Audio Hero Documentation

1. Install Audio Hero from the Microsoft Store. Free and Pro are the same app: Pro features unlock via an in-app purchase on the Store.
2. Make sure your HEOS speakers or receivers are powered on and on the same Wi-Fi or wired network as your PC.
3. Launch Audio Hero. It opens on the Players tab and shows a spinner while it gets to work, so there is nothing to click to begin.
4. On the very first launch, Audio Hero automatically runs a thorough scan: it broadcasts an SSDP discovery probe on every active network adapter and lists every HEOS device that responds, plus any other device families you've enabled (see Additional device support).
5. If a HEOS device is found, Audio Hero connects to the first one for you and the status dot turns green. If nothing connects automatically, the discovered devices are listed instead, so click any one to connect (or enter its IP address by hand, below).

• Windows 10 or Windows 11.
• .NET 10 runtime (bundled with the Store install).
• A HEOS-compatible Denon or Marantz device on the same local network for the full experience (HEOS speakers, HEOS soundbars, HEOS amps such as PMA-900HNE and HEOS Link, or HEOS-equipped AVRs). HEOS receives Audio Hero's deepest and most complete support.
• SSDP multicast (UDP port 1900) and HEOS CLI (TCP port 1255) reachable on your LAN. Most routers allow this by default.
• For legacy device support: pre-HEOS Denon/Marantz models with HTTP control (CEOL Piccolo, M-CR series, older AVRs).

Audio Hero also controls many other network audio device families. Sonos, Roku, and Onkyo / Integra are fully supported; Chromecast, AirPlay, Yamaha MusicCast, and more are experimental. All are optional and off by default; see Additional device support.

If discovery cannot find a device (for example across VLANs, or when the router blocks multicast), enter the device IP directly:

1. Open the Players tab.
2. Type the IP address into the Or enter IP address: field.
3. Click Connect IP.

If Include support for legacy HEOS devices is enabled in Settings, a second field appears below for adding pre-HEOS Denon/Marantz devices by IP.

• App icon and title. Shows the app name and the active edition (Free or Pro).
• 🛒 Store, 💬 Support, 🌐 Website. Quick links to the Microsoft Store listing, the support subreddit, and bommerts.com/audiohero.
• Update banner. Appears when a new version of Audio Hero is available. Shows three states: Update available, Downloading, and Update installed. See App updates.
• Version label. Shows the running version (for example v5.7.1.0).
• 🔄 Check for updates. Forces a manual update check.
• 📌 Always on top. Pins the window above other applications. The icon rotates 45 degrees when active.
• 🔽 Compact / 🔼 Full / ⏬ Ultra compact. Switches window layout. Compact and ultra compact are Pro features.
• ⤵ Minimize to tray. Sends Audio Hero to the system tray with a popup mini player. Pro feature.

The sidebar has three tabs:

• Players. Discovery controls, the list of paired devices, and per-device actions (rename, assign to a room, reboot, play an input, send an input elsewhere). Includes a small green or gray status dot showing connection state.
• Groups. Create and manage any number of saved playback groups. A group can use tightly synchronized HEOS or Sonos devices, or combine compatible devices from different ecosystems. Expand a saved group to adjust each member's volume, match their levels, or lock their relative levels together. Pro feature.
• Settings. Every app-wide toggle. See the full Settings reference below.

Hiding inputs you never use. Some devices expose lots of physical inputs (for example a soundbar with four HDMI ports you do not all use). Right-click a player, hover Play input from this device or Send input to another speaker, and click the small hide icon next to any input to remove it from the list. Hidden inputs collapse into a Show hidden inputs (N) submenu at the bottom where you can restore them at any time. The hide list is per-device and saved with your settings.

Each device row in the Players list can show two small icons on the right, next to the device name. They act on that device only, so you do not have to select it first. (A separate green name and ▶ glyph mean the device is actively playing, and a small green or grey dot shows connection state.)

⚙ Gear: device controls

The gear opens an inline Device Controls panel for that specific device, shown below the Players list. What the panel holds depends on the device:

• HEOS AV receivers get the full receiver panel (power, inputs, volume, surround modes, Audyssey, tone, zones, and more). See Receiver controls. Pro
• HEOS amps (PMA-900HNE, HEOS Link, and similar) get a simplified amp panel (power, input source, rename). See HEOS amp controls. Pro
• HEOS speakers get a trimmed panel for renaming and the basics.
• Onkyo / Integra, Sonos, Chromecast, DLNA, AirPlay, MusicCast, Roku, Snapcast, Squeezelite, Universal disc players, Samsung WAM, Sendspin, WiiM, Bluesound, Fully Kiosk / Dashie, and legacy Denon / Marantz each open their own panel with the controls that make sense for that platform (volume, mute, rename, inputs, and so on).

The tooltip changes to match the device, for example Receiver settings, MusicCast settings, or Roku remote. The panels share one slot, so opening one closes any other.

⏻ Power button

The power icon toggles power or standby for that device, and its colour shows the current state at a glance:

What a click does depends on what the device supports:

• Real power toggle. AV receivers, HEOS amps, Onkyo / Integra, Yamaha MusicCast zones, Roku TVs, Squeezelite / LMS players, Universal disc players, and the screen on Fully Kiosk / Dashie tablets switch between on and standby. Pro
• Stop playback. DLNA renderers, AirPlay receivers, and Roku streaming sticks / boxes have no network standby, so the button stops the current stream instead. Free.
• Soft on / off. Snapcast clients toggle their own mute (green when on, yellow when off). Free.
• Status only (greyed out). HEOS wireless speakers, Sonos, Chromecast, Samsung WAM, Sendspin, WiiM, and Bluesound expose no network power-off, so the button appears for consistency but is not clickable. These devices stay in low-power standby to respond instantly; unplug them to fully power down. Sonos still shows its live status colour.

When you control more than one device, Audio Hero can group the Players list under headers so it is easier to scan. Two independent switches under Settings → Devices & sources → Players list grouping control this. Grouping is purely a way to tidy the list; it does not link devices for synchronized playback (for that, see Groups and multi-room).

• Now Playing panel. Album art, title, artist, album, source, station, audio info, and which player the audio is on.
• Track Info panel (Pro). Optional sidebar showing artist biography, song facts, and merged metadata pulled in parallel from TheAudioDB, Deezer, Wikipedia, and MusicBrainz.
• Transport controls. Play, pause, stop, next, previous, repeat, shuffle, thumbs up, thumbs down, and timeline scrubber when the source allows seeking.
• Volume controls. Master volume slider, mute, optional volume cap, six volume presets (Pro), and a zone selector for multi-zone receivers.
• Music Sources panel. A Finder-style column browser for navigating HEOS services, internet radio, local files, and starred favorites.
• Queue and Search tabs. The panel below Now Playing has three tabs: Music Sources, Queue (what is lined up to play), and Search (a unified search across your music services).

Local thumbs-up/thumbs-down votes are stored per track in settings.json using an "artist|title|album" key, capped at 5000 entries with oldest entries removed first.

The timeline area shows one of two layouts depending on the source:

• Seekable tracks. Position and duration appear with a draggable progress bar. Click anywhere on the bar to seek to that point. Audio Hero checks the device or service for seek capability and only shows the bar when seeking is possible. If the device does not advertise it via HEOS, a UPnP AVTransport Seek request is sent as a fallback.
• Live streams. A red dot and a LIVE label show the station name. The scrubber is hidden because live radio has no fixed timeline.

Repeat and shuffle commands are forwarded to the connected HEOS player. Some streaming services (notably radio-style services such as Pandora and SiriusXM) do not support these commands; Audio Hero greys out the relevant buttons when the active source rejects them.

The panel below Now Playing now has three tabs: Music Sources, Queue, and Search. The Queue tab shows what is lined up to play next. What it shows depends on the source:

• Your local-file queue. When you are playing files or a folder from your PC, the Queue tab shows Audio Hero's own editable queue, with the current track marked by a ▶ and the rest numbered in play order.
• Everything else. For a station, a service track, or a device's native queue, the tab shows the current item read-only.

For a local-file queue (a Pro feature, like local playback itself) the Queue tab is fully editable:

• + Files and + Folder add more audio to the end of the queue.
• Drag the ☰ handle to reorder, or right-click a row for Move to Top / Move to Bottom.
• Double-click a row to jump straight to that track.
• The ✕ on a row removes it; Clear empties the queue; ↻ refreshes it.
• Local playlists. Save the current queue as a standard .m3u8 playlist, and load a saved .m3u8 or .m3u playlist back later.

Your local-file queue is remembered between launches, and with an Audio Hero Companion it can keep playing after you close Audio Hero. See Local file playback.

• Slider. Drag from 0 to 100 percent. Changes are debounced to avoid flooding the device with commands.
• Numeric box. Click the % value to type an exact volume (Pro).
• 🔊 / 🔇 Mute. One-click mute and unmute.
• Keyboard. Use ↑ and ↓ arrows to nudge volume.

To prevent accidental ear-splitting jumps, you can cap the slider at any value between 1 and 99 percent.

1. Enable Limit max volume.
2. Click the Max NN% pill that appears.
3. Drag the popup slider to set the ceiling. The main slider can never exceed it.

Six preset slots let you jump to a stored volume with a single click. They sit just below the volume slider, arranged in a compact grid.

• Apply a preset. Left-click a filled preset button to set that volume.
• Save a preset. Long-press (press and hold) a preset button to capture the current slider value into that slot. Empty slots stay blank until you save one.
• Clear a preset. Right-click a preset and choose Clear.
• Reorder. Drag a preset to rearrange the slots by hand.
• Auto-sort. Turn on Auto-sort volume presets in Settings to keep the slots ordered automatically (smallest or largest value first, your choice), with empty slots pushed to the end.

Presets are stored in settings.json and persist across launches.

When connected to a Denon or Marantz AVR with multiple zones, an extra control bar appears below the slider:

• All / Z1 / Z2 / Z3. Selects which zone the slider currently controls.
• Your selection persists per-receiver and is restored when you reconnect.
• The volume slider always reflects the selected zone's level.

The Music Sources column shows every source HEOS exposes on the connected device, plus several sources Audio Hero adds of its own:

• HEOS streaming services. Examples: Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, Pandora, SiriusXM, Deezer, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Soundcloud, Napster, Mood:Mix, JUKE, and more depending on your region and device firmware.
• Aux / physical inputs. Phono, CD, Optical, Coaxial, HDMI, AUX, Bluetooth, USB.
• Local Media. DLNA / UPnP servers on your network.
• HEOS Favorites. The presets you've saved in the official HEOS app.
• ★ Starred favorites. Audio Hero's own cross-service favorites list (see section 8).
• 📻 Internet Radio. Audio Hero's own list of saved stream URLs (see section 9).
• YouTube Music and Apple Music. Play these web services on your device by streaming them from your PC (see below). Free.
• Device + This PC. Play a web music service on your PC and your speaker at the same time (see below). Free.
• Local Music (Your PC). Play audio files stored on this computer (see section 10). Pro.

Audio Hero uses a Finder-style column view. Click a source to open the first browse column, then keep clicking to drill into folders, playlists, albums, or stations.

• Columns scroll horizontally; the leftmost Sources column is pinned and resizable by dragging its right edge.
• Each opened browse column is also resizable and remembers its width for the session.
• Items load in pages of about 100 at a time. Audio Hero requests more as you scroll.
• Click ✕ Close Browser in the header to return to the now-playing view at any time.
• Audio Hero remembers your last-visited source and restores it when you reconnect.

The sources list defaults to the order returned by HEOS, with the synthetic Starred favorites and Internet Radio pinned near the top.

• Drag the ☰ handle to reorder.
• Right-click a source for Move to Top or Move to Bottom.
• Your custom order is saved automatically and, with cloud sync on, follows you to your other PCs.

The Music source order setting on the Settings tab controls how that order is remembered:

• All devices the same. One shared order for every device. Each device shows it, listing only the sources it supports.
• Per device type (default). HEOS, Sonos, AirPlay, Onkyo and every other device type each keep their own independent order.
• Per individual device. Every single device remembers its own order, even two speakers of the same type.

To use services like Spotify or Tidal you must be signed into a HEOS account on your device. Manage that sign-in from Settings → Device accounts → Manage device accounts.

• The dialog shows whether you are signed in and, when signed in, the account name. Click Sign in and enter your HEOS account email and password, or Sign out to clear the active session on the device.
• Credentials you choose to store are encrypted with Windows DPAPI (per-user) and never sent anywhere except to your HEOS device. They are never uploaded, even with cloud sync on.
• This is also where additional device platforms (such as Sonos) will appear in the future.

Audio Hero adds two sources, YouTube Music and Apple Music, that play those web services on your speaker even though neither is a native service on it. Audio Hero opens the service in a built-in browser window, captures the audio on your PC, and streams it to the selected device over your LAN. This works on HEOS devices and on most other supported speakers (Sonos, Google Cast, Onkyo, AirPlay, DLNA, and more).

1. Click the YouTube Music or Apple Music source.
2. Click the row to start. The embedded player window opens; sign in the first time, and your session is remembered after that.
3. Press Play inside the player window. Audio Hero waits until there is audio, then switches your device over, so whatever was already playing keeps going until the stream is ready.
4. Click the source row again to stop streaming.

The Device + This PC source plays a web music service on your computer and your speaker at the same time, kept roughly in sync. (Earlier versions called this HEOS + PC; it was renamed because it now works across device families, not just HEOS.) Open it to choose from the supported services: YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Tidal, Deezer, SiriusXM, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

• Click a service to open its web player and start playing on both your PC and the device.
• An Audio Sync delay slider appears for services that allow it, so you can nudge the PC audio to line up with the device. Services protected by DRM (for example Tidal, Amazon Music HD, Spotify, Apple Music) play through your PC's normal output instead, and the sync slider is disabled for those.

The Companion is the same streaming engine that ships inside Audio Hero, packaged to run on its own on a second PC. With a Companion, that other PC runs the browser and audio capture and serves the stream to your speaker, while Audio Hero on your main PC just controls it. Reasons to use one:

• Your main PC stays light, with no hidden browser or audio capture running on it.
• Music keeps playing even when your main PC sleeps or you close Audio Hero, because the Companion is a standing server.
• A low-power mini PC or home server can become your dedicated music streamer.

The link between your PC and the Companion is encrypted (TLS). By default no code is needed: any Audio Hero on your network can find and use a Companion. For extra security you can require a 4-digit PIN on both ends. Nothing leaves your local network. While a source plays through a Companion, the Now Playing header shows · via Companion on <name>.

The Companion handles the sources Audio Hero streams from your PC rather than the ones the speaker plays for itself:

• YouTube Music and Apple Music (their web players).
• Device + This PC (the shared PC-and-speaker web-music source).
• Local Music (Your PC) files and folders Pro.
• Internet radio and any other stream Audio Hero serves.

Native device sources (a speaker's own Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, favorites, and physical inputs) are played by the speaker itself and do not go through the Companion.

One Companion can serve several streams at the same time. From one Audio Hero you can play a different source to each speaker: pick a speaker and start YouTube Music, then pick another speaker and start Internet Radio or Spotify; each keeps playing independently. YouTube Music can even run more than once, so two speakers can play two different YouTube Music songs from the same PC: select the second speaker and start YouTube Music again, and a second player window opens for it. Selecting a speaker in the sidebar shows and controls the music playing on that speaker. The exceptions are Apple Music and Device + This PC, which record the Companion PC's sound output; a PC has only one sound output, so only one of those can run per Companion at a time.

Several household members can also use the same Companion at once, each from their own PC with the same PIN. Everyone controls their own music, and each person's music-service sign-ins are kept in their own browser profile on the Companion, so two people can even stream the same service with different accounts. If someone else's music is already playing on a speaker, starting music there from another PC is politely refused with a message naming who is using it; pick another speaker or ask them to stop first.

When you play local files or a folder Pro to a HEOS speaker through a Companion, the Companion copies each file it needs and streams from its own copy. Because the Companion is a standing server, that queue keeps playing, and keeps advancing to the next track, even after you close Audio Hero on your main PC. When you reopen Audio Hero it re-adopts the running queue and shows it again.

• Copied music is kept in a shared cache on the Companion, deduplicated so the same file is only ever copied once, no matter how many people or PCs queue it.
• The Companion setting Keep copied local music on this Companion (on by default) controls whether those copies are kept for next time or deleted as soon as they are no longer playing.
• Only the PC running Audio Hero can hand files to the Companion, and each copy is verified before it plays.

A Companion does more than stream music. Once one is connected, it takes over your smart plugs completely and becomes the only thing that switches them. The point is simple: the Companion is a PC that is meant to be on anyway, so your plug rules keep working when your own PC is asleep, shut down, or simply not running Audio Hero.

Nothing to set up. Audio Hero sends the Companion your plug rules automatically as soon as it connects, and re-sends them whenever you change one. If you have no Companion, or an older one, everything keeps working from Audio Hero exactly as it did before.

What the Companion takes over

• Follow playback and follow power for a linked plug.
• Scheduled plug automations (Power on / Power off at a set time). These previously only fired because Windows woke your PC and launched Audio Hero, so a PC that was off missed them entirely.
• The on / off button in Audio Hero, which now asks the Companion to switch the plug. This keeps a single source of truth: a plug you switch on by hand can no longer be switched off moments later by an idle-off countdown that was already running.

Which speakers a Companion can follow

The Companion has to be able to see what a device is doing before a plug can follow it. Between them, these cover the great majority of setups:

• HEOS - watched live. HEOS pushes playback changes as they happen, so the plug reacts immediately, including for the speaker's own sources such as Amazon Music, Pandora and favorites.
• Sonos, WiiM, Bluesound, Yamaha MusicCast, Samsung WAM, Roku and DLNA renderers - checked regularly by the Companion. A plug follows within a few seconds of playback starting or stopping.
• Onkyo and Integra receivers - supported, using the handover described below.
• AirPlay, Sendspin, and anything the Companion is streaming itself - no checking needed at all, because the Companion is the one sending the audio and already knows.

Not covered: Google Cast, Amazon Echo, the kiosk targets, Snapcast and Squeezelite. Plugs linked to these still follow playback normally while Audio Hero is open on your PC; they simply do not carry on once you close it.

Onkyo and Integra receivers

These receivers only accept one control connection at a time, which is why they used to be left out. They are now handled by passing that single connection back and forth: while Audio Hero is running it holds the connection as before and tells the Companion what the receiver is doing. When you close Audio Hero, the Companion picks the connection up a few seconds later and watches the receiver itself. Open Audio Hero again and it takes the connection back. Nothing to configure, and the two never fight over it.

If the Companion PC sleeps

A scheduled action can only fire if the PC is awake at the time. Three settings decide what happens, and all three can be changed from either the Companion's own window or from Audio Hero on any PC, on the Settings tab under Audio Hero Companion. Change one in either place and it updates in the other straight away.

• Wake the Companion PC for scheduled actions (on by default) - the recommended option. The Companion books a wake-up shortly before each scheduled plug action, so the PC sleeps normally the rest of the time and still switches your plug on time. This needs Allow wake timers to be enabled in that PC's Windows power plan; it usually is on desktops, and is often turned off for laptops running on battery.
• Run missed actions when the Companion PC wakes (on by default) - if the PC was asleep when a plug was due, the action runs as soon as it wakes, as long as it is less than a day late. Adding a new rule never retroactively fires it for earlier the same day.
• Never let the Companion PC sleep (off by default) - the blunt option, for hardware where wake timers do not behave. It only prevents the PC from sleeping on idle: choosing Sleep from the Start menu or closing a laptop lid still puts it to sleep. It also means the PC draws full power around the clock, so try wake timers first.

Neither wake timers nor keep-awake can help a Companion PC that is fully powered off rather than asleep. Nothing can wake it, so scheduled actions wait until you next switch it on, and then run if the missed-actions setting is on and they are less than a day late.

Checking what the Companion holds

On the Companion PC, open its window and expand Rules stored here under Smart devices. It lists every rule it has been given, which PC sent it, and what it last did to each plug. The rules themselves are set up in Audio Hero; this view is read-only, and is there so you can confirm the handover really happened.

For a PC that should stream music but not run the full Audio Hero app (a home server, a headless mini PC), install the small standalone Audio Hero Companion. It is a free, open-source download with its own repository: Audio Hero Companion on GitHub.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
• Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, already present on most Windows 11 PCs. The installer tells you if it is missing and where to get it.
• On the same local network as your main PC.

Install it

1. On the companion PC, download the latest installer from the Audio Hero Companion releases page (the file name includes the version, for example AudioHeroCompanionSetup-2.3.0.exe).
2. Run the installer. It asks whether the companion should start with Windows and whether it should keep itself up to date automatically; both are recommended and on by default. It installs per-user (no admin rights needed for the app itself). During this first install, Windows shows one admin approval prompt: that is Setup adding the Windows Firewall rule. Updates never show it again.
3. That is it, there is nothing to set up. The companion starts and sits in the system tray (grey when idle, green while playing), and any Audio Hero on your network can find and use it.
4. Optional: double-click the tray icon, or right-click and choose Settings, to name the device, require a 4-digit PIN for extra security, toggle run-at-startup, choose whether to keep copied local music, or stop playback.

Keeping the companion up to date

The companion keeps itself current: it checks the releases page every few hours and, when a new version is out, downloads it and installs it silently the next time nothing is playing and no PC is connected. No prompts appear and nobody needs to be at the PC; the companion restarts itself on the new version. Both behaviours are on by default and can be turned off in the companion's settings window (Automatically check for updates and Install updates automatically when the companion is idle). With automatic installs off, the tray icon shows a notification instead and the settings window links to the download.

Running on a dedicated PC nobody logs in to

The companion runs inside a signed-in Windows session (it starts at logon, not at boot). For a home server or headless mini PC, turn on automatic sign-in so the companion comes up by itself after every reboot:

1. On the companion PC, press Win+R, run netplwiz, select the account, and untick Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. If that checkbox is hidden on Windows 11, use Microsoft's Sysinternals Autologon tool instead.
2. Reboot to confirm Windows signs in and the companion appears in the tray on its own.
3. You can leave the PC at the lock screen (Win+L); the companion keeps streaming and keeps updating itself while locked.

Once a Companion is running, point Audio Hero at it:

1. On your main PC, open Audio Hero, then the Settings tab, then Audio Hero Companion.
2. Turn on Run the Companion on another PC.
3. Click Find Companion running on this network, then click yours under Companions found on your network. If it is not listed (some mesh Wi-Fi and VLAN setups block the discovery beacon), type its address by hand into Companion address as companion-ip:47708.
4. If you set a PIN on the Companion, enter the same 4-digit PIN here.
5. Click Test connection. You want to see Connected to the Companion.
6. Optionally turn on If the other PC is unreachable, run on this PC instead so web music still works when the Companion is off.
7. Optionally choose which sources use the Companion; the rest keep running on your main PC.

Now play YouTube Music, Apple Music, or Device + This PC as usual. The browser and audio work happen on the Companion, and the Now Playing header shows · via Companion on <name>.

Once a Companion is set up, every source that is configured to run through it shows a small badge next to its name in the Music Sources list. Hover the badge to confirm: This source is configured to play through the Audio Hero Companion on another PC. It is a quick way to see, at a glance, which sources will use the Companion and which play on the device directly. Choose which sources use the Companion in Settings → Audio Hero Companion.

Because the web player runs on the Companion PC, sign-ins need to happen there. Audio Hero makes this seamless with a sign-in mirror: when a service needs you to log in, the Companion streams its sign-in page to your main PC, you sign in with your own mouse and keyboard, and the login is saved on the Companion. You never have to sit at the Companion PC.

• Click Sign in for the service, or start a service that needs it. A window opens on your main PC mirroring the Companion's sign-in page.
• Sign in normally. On success the player briefly reloads so it reflects your account, then playback resumes.
• Your session stays on the Companion, so you do not have to sign in again next time.

• Leave it running. The Companion is a standing server, so closing Audio Hero on your main PC does not stop the music.
• Remote Desktop. You can disconnect an RDP session to the Companion and it keeps playing. Do not log off the user, which ends the session and stops the Companion.
• Ports. The Companion listens on TCP 47708 (control and audio) and announces itself on UDP 47707 (discovery). The installer adds a firewall rule for both; see Windows firewall.
• Not discovered? Multicast discovery is blocked on some mesh Wi-Fi, separate access points, and VLANs. Type the Companion's address by hand as companion-ip:47708.
• Change the name or PIN. Open the Companion's tray icon, then Settings, adjust the settings, and click Save.
• Uninstall the Companion from Windows Settings → Apps ("Audio Hero Companion").

Open the Search tab in the panel below Now Playing (next to Music Sources and Queue).

1. Type at least two characters into the search box.
2. Pick a category: Artist, Album, Track, or Station.
3. Press Enter or click Search.

Audio Hero fans the query out to every signed-in HEOS service in parallel, and also searches YouTube Music and Apple Music. Results are grouped per service and each group can be expanded or collapsed. Click any result to play it on the active player.

The Starred favorites list is your own quick-access library, stored locally and independent of any single music service.

• Add to favorites. Right-click any browse item (station, playlist, album, song) and choose ★ Add to Starred favorites.
• Remove. Right-click a starred item and choose ✕ Remove from Starred favorites.
• Browse. Click the Starred favorites source in the Music Sources column.
• Drill in. Starred playlists, albums, and folders open exactly like the originals; the underlying source ID is preserved so HEOS handles playback the same way.

Favorites are saved to settings.json with just enough HEOS context (source id, parent cid, mid/cid, type, name, image) to replay the same browse or play command later.

Audio Hero adds a synthetic Internet Radio source to your sources list. From it you can manage a personal collection of direct stream URLs that any HEOS device can play.

1. Open the Internet Radio source.
2. Click + Add stream at the top of the column.
3. Fill in:
   • Station name (required, up to 120 characters)
   • Stream URL (required, http:// or https://)
   • Artwork URL (optional)
4. Click Save. The station appears in the list and can be played, edited, or reordered.

Audio Hero ships with a small set of seeded stations (Andon FM AI broadcasts). If you delete one of the defaults it stays deleted.

Click Browse catalog... in the stream editor to open the catalog browser:

• Curated providers. SomaFM (live channel list refreshed from somafm.com), Radio Paradise, FIP / Radio France, KEXP, KCRW, WFMU, WWOZ, NTS Radio, Linn Radio (FLAC), Nightwave Plaza, Jazz 24, Rainwave, and others.
• Browse the web. Searches the live community-curated directory at radio-browser.info by station name or genre. Results are sorted by popularity and can be loaded in batches. A country dropdown lets you narrow the search to stations from a single country, or leave it on any country to search worldwide.
• Double-click a station to add it to your list and start playing immediately, or use Add station to add without playing.

When a stream supports the ICY (Shoutcast / Icecast) metadata standard, Audio Hero polls the stream's inline metadata about every 20 seconds and updates the now-playing display with the current track and artist. If the stream does not advertise ICY metadata, the static station name is shown instead.

Audio Hero can stream audio files from your computer to your speakers without uploading them anywhere. A tiny embedded HTTP server on your PC serves each file to the device over your LAN. Open the Local Music (Your PC) source in the Music Sources column to get started.

• 📁 Play Files. A row in the Local Music source that opens a file picker so you can choose one or more audio files. The selected files become a play queue.
• 📂 Play Folder. A row that opens a folder picker and recursively queues every supported audio file inside.
• Supported formats: MP3, FLAC, WAV, AAC, M4A, WMA, OGG, ALAC.
• Queue display. The Queue tab shows the current track and the upcoming items, and lets you reorder, remove, add more, and save or load .m3u8 playlists.
• Next / Previous. Navigates your local queue when active and falls back to HEOS controls otherwise.
• Your queue is remembered between launches, so it comes back the next time you open Audio Hero.
• The device's internal HEOS queue is cleared when local playback starts to prevent cross-talk with previously queued service tracks.

Audio Hero reads embedded tags from each file:

• Tag systems: ID3v2 (MP3), Vorbis (FLAC, OGG), iTunes atoms (M4A, ALAC), ASF (WMA).
• Album art: Extracted directly from APIC frames (MP3) or Windows Shell thumbnails (other formats), then cached locally in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Audio Hero\art-cache.
• Audio properties: Bitrate, sample rate, bits per sample, channels, and codec are read for the now-playing audio info badge.

If tags are missing, Audio Hero tries to parse the filename (for example "Artist - Title.mp3") and falls back to the parent folder name. If all else fails, the filename itself is shown as the title.

• The server binds to your local LAN IP on a random available port. It starts on demand and stops when the app closes.
• Each file is registered with a random opaque token, not its real path. This prevents anyone on your LAN from probing arbitrary paths on your computer.
• Tokens are reused for the same file so repeated plays do not bloat memory.

A group is a saved set of two or more devices that should play the same music. Audio Hero chooses the best playback method for the devices in that group:

• Same-system group. A group made entirely from HEOS devices or entirely from Sonos devices uses that system's own tight synchronization. Its device-native music services and physical inputs remain available.
• Mixed-device group. Compatible devices from different ecosystems can play together when Audio Hero supplies the audio. Each device receives the stream separately, so small timing differences are possible. Mixed groups are best across separate rooms rather than within earshot of one another.

You can save several groups and play a different source on each one at the same time. Group membership and volume-lock choices are remembered between launches. A device can belong to only one saved group. Every group receives a color, and all of its members show a matching colored G badge in the Players tab.

Creating and using playback groups is a Pro feature.

1. Open the Groups tab in the sidebar.
2. Check every device that should play together. The device list shows each device's ecosystem name or logo and a matching outline color.
3. Read the preview below the list. It tells you whether the selected devices can use their own tight synchronization or will form a mixed-device group.
4. Click Create group. At least two devices must be checked.

Audio Hero assigns a source device to the group. If one of the checked devices is already playing, the first playing device you checked becomes the source. Otherwise, the first device checked is used. The source device is listed on the saved group card.

A same-system HEOS or Sonos group is synchronized as soon as you create it. If its source device was already playing, the other members join that playback. A mixed-device group is saved immediately and starts playing together the next time you start a supported source from any member.

After creating a group, return to the Players tab and select any member. The colored G badge makes members of the same group easy to identify.

• Same-system HEOS or Sonos group. Choose a source as usual. The devices share their native group transport, including supported device-native services and physical inputs.
• Mixed-device group. Open Sources and choose one that every member can receive. Internet Radio, Local Music from your PC, PC audio, Device + This PC, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and the in-app Spotify web player are supported. A source that cannot be sent to every member is grayed out; point to it to see why.

Starting a supported Audio Hero stream from any mixed-group member sends it to the complete group. Normal transport controls apply to the group playback, and stopping it stops the stream on all members.

Saved groups appear under Your groups at the top of the Groups tab. Each card lists its members and source device.

• Expand or edit. Click a group card to expand it and load its members into the editor. Click the selected card again to close it and clear the editor.
• Per-member volume. Every available member gets its own slider. With Lock volume off, moving a slider changes only that device.
• Lock volume. Turn this on to move all available member volumes by the same amount while preserving their relative differences. Levels stop at 0% and 100%.
• Match volume. Sets every available member to the quietest member's current level. Matching downward avoids an unexpected jump in loudness.
• Group badges. Each saved group has a colored G. The same color appears beside every member in the Players tab.

• Update a group. Select its card, check or uncheck devices, then click Update group. For a same-system group, the native HEOS or Sonos grouping changes immediately. A mixed group uses the new membership the next time playback starts.
• Move a device between groups. Check a device that already belongs to another group, then create or update the new group. Audio Hero moves it automatically. If the old group is left with fewer than two members, the old group is removed.
• Delete a group. Click the × on its card, or select the card and click Delete. A native HEOS or Sonos group is dissolved. Any mixed-group followers Audio Hero started are stopped, while the source device keeps playing.

Tight sync is available when every member uses the same supported native grouping system. Mixed group means the device can receive Audio Hero's multi-device stream playback.

When the selected player is a HEOS-equipped Denon or Marantz AVR (for example AVR-X series, AVR-S series, AVC series, or the Marantz Cinema range), a gear icon ⚙ appears next to that player in the sidebar. Click it to open the inline Device Controls panel.

Audio Hero queries the AVR over a short-lived telnet connection (port 23) to detect which features it supports, then shows only the controls that work for that specific model.

• Rename. The ✎ icon opens a dialog where you set a friendly name (up to 64 characters) that overrides the device's own name throughout the app. Leave blank to revert.
• Reboot. The ⟳ icon power-cycles the device after a confirmation prompt. If you reboot the device Audio Hero is currently connected to, the connection drops automatically and reconnects after about 30 seconds.

For HEOS integrated amps (Denon PMA-900HNE, HEOS Link, HEOS Drive, and similar), Audio Hero offers a simplified control panel:

• Identity. Device name, model, IP address, and a "Volume only" note where applicable.
• Rename. Set a friendly name (local label only).
• Power. Toggle on or standby. Shows the current state.
• Input source. Buttons for every input the amp exposes: Phono, CD, Analog 1/2, Optical 1/2, Coaxial 1/2, Bluetooth, AUX, etc. Audio Hero merges the inputs the firmware reports with a per-model catalog so missing inputs still show up.

Unlike full AVRs, HEOS amps do not expose Audyssey, surround modes, or multi-zone control over the network, and those sections are intentionally absent.

You can send the audio from one HEOS amp's input to another speaker. Right-click any HEOS amp in the Players list and choose Send input to another speaker, then pick the destination. This is useful for routing a turntable to a kitchen speaker, for example.

"Legacy" refers to pre-HEOS Denon and Marantz network devices: CEOL Piccolo, M-CR series, older AVRs that pre-date HEOS firmware, and similar HTTP-controlled receivers. They cannot stream from HEOS music services, but they do accept volume, mute, power, and input commands.

Audio Hero treats these as volume-only companion devices. The main playback stays on your HEOS speaker; the legacy device follows along in volume and power.

1. Open the Settings tab.
2. Enable Include support for legacy HEOS devices.
3. Open the Players tab and click Discover Devices. Legacy SSDP discovery probes for MediaRenderer devices, filters to Denon and Marantz, and verifies each one responds to the legacy HTTP API.
4. Or add a device by IP using the Or add a legacy Denon/Marantz device by IP field that appears.

Click the ⚙ gear on a legacy device in the sidebar to open its settings panel:

• Friendly name. Rename for local display.
• Mirror volume from. Pick a HEOS player to follow. Volume, mute, and power changes on that HEOS device are mirrored to the legacy receiver.
• Max volume cap. A per-device safety ceiling from 10 to 100 percent.
• Default input on power-on. The input the device switches to whenever it wakes (Phono, CD, AUX, etc.). Leave blank to keep whatever input was last selected.
• Status. Read-only display of current power, volume, and mute state.

Writes go over HTTP (port 8080 with port 80 as a fallback) so the device does not need telnet enabled. Status polling uses non-waking endpoints so the receiver is not woken from standby just to read its status.

Three non-HEOS device families have graduated out of experimental and are now fully supported, held to the same standard as HEOS itself: Sonos, Roku, and Onkyo / Integra. They are stable, actively maintained, and safe to rely on day to day. Like every non-HEOS family they are optional and off by default; turn them on from Settings › Audio device support selection, then run Discover Devices.

Audio Hero can discover and switch smart plugs on your local network and tie one to a player, so the plug follows what the player is doing. The classic use is a subwoofer or amplifier on a smart plug that you want powered only while a speaker is actually playing. TP-Link Kasa and Shelly plugs are supported. Everything is local: no cloud account and no internet are involved.

• Enable it: open the Settings tab and tick Enable smart plug / smart device control under Devices & sources, then click Manage smart plugs....
• Discover: in the Smart plugs window, click Discover smart plugs. Both brands are searched every time, so you do not have to say which one you own. Plugs that answer appear with their name, model, and current on / off state. If one is not found automatically, type its IP and click Add; that also tries every supported brand.
• Link to a player: for the plug you want, choose a player from the Linked player list. That ties the plug to that player. One plug links to one player, and a player has one plug.
• Switch it by hand: use the on / off toggle in the Smart plugs window, or in the linked player's own ⚙ gear settings panel, which gains a Smart plug section showing the plug as a switch.

Follow the player automatically. A linked plug can follow the player in two ways, set per plug from either the Smart plugs window or the player's gear panel. You can switch on either one or both:

• Follow playback: the plug switches on the moment the player starts playing and switches off a set number of minutes after playback stops. The switch off after ... min idle delay (2 minutes by default; 0 = immediately) avoids power-cycling the plug between tracks or short pauses. This is the right mode for a subwoofer tied to a HEOS speaker, Sonos, Chromecast, or any player that has no power button.
• Follow power: the plug switches with the player's own power, for players that have a real network power button (AV receivers, Onkyo / Integra, HEOS amps, and similar). When the player powers on, the plug turns on; when it goes to standby, the plug turns off.

When Audio Hero is closed. If a Windows Audio Hero Companion is configured and running, Audio Hero hands it the whole set of plug rules and the Companion takes over: it becomes the only thing that switches your plugs, and it keeps doing so with every copy of Audio Hero shut. That covers Follow playback, Follow power, and scheduled plug automations, across every ecosystem the Companion can watch. See Smart devices on a Companion for exactly which devices that is and what happens when the Companion PC sleeps.

Because the Companion becomes the single switch, pressing a plug's on / off button in Audio Hero asks the Companion to do it rather than doing it directly. That is not about network reach; it is what stops a running idle-off countdown from quietly undoing a plug you just switched on by hand. If no Companion is configured, or it is an older version, Audio Hero simply keeps switching plugs itself exactly as before.

Using both together. The two options are built to combine into a single rule rather than fight each other: the plug is on while the player is powered on or playing, and it switches off when the player powers off, or after the idle delay once playback stops. Step by step:

• Powering the player on switches the plug on straight away.
• Starting playback switches the plug on and cancels any pending idle-off countdown.
• Stopping playback starts the switch off after ... min idle countdown. When it elapses the plug switches off, even if the player is still powered on. This is what lets a subwoofer on an always-on receiver still drop out after a long silence.
• Powering the player off switches the plug off at once, and clears any pending idle countdown, so a leftover timer can never switch the plug off again moments after you power the player back on.

Because of that idle-off step, a player left powered on but silent past the delay will keep the plug off until playback resumes (or you switch it on by hand). If you would rather the plug mirror the player's power exactly and ignore silences, use Follow power on its own. If the player has no power button at all (most HEOS speakers, Sonos, Chromecast), use Follow playback on its own, since there is no power signal for Follow power to track.

Automations. A smart plug can also be the target of a scheduled automation: pick the plug under Smart plugs in the automation's device list and choose Power on or Power off to switch it at a set time on the days you choose. With a Companion running, these are handed to it and fire from that PC, so they no longer depend on this PC being awake. See Smart devices on a Companion.

• Pro Discovering and linking plugs is free. Actually switching a plug on or off (by hand, by follow, or from an automation) is a Pro feature, like the player power controls.
• Kasa compatibility: classic Kasa plugs (HS100 / HS103 / HS105 / HS110, KP105 / KP115, EP10, and similar) speak the local protocol Audio Hero uses. The newest "Matter" or Tapo-app-only units use a different, encrypted protocol and will not be found; if a Kasa plug is not discovered, that is the most likely reason. Try a Shelly if you are buying new.
• Shelly compatibility: both firmware generations work. Gen1 devices (Shelly Plug S, Shelly 1 and similar) and Gen2 or newer (Plus, Pro, Mini) are detected automatically, including which generation a device is, so there is nothing to configure. Shelly devices are found over mDNS; Kasa devices are found by network broadcast. If mDNS is blocked on your network, add the Shelly by IP instead.
• Not supported: TP-Link Tapo and Belkin WeMo. Tapo needs an encrypted protocol tied to a TP-Link account rather than local-only control, and WeMo has been wound down by Belkin.
• Privacy: plug control is direct LAN traffic from Audio Hero, or from the Companion when one is running. Linked plugs and their settings are stored on this PC only and are never synced.

Discovers and controls Sonos players on your local network. Audio Hero can play its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to a Sonos speaker and control play / pause / stop, next / previous, volume, and mute.

• Setup: tick Support Sonos devices in Audio device support selection, then open the Players tab and click Discover Devices. No app, account, or extra software is needed.
• Gear panel: the ⚙ settings panel adds Sonos sound controls: bass, treble, and loudness, a crossfade toggle, night sound and speech enhancement where supported, the status LED and button-lock switches, and a per-speaker sleep timer.
• Grouping: two or more Sonos speakers can be joined into a synced group (see Groups and multi-room).
• Power button: greyed out. Sonos exposes no network power-off; speakers stay in low-power standby. Unplug to fully power down.

Discovers Roku devices (Roku TVs, streaming sticks and boxes, and Roku-powered soundbars) and gives each a full on-screen remote: power, volume, transport, and on-screen navigation, over Roku's local network protocol.

• Setup: tick Support Roku devices, then Discover Devices.
• To play Audio Hero's own audio to a Roku, install the free Media Assistant channel from the Roku Channel Store, then enable Settings › System › Advanced system settings › Control by mobile apps on the device.
• Power button: a real power command on Roku TVs (green / red); on sticks and boxes, which have no network standby, it stops playback.
• Pro The on-screen remote and Roku TV power are a Pro feature.

Discovers and controls Onkyo and Integra AV receivers over the local eISCP network protocol, giving each AVR a full control panel. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to the receiver.

• Controls: power, volume, mute, input selection, listening mode, tone, options, and Zone 2, wherever the receiver exposes them.
• Setup: tick Support Onkyo receivers, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: a real network power toggle over eISCP.

Beyond HEOS, Audio Hero can also control several other kinds of network audio devices. These are marked experimental: they are off by default, still being refined, and may be incomplete or change between releases. Turn on only the ones you use.

The experimental device families are Chromecast / Google Cast, DLNA / UPnP renderers, AirPlay and AirPlay 2, Yamaha MusicCast, Snapcast, Sendspin, Squeezelite (Logitech / Lyrion Media Server), Universal disc players (Oppo-style), Samsung Wireless Audio (WAM), WiiM (LinkPlay), Bluesound (BluOS), and Fully Kiosk and Dashie Kiosk tablets. Each appears in the Players list next to your HEOS devices, with its own ⚙ gear settings and a power button.

1. Open the Settings tab and click Audio device support selection.
2. Tick the device families you want. Each has a short description of what it does and any limitations.
3. Close the dialog, open the Players tab, and click Discover Devices. Newly enabled devices appear in the list.

Power buttons behave per platform. Some devices expose a real network power command (Onkyo / Integra receivers, MusicCast zones, Roku TVs, Squeezelite players, Universal disc players, and the screen on / off on Fully Kiosk and Dashie Kiosk tablets). Some have no standby, so the button instead stops playback (DLNA, AirPlay) or toggles a soft on / off (Snapcast clients). The rest have no power-off at all and show the button greyed out for visual consistency (Sonos, Chromecast, Sendspin, Samsung WAM, WiiM, and Bluesound). The ⚙ gear opens a per-device panel for volume, mute, and renaming, plus a fuller set of controls on receivers.

Discovers Chromecast and Google Cast devices and plays Audio Hero's own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them. Existing Google Cast speaker groups show up as devices you can play to, so you can target a whole group at once.

• Setup: tick Support Chromecast devices, then Discover Devices. Cast devices and groups appear next to your HEOS players.
• Power button: greyed out. The Cast protocol has no power-off; power the device down from the device itself or the Google Home app.

Discovers generic DLNA / UPnP MediaRenderer devices (network speakers, AV receivers, smart TVs, and software renderers) and plays Audio Hero's own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them over standard UPnP.

• Controls: volume and mute where the device exposes them, plus play / pause / stop.
• Setup: tick Support DLNA devices, then Discover Devices. Anything that advertises a UPnP MediaRenderer should appear.
• Power button: mapped to "Stop playback on this device". DLNA renderers have no network standby.

Discovers AirPlay and AirPlay 2 receivers (AirPort Express, AirPlay AVRs and speakers, HomePods) and streams Audio Hero's audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them as a real-time AirPlay stream.

• Setup: tick Support AirPlay devices, then Discover Devices.
• AirPlay 2-only devices such as HomePods need a pairing handshake that may not succeed with every device.
• Power button: mapped to "Stop playback on this device". AirPlay receivers have no network standby.

Discovers Yamaha MusicCast devices (network speakers, sound bars, and MusicCast AV receivers) and controls each advertised zone over the local Yamaha network API. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them over UPnP.

• Controls: volume, mute, input selection, and a real power toggle per zone, each with its own gear settings and power button.
• Setup: tick Support Yamaha MusicCast devices, then Discover Devices. Each zone appears as its own device.
• Power button: a real network standby toggle (green when on, red in standby).
• Pro Zone power and the zone settings panel are a Pro feature. Discovery and basic playback work on the free tier.

Discovers Snapcast servers over mDNS and lists each server's clients as devices you can control over the Snapcast JSON-RPC interface.

• Controls: volume, mute, soft on / off, and per-client latency.
• Setup: tick Support Snapcast devices, then Discover Devices. If a server is not found automatically, type its host name or IP (control port 1705) into the box that appears and click Add server.
• Power button: mapped to a soft on / off (client mute): green when on, red when muted.
• Playing Audio Hero's own audio to Snapcast is planned for a later update; for now Snapcast support is control only.

Discovers Sendspin devices (Open Home Foundation synchronized multi-room audio) over mDNS and lists each as a device you can play to. Audio Hero acts as the Sendspin server and pushes its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them over WebSocket as PCM.

• Controls: volume and mute, plus play / pause / stop.
• Setup: tick Support Sendspin devices, then Discover Devices. If a device is not found automatically, type its host name or IP (optionally host:port; WebSocket port 8928) into the box that appears and click Add device.
• Power button: greyed out. Sendspin clients have no network power-off.

Connects to your Logitech / Lyrion Media Server (LMS) and lists every player it manages (headless squeezelite instances, Squeezebox hardware, piCorePlayer, and so on), each with its own gear settings and power button. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them.

• Controls: power, volume, mute, and transport over the server's network interface.
• Setup: tick Support Squeezelite devices, then Discover Devices. A running LMS server is required, because squeezelite has no controls of its own. If the server is not found automatically, type its host name or IP (JSON-RPC port 9000, or host:port) into the box that appears and click Add server.
• Power button: a real power toggle over the LMS network interface.
• Pro Player power is a Pro feature. Discovery and basic playback work on the free tier.

Discovers Oppo-style universal disc players (UDP-203 / UDP-205 and BDP-83 / 93 / 95 / 103 / 105) on your network and gives each its own gear settings and power button. Controls power, volume, and mute over the Oppo LAN / IP control protocol.

• Setup: tick Support Universal disc players, then Discover Devices. For the player to respond while off, enable Quick Start standby in its setup menu.
• Power button: a real network power toggle (green when on, red in standby).
• Pro Player power and the settings panel are a Pro feature. Discovery works on the free tier.

Discovers Samsung Wireless Audio Multiroom (WAM) speakers (M5 / M7 and R1-R7, plus WAM sound bars) and controls each over the local Samsung network API, with its own gear settings and a view of what the speaker is playing. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them over UPnP.

• Controls: volume, mute, source, and playback.
• Setup: tick Support Samsung Wireless Audio (WAM) speakers, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: greyed out. WAM speakers have no network power-off.
• Pro The settings panel is a Pro feature.

Discovers WiiM and other LinkPlay streamers (WiiM Mini / Pro / Pro Plus / Ultra and the WiiM Amp) and controls each over the local LinkPlay network API, with its own gear settings and a view of what the device is playing. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them over UPnP.

• Controls: volume, mute, source, and playback.
• Setup: tick Support WiiM (LinkPlay) devices, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: greyed out. WiiM streamers have no network power-off.
• Pro The settings panel is a Pro feature.

Discovers Bluesound and other BluOS players (NAD and Bluesound NODE, POWERNODE, PULSE, and other BluOS devices) and controls each over the local BluOS network API, with its own gear settings and a view of what the device is playing. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them natively over the BluOS API.

• Controls: volume, mute, presets, and playback.
• Setup: tick Support Bluesound (BluOS) devices, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: greyed out. BluOS has no network power-off.
• Pro The settings panel is a Pro feature.

Controls Fully Kiosk devices (Android tablets and phones running the Fully Kiosk Browser app) over their Remote Admin REST API, each with its own gear settings. Audio Hero can also push its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them with the device's playSound command.

• Controls: screen on / off (power), volume, and play / stop. Playback is play and stop only (no pause, seek, or now-playing).
• Setup: tick Support Fully Kiosk devices, then enter the device IP and its Remote Admin password and click Add device. Remote Admin is a Fully Kiosk PLUS feature and must be enabled on the device with a password set. The password is stored encrypted on this PC only and is never synced.
• Power button: turns the screen on or off (green when on, red when off).
• Pro Screen power and the settings panel are a Pro feature.

Discovers Dashie and Dashie Lite dashboard tablets (Android devices running the Dashie kiosk app) over mDNS and controls each over their Fully Kiosk-compatible Remote Admin REST API, each with its own gear settings. Audio Hero can also push its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them with the device's playSound command.

• Controls: screen on / off (power), volume, brightness, reload, screensaver, kiosk lock, reboot, and text-to-speech. Playback is play and stop only.
• Setup: tick Support Dashie Kiosk devices, then enter the device IP and its Remote Admin password and click Add device. The REST API must be enabled in Dashie with a password set. The password is stored encrypted on this PC only and is never synced.
• Power button: turns the screen on or off (green when on, red when off).
• Pro Screen power and the settings panel are a Pro feature.

The Track Info panel appears to the right of the now-playing artwork (when the window is wide enough) and displays:

• Track summary / song description.
• Artist biography.
• Facts such as genre, release year, country of origin, and album info.
• A clearly labeled "Data from" line listing every contributing service with a clickable link.
• A "Cover from" line crediting the source of the artwork.

Audio Hero queries four data sources in parallel and merges the best fields from each:

1. TheAudioDB for track descriptions, artist bios, and album art (optional, controlled by a setting).
2. Deezer for genre, release year, fan counts, and high-resolution album art.
3. Wikipedia for biographical and cultural context (truncated to a clean sentence boundary).
4. MusicBrainz for community-tagged genres, recording dates, artist country, and founding year.

Long prose fields pick the richest result; factual fields pick the first non-empty value; cover art prefers track-level art over album art. If a service times out or fails, the others' results are still used. A 15-second watchdog ensures the UI never hangs, with a single retry attempt on stalled requests. A "Try again" link is shown if everything fails.

• Hide the panel. Uncheck Show track info above the now-playing area.
• Disable TheAudioDB. Toggle EnableTheAudioDbMetadata in settings.json if you prefer Deezer/Wikipedia/MusicBrainz only.
• The panel is hidden automatically for local files (which use embedded tags) and for legacy receivers (which are volume-only).

The artwork tile rotates between two faces:

• Front: Album / track artwork.
• Back: Service logo or station / radio image.

Three settings on the Settings tab control the look and feel: motion, page-flip animation, and timing. A fourth setting picks which faces are shown at all.

Audio Hero can wear one of several color themes. Pick one under Settings → Appearance & layout → Color theme. The change applies to the whole app instantly, with no restart.

Two sliders below the theme fine-tune it:

• Text brightness (1 to 10, default 5). Raises or lowers the contrast of the text against the background.
• Background brightness (1 to 10, default 5). Lightens or darkens the panels and surfaces.

Your theme and brightness choices are saved on this PC and, with cloud sync on, follow you to your other PCs.

The default layout. Sidebar on the left, now-playing and transport on the right, sources panel below.

Click the 🔽 button in the header. Compact view collapses to a single panel showing artwork, track info, transport, and volume in a smaller footprint suitable for parking in a corner of your desktop.

Click ⏬ for an even smaller single-row layout that fits in a docked sidebar or above your taskbar. All transport buttons, volume, multi-zone selector, presets, pin-on-top, and minimize controls are still accessible.

Click ⤵ to send Audio Hero to the system tray. Hover the tray icon to see the now-playing title; click it to open a popup with:

• Album art, title, artist, album.
• Previous / Play / Pause / Next buttons.
• Mute and volume slider.
• "Open Audio Hero" link and "Exit" link.

The 📌 pin in the header toggles the window's topmost attribute so it stays above other applications. The icon rotates 45 degrees when pinned. Available in every view including the compact ones.

The full view is laid out with draggable dividers so you can give each area exactly the space you want. Hover a divider and drag it; when you grab one, the other dividers gently light up so you can see what else is adjustable.

• Sidebar width. Drag the divider between the left sidebar and the main area (roughly 280 to 700 pixels).
• Now Playing height. Drag the divider below the Now Playing panel to make the artwork and track details taller or shorter, giving more or less room to the Music Sources panel underneath.
• Album artwork size. Drag the right or bottom edge of the album art to resize the square.
• Track Info column Pro. When the Track Info panel is showing in full view, drag the splitter between Now Playing and Track Info to set how wide the panel is.
• The Music Sources Sources and browse columns are resizable too (see Music sources and browsing).

The sidebar width and Now Playing height are remembered on this PC between launches (when Remember last view & window size on exit is on). The album-art and Track Info sizes are per-session and reset to their defaults the next time you start the app.

Right-click anywhere on the Now Playing panel and choose Reset now playing panel view to put the album-art size and Track Info column width back to their defaults. The panel height is left as you set it.

Once you have the full view sized the way you like, you can save it as a named layout view and switch between several with a couple of clicks. Right-click any empty area of the full window to open the view menu, which has three choices: Save view, Load view, and Reset view to default.

• Save a view. Choose Save view, then + New view to capture the current layout as "View 1", "View 2", and so on. Each row has a ☰ handle to drag and reorder, an editable name, a Save button to overwrite that view with the current layout, and a ✕ to delete it. Click a name to rename it.
• Load a view. Choose Load view and click Load next to any saved view to apply it.
• Reset view to default. Returns the window to its default size with the default sidebar width and Now Playing height.

A saved view remembers the window size, whether it was maximized, the sidebar width, and the Now Playing height. (Album-art size, Track Info width, and the Music Sources column widths are not part of a saved view.) Saved views are stored with your settings and, with cloud sync on, follow you to your other PCs.

Enable Remember last view & window size on exit in Settings so Audio Hero reopens in whichever view (full, compact, or ultra-compact) was active when you last closed it. In full view it also restores the last window size, position, and panel layout (sidebar width and Now Playing height). When disabled, the app always opens at the default size in full view.

The sleep timer is a Pro feature. Audio Hero includes a per-device sleep timer:

1. Open the sleep timer popup (clock icon near the transport controls).
2. Pick a duration: 15, 30, 60, or 90 minutes, or any custom value you add. Custom values are persisted to settings.json.
3. Pick an action: Stop play (pauses playback) or Power off (sends a power-off command).
4. Pick a scope: this device only, or all devices.

Pause and resume controls let you halt the countdown without losing the remaining time.

Automations let Audio Hero act on a schedule, even when the app is closed. Each one is backed by a Windows scheduled task, so it runs at the time you set without Audio Hero needing to be open.

Find them under Settings → Scheduled automations. Click Add automation to create one, then set:

• Device. Which device the automation acts on. Automations work with every device type Audio Hero controls - HEOS, Sonos, Chromecast, Onkyo, DLNA, AirPlay, Yamaha MusicCast, Roku, Amazon Echo and Snapcast, plus smart plugs (power on / off only) - though the actions available depend on the device (see the table below).
• Action. Start a source, stop playback, power the device on, or power it off. The editor only offers the actions the selected device supports.
• Source and volume. For Start a source, pick a starred favorite to play and, optionally, a volume to set first. On non-HEOS devices the list is limited to saved internet-radio stations (see below).
• Time and days. The hour and minute, and which days it repeats - every day, weekdays, weekends, or a custom set.
• Wake the computer. Optionally allow the task to wake your PC from sleep so the automation can run.
• Quit after running. If the automation started Audio Hero, optionally have it close again once the action is done. Audio Hero never closes a session you are actively using.

Each automation in the list has an enable toggle, an Edit button, a Delete button, and right-click Move to Top / Move to Bottom for ordering.

HEOS devices can start any starred favorite. Every other ecosystem can start a saved internet-radio favorite (a direct stream URL), because services like Spotify, Tidal and TuneIn playlists rely on the HEOS browse catalog, which those devices do not share. Stopping playback works everywhere. Power on / off is only possible on devices that expose network power - HEOS AVRs and integrated amps, Onkyo receivers, and smart plugs - and is a Pro feature.

• Audio Hero account (cloud sync). Sign in with a Microsoft account to sync your settings, votes, starred favorites, saved streams, and source order across PCs. Includes Sync now, Sign out, a Choose what to sync list so you can include or exclude individual categories, and an optional settings master that puts one PC in charge of the others. Full walkthrough in Cloud sync between PCs. Pro feature; see Pro vs Free and Privacy and data.
• Device accounts. Manage sign-ins for the device platforms Audio Hero controls (HEOS today, with room for more later). Opens the Device Accounts dialog where you sign in to or out of your HEOS account.

Point Audio Hero at a Companion on another PC to offload web music and PC audio. Turn on Run the Companion on another PC, find it on your network or type its address, enter a 4-digit PIN if you set one, and test the connection. You can also choose which sources use the Companion and whether to fall back to this PC when the Companion is unreachable. Full walkthrough in Audio Hero Companion.

Once a Companion is connected, a Companion PC power group appears here with three controls that live on the other PC: Wake the Companion PC for scheduled actions, Run missed actions when the Companion PC wakes, and Never let the Companion PC sleep. They decide whether scheduled smart plug actions fire on time when that PC sleeps, and they change it there immediately. Because they describe one machine rather than your account, they are never included in cloud sync. See Smart devices on a Companion.

A Create desktop shortcut for Audio Hero link adds a shortcut to your desktop. Once it exists, the link is replaced by a "Desktop shortcut created" note. Shown on the Microsoft Store install.

• Color theme. Medium (default), Darker, Black, Light, or Follow Windows setting. Applies to the whole app instantly.
• Text brightness and Background brightness. Two sliders (1 to 10, default 5 each) that fine-tune text contrast and how light the panels are.
• Remember last view & window size on exit. Also lives here (see the Behavior table above).

See Color theme and brightness for the full description. These choices are cloud-synced.

1. Open Settings → Account & cloud sync.
2. Click Sign in with Microsoft and complete the sign-in. Personal Microsoft accounts are supported.
3. That is it. Audio Hero syncs a few seconds after any change, and also checks for changes from your other PCs every 15 minutes.
4. Repeat on each of your other PCs, signing in with the same Microsoft account.

The section shows the account you are signed in as, when the last sync happened, and a Sync now button if you do not want to wait. Sign out stops syncing on that PC and leaves its settings exactly as they are.

Click Choose what to sync... to see every category, each with a short description of exactly what it covers. Untick one and that category stops syncing entirely: it stays on whichever PC it is on and is removed from the cloud file.

Categories include track ratings, starred favorites, saved internet radio streams, music source order and visibility, player order / names / grouping, volume presets, the volume cap, remembered source volumes, hidden device inputs, speaker EQ presets, receiver zone names, custom sleep timer durations, window and artwork preferences, color theme and brightness, startup and update behavior, playback behavior, smart-device switch display, legacy device support, saved layouts, and panel sizes.

Two categories are off until you turn them on, because they are the ones people most often want to differ per PC: Color theme & brightness and Smart-device switch display.

Without a master, your PCs are equal and the most recent change wins wherever it was made. That is fine when one person uses every PC the same way. It is less good when a laptop keeps re-arranging the desktop's carefully ordered player list, or when other people use one of the PCs.

Naming a settings master makes one PC authoritative. Your other PCs pull their settings from it and never push their own back, so nothing they do can change what the master says.

• Update every PC. The master feature changes the format of the sync file. A PC still running an older version of Audio Hero will not merge or overwrite the newer file - it protects itself and yours - but it also stops syncing until you update it, and says so in the sync status. Update all your PCs to keep them talking.
• Keep the clocks right. "Most recent change wins" relies on your PCs agreeing what time it is. Windows normally handles this. A PC whose clock is badly wrong can win or lose changes it should not; the diagnostics log records a warning when Audio Hero notices this.
• Device-specific entries. Some categories are stored per device, such as speaker EQ presets (per speaker) and receiver zone names (per receiver IP address). They are most useful when your PCs can see the same equipment.
• Nothing is locked. Even with a master set, every setting on every PC stays editable, and every PC can change who the master is, remove it, or stop syncing a category. There is no way to get stuck.
• Sync is a Pro feature. See Pro vs Free. Where the data lives and what is never uploaded is covered in Privacy and data.

Audio Hero is distributed exclusively through the Microsoft Store. Updates are delivered as new Store packages. There are three states the update banner can show:

1. Update available. A new version is available. Click Update Now to download it, or ✕ to dismiss until later.
2. Downloading. A progress bar shows the download. Audio Hero stays usable while this runs.
3. Update installed. The update is staged. Close and reopen Audio Hero to apply it; click Close now to do so immediately. After applying, the app auto-relaunches.

You can always force a check with the 🔄 icon in the header. A check is also performed every time the app starts.

When Check for device firmware updates is enabled, Audio Hero asks each connected HEOS device whether a firmware update is available. A small yellow ⬆ FW chip appears next to that player in the sidebar when one is.

Audio Hero only notifies. To install the firmware update, use the official HEOS app on your phone (the HEOS API does not expose firmware install).

• Full HEOS device discovery and connection.
• Play, pause, stop, next, previous, repeat, shuffle.
• Volume slider, mute, basic per-device volume memory.
• Music sources browsing (Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Internet Radio, etc.).
• YouTube Music and Apple Music streamed from your PC to your device.
• Device + This PC: play a web music service on your PC and your speaker at the same time.
• Offload web music and PC audio to another PC with the Audio Hero Companion.
• Search across HEOS services, plus YouTube Music and Apple Music.
• Starred favorites.
• Internet radio (custom streams and catalog browser).
• Scheduled automations that start a source or stop playback on a timer (power on / off is a Pro action).
• Thumbs up / thumbs down with optional skip-on-down.
• Album artwork tile with customization.
• Selectable color themes (Medium, Darker, Black, Light, or follow Windows) with adjustable text and background brightness.
• Queue tab showing what is lined up to play next.
• Renaming and rebooting devices.
• Sign-in / sign-out for HEOS music services.
• App and firmware update notifications.

• Create any number of saved playback groups, with tight HEOS or Sonos synchronization or multi-device playback across different brands.
• Control each group member's volume, match all members to the quietest level, or lock their relative volume levels together.
• Full receiver controls (AVR power, inputs, surround modes, Audyssey, channel levels, multi-zone, tuner, system settings).
• HEOS amp controls (PMA-900HNE, HEOS Link, etc.) with power and input source switching.
• Power and settings panels for other device families: Onkyo / Integra, Yamaha MusicCast, Roku, WiiM, Bluesound, Samsung WAM, Squeezelite / LMS, universal disc players, and Fully Kiosk / Dashie tablets.
• Smart plug switching: turn Kasa plugs on and off by hand, by follow, or from an automation.
• Compact view and ultra-compact view.
• Minimize to tray with mini player.
• Play local files and folders (MP3, FLAC, WAV, AAC, M4A, WMA, OGG, ALAC), with an editable queue and saved .m3u8 playlists.
• Audio input monitoring and detailed audio info badge.
• Precision volume control: type the exact volume value.
• Volume presets (six slots) with auto-sort and drag-to-reorder.
• Volume max cap for safety.
• Sleep timer: stop playback or power off after a set time, for one device or all of them.
• Track info panel with combined data from TheAudioDB, Deezer, Wikipedia, and MusicBrainz.
• Cloud sync between your PCs. Sign in with a Microsoft account and your settings, votes, starred favorites, saved streams, and music-source order stay in sync, with an optional settings master so one PC can be in charge of the rest. Data lives in a private folder inside your own OneDrive - never on an Audio Hero server. See Cloud sync between PCs.

Upgrade from inside the app on a Store install, or visit the Microsoft Store listing directly.

• HEOS commands go only to your local HEOS devices (TCP port 1255).
• SSDP discovery goes only on your local subnet (UDP 239.255.255.250:1900).
• Legacy device commands (volume / mute / power) go only to your local Denon / Marantz device (HTTP ports 8080 / 80 or telnet 23).
• The embedded local file HTTP server serves only your selected audio files and only to the LAN IP of your HEOS device.
• The YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Device + This PC sources open the chosen service's own website in a built-in browser window, signed in with your own account for that service. That sign-in is kept in a private browser profile on your PC. Audio Hero captures the audio locally and streams it to your device over the LAN; nothing is routed through an Audio Hero server.
• Track info lookups (Pro) are anonymous HTTPS GET requests to TheAudioDB, Deezer, Wikipedia, and MusicBrainz. No accounts, no personal data, no analytics.
• Internet radio catalog searches go to radio-browser.info (anonymous).
• Update checks go to the Microsoft Store.
• If you enable the optional Pro cloud-sync feature, sign-in goes to login.microsoftonline.com and a single audiohero-sync.json file is read and written via Microsoft Graph inside a private app folder in your own OneDrive. Audio Hero has no servers and never sees the file.

Audio Hero collects no telemetry, has no ads, and sets no tracking cookies of its own (the built-in browser windows used for web-player sources keep only the sign-in cookies those services need). The app has no Audio Hero account system; the optional cloud-sync feature uses your own Microsoft account. Full Privacy Policy.

The HEOS account password is stored locally using Windows DPAPI (CurrentUser scope) so only your Windows account can decrypt it. Older builds stored it as plain text; Audio Hero automatically migrates the plaintext value to the encrypted form on first run after the upgrade.

• Confirm the device is on the same subnet as your PC. SSDP multicast does not cross VLANs by default.
• Some VPN and Hyper-V virtual adapters can capture multicast. Try disabling them temporarily.
• Try entering the device IP directly in the Or enter IP address field.
• Confirm UDP port 1900 and TCP port 1255 are not blocked by your firewall (see Windows firewall).
• If you have many adapters, Audio Hero broadcasts on every active non-loopback, non-tunnel adapter automatically. Discovery still has a 6-second window.

• Check Enable smart plug / smart device control is on in Settings, and that you have Pro. Discovering and linking plugs is free, but actually switching one is a Pro feature.
• Confirm the plug is linked to the right player, and that Follow playback or Follow power is ticked for it. Follow power does nothing on a speaker with no network power button, which is most HEOS speakers, Sonos and Chromecast; use Follow playback there.
• If the plug switches on but never off, look at the switch off after ... min idle delay. The countdown only starts once playback actually stops, and a paused player that is still holding the stream counts as playing on some devices.
• With a Companion: open the Companion's window and expand Rules stored here. If your rule is not listed, Audio Hero has not handed it over: check the Companion is connected and up to date, since older versions only accept HEOS rules. If it is listed, the last column shows what it did and when.
• Plugs linked to Google Cast, Amazon Echo, Snapcast, Squeezelite or a kiosk target only follow while Audio Hero is open. A Companion cannot see what those devices are doing, so they stop following when you close the app. This is expected.
• If a scheduled plug action did not happen, the Companion PC was most likely asleep or off at the time. See the sleep settings in Smart devices on a Companion; wake timers also need Allow wake timers enabled in that PC's Windows power plan.
• Make sure the plug is reachable from whichever PC is doing the switching. With a Companion running, that is the Companion PC, not the one you are sitting at.

• HEOS devices accept only one CLI connection at a time. Close other HEOS controller apps and try again.
• Reboot the device using the ⟳ icon in its sidebar entry.
• Try a manual connect by IP. If the IP has changed, run discovery again.

• Shuffle / repeat / thumbs / seek: The current source does not support that operation. Pandora, SiriusXM, and similar radio-style services have limited controls by design.
• Pro features: Free edition. A small lock badge marks Pro controls.
• Receiver / amp panel: The selected player is not a HEOS-equipped AVR or amp.

• Audio Hero waits up to 15 seconds for metadata, retries once more, and then shows "unavailable" if all sources fail.
• Click Try again to retry without changing tracks.
• Tracks with unusual tag spellings sometimes do not match cleanly in any of the four services.
• Local files use embedded tags only; the panel is hidden for them.

• The HEOS device must be able to reach your PC over the LAN. Check that your PC firewall is not blocking the random local port the file server picked (see Windows firewall).
• If your PC has multiple network adapters and is auto-detecting the wrong one, the URL the speaker receives will be unreachable. Disable unused adapters as a workaround.
• Confirm the file format is in the supported list. Some odd container variants may not stream.

• Updates require Audio Hero to be installed from the Microsoft Store (the portable EXE has been discontinued).
• Make sure Microsoft Store updates are not blocked at the OS level.
• Sometimes a Store cache reset (wsreset.exe) fixes stuck updates.

Post on the r/AudioHero subreddit. Attaching the diagnostics log (see below) is very helpful.

Most apps only send data out, which Windows allows by default. Audio Hero is different: several features need to receive a connection back from a device on your network, and incoming connections are exactly what a firewall blocks. The features that listen for an incoming connection are:

• Finding devices. Discovery sends out a multicast probe and listens for replies from your speakers and receivers.
• Playing local files (Pro). Audio Hero runs a tiny web server so a HEOS speaker can stream a file straight from your PC. The speaker opens the connection to your PC to pull the audio.
• Stream this PC and web-music sources (Pro). The Audio Hero Companion serves live audio (and AirPlay / Snapcast feeds) that your speakers connect to.

Audio Hero declares the firewall permission it needs inside its app package. When Windows installs or updates Audio Hero from the Microsoft Store, Windows creates the rule itself and ties it to the app's identity. That means:

• No prompt and no administrator confirmation. Windows adds it silently at install time.
• Both programs are covered: Audio Hero and its Companion.
• It works on any network type (home, work, or public), so discovery and streaming keep working wherever you are.
• It survives Store updates automatically, because it is tied to the app itself rather than to a folder that changes with every update.

There is nothing to switch on. Earlier versions asked you to add the rule yourself from a popup or from Settings; that is no longer needed, and those controls have been removed.

On a fully updated version you should not see the "Windows Defender Firewall has blocked some features of this app" prompt at all. If you do see it, for example while you are still on an older version, just click Allow access. You can leave the default boxes as they are; Audio Hero only needs your local network. Once you are on the latest version, the built-in permission takes over and the prompt should not come back.

If you would like to see the permission for yourself, you can view it in the built-in Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security console:

1. Open the firewall console. Press the Windows key, type wf.msc, and press Enter. (You can also reach it from Control Panel → System and Security → Windows Defender Firewall, then click Advanced settings in the left-hand column.)
2. Select Inbound Rules. In the left-hand pane, click Inbound Rules. The middle pane lists every inbound rule on your PC.
3. Find the Audio Hero rules. Sort by the Name column and look for entries named Audio Hero. You will normally see one for Audio Hero itself and one for its Companion.
4. View the details. Double-click a rule to open its Properties, where you can see it is an inbound Allow rule scoped to the Audio Hero program.

Windows owns these rules, so they are added when you install Audio Hero and removed when you uninstall it. You do not normally need to touch them.

Everything above is about the firewall on the PC running Audio Hero. When you offload streaming to a standalone Audio Hero Companion on another PC, that PC needs its own inbound rule instead. Its installer adds one automatically for TCP 47708 (control and audio) and UDP 47707 (discovery) on private and domain networks, so you should not be prompted there. If you ever need to add it by hand, allow AudioHero.StreamHost.exe for inbound connections on your private network.

All Audio Hero data lives under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Audio Hero\:

You can safely delete the entire folder to reset Audio Hero to a clean state. The app rebuilds anything it needs on next launch.