The Spotify music service has become really strong and more then enough music is available. The Spotify client search and play features are working fine and online services such as Spotylist gives me the same kind of features as last.fm -maybe better.
The only thing I’m not happy with is the quality limitation of up to 160 kb/s (UPDATE: check the comments to this post), I would really prefer 320kb/s or even better a lossless format such as FLAC or Apple Lossless.
I wanted to play the Spotify music stream through my Squeezebox, the reason being that the hardware of the Squeezebox has really good sound performance and I don’t want a laptop connected to my stereo. Compared to my PC laptop line out the sound quality is amazing and even compared to my Macbook Aluminium the sound is really clean on the Squeezebox.
Using Nicecast, from rogue amoeba, I can create a music stream from any sound source application on my Macbook and play this on on the Squeezebox (or any other player capable of music URL streams).
I have to do a few one-time settings; In Nicecast I have to select broadcast on start-up and set the source to Spotify. In Squeezebox I save a bookmark to the sound stream URL from Nicecast.
When I want to play Spotify I simply open Nicecast on my Macbook -this triggers Spotify to open since it is the default source, select the music I want to play and select the music stream bookmark on my Squeezebox.
Note! I have only tried this on my local network and I assume it’s not within the Spotify usage terms to stream the music out on Internet 
Good luck.
Thanks, I’ve been looking to link up my Squeezebox with Spotify and this works pretty well. I have a subscription with Spotify which give the 320kb/s you are looking for. I assume I am getting that with this setup – certainly sounds great.
Nice! Thanks for the tip!
I checked out the Spotify site and found this that confirms what you are saying; http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/06/25/bumping-up-the-bitrate/ ..so maybe this is the reason to go premium.
Hi,
Do you think it’s possible to get this on the Squeezebox without Logitech doing it themselves? What I mean is I can connect to the squeeze network and get Last.FM and Napster meaning I have no need for my computer server to be running too, saving time and electricity. I’d like to put Spotify on there next to Last.FM and Napster…
I don’t know, but my guess is that you need the local SqueezeCenter running. It seems the Squeezebox wants to connect to it on start-up. As soon as I disconnect my local SqueezeCenter the Squeezebox shuts down.
For Spotify I haven’t seen any solution or plugin that would bring it closer a native solution in the SqueezeBox. For now it seems you need a computer running Spotify and then pass on the music to the SqueezeBox/SqueezeCenter.
The optimal solution would be a Spotify plugin/engine just like the Last.fm plugin.
Many thanks for sharing this tip – working well on my MacBook and Squeezebox.
This sounds brilliant, but when I try it, my Squeezebox isn’t able to connect to the stream. I can connect to the stream with Safari + iTunes, so I know the Nicecast/Spotify end of things is working. But when I type “http://10.0.0.3:8000/listen.m3u” into SqueezeCenter->Internet Radio->Tune in URL, the Squeezebox says “connect timed out”.
Strange. I had a similar problem at one point when SqueezeCenter was releasing a major update, but after updating and restarting everything it worked.
It sounds like it could be a internal network issue. From the IP I guess you have an Apple router? I’m using a DLink router. But on the other hand everything is local network and shouldn’t be caught by firewalls etc. Also I’m running Ubuntu on the SqueezeCenter machine.
I would check my firewall on the SqueezeCenter machine. Check the connection from a third computer with any music client located on the local network.
Good luck!
Or you might try DSBridge: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=64590
Works like a charm!
Hi there, I have followed the instructions but no success so far. Can anyone tell me if it works with windows 7 64bit version? When I put my pc ip address 192.168.10.5:8124 into squeezebox web control – tune in URL and start Spotify and press play on squeezebox it just go silent for 1-2 sek and then it plays it normal through pc speakers no through squeezebox and the icon from dsbridge in left down corner is still blue(idle mode) suppose to be green. Maybe it have something to do with security …. (I got esset). Could you help someone pls. Thank you and have a nice day.
Hi
I’m not familiar with dsbridge so can’t say.. In Nicecast (screenshot above) you select source and Nicecast ‘hijacks’ that source-sound output and starts streaming it.
Good luck.
One more wote for DSBridge.
Did as intructed in the thread above and works like charm
H.
can’t find a DSbridge for the netgear readynas NV+ ( SPARC) Any thoughts?
You don’t need to install DSBridge on your NAS, but on the PC which runs Spotify. If Squeezebox Server is on your NAS (like in my case) the NAS will just forward the stream from the PC to the Squeezebox.
Announce: Spotify Premium Plugin (Beta)!
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79706