Hi, I bought an MNCast in addition to the RaspiRadio I have. Want to obviously integrate this one into home assistant for use with music assistant, would you recommend to go for the ESPHOME firmware or to use the Squeezelite in combination with an LMS server?
If you are using the MN cast only for music I recommend Squeezelite as I have the feeling (can’t explain ti) that the sound quality is better.
Thanks i initially had the same feeling with the radio but recent updates showed a remarkable improvement.
Do you sense the same difference when using spdif output? The dac is not doing anything in that case right?
correct with spdif the Mn Cast DAC is not doing anything, so this is just relying the other system used to convert that signal into sound
Hi, I posted question about the mncast but it seems nobody can help me and i was wondering if you have any knowledge about the board itself and its connections for the microphone?
Its odd that there is a firmware available to use the box for voice assistant but no doc’s are available how to connect a microphone to the box. am i missing something?
Thanks
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Hi sorry we have recently added the Microphone support in Home Assistant this is it is not yet documented it plugs like this:
But you can buy it here:
But it is also compatible with this 
Thanks for the info, is this Spare microphone for MnCast / Mic+ – RASPIAUDIO plug and play or do i have to buy a microphone and if so what is the best to use?
this things is the microphone itself, an I2S digital microphone
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Ok thanks for the info, i does not look like it so that is why i asked.
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Hi, I tried out the spinsend firmware for the mncast - whilst it works the sound seems a bit dull (like there is dampener on it) and it stutters the first few seconds whenever a new song is starting (both first track as well as subsequent tracks). Is this expected behaviour with the march version? Would esphome 2026.05 and further give better results?
another question - spdif, is it possible to use this with ESPhome? Can’t find it in the settings.
thanks for reporting it we will check the firmware again this week.
for toslink it has been done before so I could add it too when we will have time (in the next weeks) : HA Voice Preview Edition Toslink digital audio output - Share your Projects! - Home Assistant Community
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Great news! A new version of esphomeMangaCastMusic has just been released (2026.8.4). It offers stable support for `sendspin` and allows you to select the output mode: either classic analog or optical (S/PDIF). To do this, use the S/PDIF switch in the Home Assistant web interface and, of course, use the correct optical cable (with a mini-Toslink connector).
You can load it:
directly from raspiaudio.github.io
or by downloading it from GitHub at RASPIAUDIO/esphomeMangaCastMusic
or by just updating in Home AssistantI look forward to hearing your thoughts on this version!…
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Don’t know what you did but result is so much better. Playing Jeff Buckley on the MangaCast (DAC, no SPDIF) on an old sony receiver with basic Polk speakers in my home office and the sound is great (much better than the Denon Heos speakers I use downstairs).
Next stop, my second MNG cast through SPDIF on the Yamaha set downstairs..
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Brief update, where the result of the dac → analog connection is great the SPDIF connection stutters. At first I thought it was a network issue (ruled out, issue is present on 2 MNCast units, different rooms and both perform well on the DAC). Then the SPDIF optical cable - used 2 cables, each worked well on the Squeezelite firmware. Lastly the receiver, issue persists on 2 different receivers which can handle optical well from other sources.
Anyone else experiencing the same?
You are probably the only one using the spdif, we will try again this week.
Interesting, i actually bought it because of the spdif 
Thanks for the support!