Hi - I'm a newcomer to Plex, but am hoping someone can give advice on the best setup for the following scenario: I have a Drobo 5N set up and would like to use it as a media server to stream music to a DAC connected to my stereo receiver. Video would be a nice extra, but I'm mostly interested in being able to store all my audio (a lot of it is .wav files burned from CDs) on the Drobo and being able to stream that audio to my stereo. I'd like to be able to control Plex via multiple devices (various laptops and iPhones) and instruct it to stream the music not to the device I'm accessing the server from (i.e. the laptop or iPhone), but to the DAC connected to the stereo receiver.
I have Plex Server installed on the Drobo 5N, but the part I'm confused about is how to use one device (e.g. iPhone) to direct it to stream the music to a second device (the DAC). I'm not sure if that's even possible from the searching I've done so far.
So, the first question is: Is the above possible?
Second: Is it advisable? I'm interested in maintaining best quality playback. Will this setup require transcoding (which I think is not possible on the Drobo 5N?) to a lower quality output.
Third: Does this even make sense? It seems an alternative would be just to use the Drobo as cold storage and have a dedicated computer (e.g. a MacMini) on my network with Plex server installed and reading from the Drobo. That seems to solve a lot of problems but has the downside that I have to get another computer dedicated to just being a Plex server instead of just using the Drobo directly.
Any advice would be much appreciated!