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Music Assistant 2.9

Music Assistant 2.9 is subtitled "Discover Your Sound" and is all about discovering music. It brings a completely redesigned Discover page with personal recommendations, a brand new audio analysis provider for smart fades and sonic search, Sendspin visualizers that sync smart lighting to the music, navigation shortcuts, and a smart playlists plugin.

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Music Assistant is an open-source audio server that can run as an add-on in Home Assistant and allows you to play music from various sources (Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music, local files) on different speakers in sync.

Redesigned Discover Page​

Screenshot of the redesigned Discover page in Music Assistant

Instead of endlessly browsing your library, Music Assistant now offers you personal recommendations. The redesigned Discover page curates a selection based on what and how you listen.

What you'll find on the page:​

  • Top Picks - a selection tailored to your taste
  • Hits - your most-played tracks
  • New Tracks - new releases that might interest you
  • Albums - recommended albums to discover

Audio Analysis - Smarter Playback​

A brand new category of providers handles audio analysis. Music Assistant can acoustically analyze the sound files in your local library and use that to offer several smart features.

What audio analysis enables:​

  • Smart Fades - beat detection for seamless, natural transitions between tracks. This feature was first introduced in version 2.7 and, thanks to audio analysis, it's now even smarter
  • Sonic Similarity - finding sonically similar tracks in your local library, which powers the Radio Mode and Don't Stop the Music modes
  • Sonic search - natural-language search of your local music by sonic characteristics (e.g. "calm acoustic tracks")
  • AcoustID fingerprinting - automatically filling in metadata for digitized CDs that are missing track information
Hardware requirements

Audio analysis is computationally demanding. In versions 2.9.1 and 2.9.2 Music Assistant added an automatic CPU compatibility check and available-RAM detection, so it only offers the feature on devices with enough power. On weaker hardware (for example an older Raspberry Pi) it may therefore not be available.

Sendspin Visualizers​

Ultrawide monitor with Music Assistant and a green frequency visualizer with ambient lighting

The open Sendspin protocol gets one of its most eye-catching features - visualizers. This includes a new Philips Hue bridge that synchronizes smart lights to the rhythm of the music and the currently playing track's information.

Your lighting can pulse to the beat and change colors with the mood of the music - exactly what the Music Assistant team promised when they first introduced Sendspin. If you want to learn more about the protocol, see the Sendspin section in the version 2.7 article.

Screenshot of the context menu with the Shortcuts option in Music Assistant

The new Shortcuts feature lets you pin frequently played tracks, albums, and playlists directly into the navigation menu. You can reach your favorite content with a single click, without lengthy searching.

Smart Playlists​

Screenshot of the smart playlist creation dialog in Music Assistant

The Smart Playlists plugin automatically generates playlists and offers two modes:

  • Library-based rules - filter your own library with custom rules (e.g. "unheard indie rock from the 90s")
  • Discovery-based - seeded from your favorite tracks or artists to find new music to discover

Other Significant Updates​

  • Per-player volume limits - set a maximum volume separately for each device
  • Playback speed control - speed up or slow down podcasts and audiobooks
  • MCP Server Provider - integration with large language models (LLMs), so Music Assistant can be controlled via AI assistants
  • Artist artwork on radio - radio streams now show a photo of the currently playing artist
note

Is your internet radio or stream over Chromecast dropping out after a few dozen seconds? I have a separate guide, Troubleshooting: internet radio dropouts over Chromecast, with the full diagnostic walkthrough and the final fix.

New Player Providers:​

  • WiiM and MSX Bridge
  • Local Audio Out - route audio to a local hardware output
  • MPD servers
  • Samsung WAM speakers

New Music Providers:​

  • WebDAV - remote libraries over WebDAV
  • NTS Radio, Mother Earth Radio - more internet radio
  • MusicMe (French service)
  • QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music (China)

More Information​

Don't have Music Assistant yet?

Check out the complete installation and configuration guide - it walks you through getting Music Assistant running as an add-on in Home Assistant, step by step.

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