In this month’s sponsored Plex video I share the news that Plex’s awesome music player PlexAmp is now free for everyone! Before it was available to Plex Pass subscribers only.
While some features remain exclusive to the Plex Pass, most features are now accessible to everyone. If you’re already using the Plex app on the free tier to listen to music, I’d highly recommend switching to Plexamp especially if you have a large personal music library.
For those unfamiliar, Plexamp requires a connection to a Plex personal media server. This could be your own server or one shared with you by a friend. The app also integrates with the Tidal music service.
Plexamp supports most of the popular music formats out there including large lossless FLAC audio files. I’ve been on a personal mission to store all my CDs from the ’90s in lossless Flac format on my Plex server. The audio quality is significantly better than the compressed tracks on other platforms.
One of the standout features of Plexamp is its focus on music discovery. It’s designed to help you find and enjoy tracks from your library that you might have forgotten about. There’s a unique “stations” feature that lets you listen to the oldest tracks in your library and then progresses to newer ones. There are also mood-based and decade-based stations, allowing you to tailor your listening experience based on your current mood or nostalgia.
The app displays a visualization of the song’s waveform, and you can jump to different parts of the track with ease. There are also some cool visualizations that sync with the music, adding a visual element to your auditory experience.
However, there are some limitations on the free tier. For instance, offline playback isn’t available, meaning you need to be online to use Plexamp. Some advanced features, like the artist mix builder, are also locked behind the Plex Pass. But the free version does offer a lot, including the ability to transcode audio, which is especially useful if you’re trying to save on bandwidth while streaming on the go.
Plexamp is available on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux. The Android and iOS versions work with Android Auto and Carplay respectively. There’s also a “headless” version for the Raspberry Pi, which I’ll delve into in a future post. And for those who want to cast their music, the free tier allows you to send audio to any Chromecast-compatible device.
If you haven’t played around with Plexamp yet, give it a try!
