implemented some time ago as part of squeezelite-esp32 firmware, and I think it is a good alternative to a Bluetooth player on ESP32: you don’t have to stick your phone near the receiver anymore; you just have to be on the same network, and it also works on Macs and iPads.
V2 adds a few extra features, among which multi-room sync, quite a good one actually, and the possibility to transfer metadata, and remote controls (or was that part of the v1 as well?)
Folks at Airplay-esp32 made huge progress recently in terms of stability, added Bluetooth support alongside Airplay on the ESP32 chip, USB sound card mode on ESP32-S3, support for physical controls (buttons and rotary encoders), OLED and TFT screens with current track display. And recently added Sendspin renderer support, along with AirPlay, which is fantastic, I think.
Cherry on top, it supports DSP features of the TAS5805M and TAS5825M DACs, not only allowing the use of a 15-band equalizer preset, but also individually setting up each of the BQ filters to arbitrary settings: high- and low-pass filters, pitch and notch filters, bass and treble shelves, you name it
It is incredibly comprehensive and allows you to set it up to use with 2-way speakers with individual amp paths (bi-amp speakers), subwoofers with bass enhancement, and even perform individual room and enclosure tuning using REW software.
DUAL DAC model of the Audio Brick is also supported, so you can configure 15 filters for each of the 4 channels, or use it in 2.1 mode with a subwoofer output. Incredible, right!?
Most of the Sonocotta boards are already available in the web installer; only support for the PCM5122 DAC is missing at the moment, but it will be added soon
Give it a try; it might become your new favorite!
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