Audio Hero for Windows

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 devices 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 wireless devices, 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, Onkyo / Integra, DLNA / UPnP, Verox, classic AirPlay (RAOP), moOde Audio, and Volumio are fully supported without an experimental label. HEOS and Sonos are enabled by default for new installations; other families are off by default. Chromecast, Yamaha MusicCast, and the other families listed under experimental support remain experimental. AirPlay 2-only playback, including HomePods that require buffered streaming, is not yet supported; see AirPlay limits.

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 ticked in Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support..., 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, help, and bommerts.com/audiohero. Support opens a small menu with the r/AudioHero Forum and this Documentation.
• Update banner. Appears when a newer version of Audio Hero is published, showing the version number and an Open Store link. Audio Hero no longer installs updates itself; you apply them from the Microsoft Store. See App updates.
• Version label. Shows the running version (for example v6.8.0.0).
• 🔄 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 option, arranged in eight sections: Devices & sources, Audio & volume, Appearance & layout, Automations, Accounts & cloud sync, Audio Hero Companion, Home Assistant, and System & advanced. Click a section to open it and the back arrow to return, or type in Search settings to jump straight to any option. 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.)

Marks beside the device name

A second line under the device name can show its model, its IP address, both, or nothing. Choose which in Settings → Devices & sources → Show under each device.

⚙ 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). The panel and input switching are Free; the power toggle is Pro. See HEOS amp controls.
• HEOS wireless devices get a trimmed panel for renaming and the basics.
• Onkyo / Integra, Sonos, Chromecast, DLNA, Verox, AirPlay, MusicCast, Roku, Snapcast, Squeezelite, Universal disc players, Samsung WAM, Sendspin, WiiM, Bluesound, moOde, Volumio, 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, Verox devices, 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 devices, Sonos, Chromecast, Samsung WAM, Sendspin, WiiM, Bluesound, moOde, and Volumio 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.

The Players list starts in the order your devices were discovered, which rarely matches the way you think about your home. You can put the devices in any order you like, and you can group them under headers so a long list is easier to scan. The two grouping switches live under Settings → Devices & sources → Players list. All of this 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, volume up / down buttons, and a zone selector for multi-zone receivers (all Free). Typing an exact volume, the max-volume cap, and the six volume presets are Pro. See Volume and presets for the full breakdown.
• 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).

Likes belong to the selected device and source; thumbs-downs are shared across devices. Thumbs buttons appear when the source provides usable song and artist information, including on supported non-HEOS devices. Roku, legacy volume-only receivers, Spotify streams, Apple Music streams, and PC Line Out do not offer them. Where a service has no voting command, your choice is saved in Audio Hero only. Automatic skipping of previously disliked songs is currently HEOS-only.

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.
• Rescan. New When the queue came from a folder, Rescan re-checks that folder and adds any audio files that have appeared since, without disturbing the play order or the current track. See Local file playback.
• 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. The device follows along while you drag, and always ends on the level where you let go. Pressing beside the thumb nudges the volume one step; keep holding and move the mouse to turn that press into a drag. Every volume slider in the app, including group and receiver sliders, works the same way.
• ▲ / ▼ Step buttons. Nudge the volume one step at a time. Show or hide them with Show volume up / down buttons in Settings.
• 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.

The cap applies to whichever receiver zone the slider is controlling. By default Audio Hero remembers a separate cap for each device; turn off Use a separate max-volume limit for each device in Settings to use one cap everywhere.

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. Turn on Volume presets per device (Settings → Audio & volume) to keep a separate set of presets for each device.

When connected to a Denon or Marantz AVR that has Zone 2 or Zone 3 powered on, an extra control bar appears below the slider:

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

If you do not see the zone bar: it only appears while Zone 2 or Zone 3 is actually powered on. Audio Hero checks the receiver's zone power state every few seconds, so the bar shows up on its own once the zone is on, and disappears when the zone goes back to standby. Turn the zone on with the receiver's remote, its front panel, or the HEOS app, and the bar appears within a few seconds. Turning a zone on or off from inside Audio Hero is done in the receiver panel, which is a Pro feature.

The Music Sources column shows supported sources 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, 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 9).
• Liked Tracks. Replayable songs you have liked on the selected device, with their original playback source (see Liked Tracks).
• 📻 Internet Radio. Audio Hero's own list of saved stream URLs (see section 10).
• 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 device at the same time (see below). Free.
• PC Line Out. New Broadcast whatever this PC is playing - any app, any browser tab - to the selected device, like a virtual line-in (see below). Free.
• Services marked "(Companion)". New When an Audio Hero Companion on another PC is connected, its web music services also appear as their own top-level sources that play straight to the device, with the Companion PC kept silent (see the Companion section).
• Local Music (Your PC). Play audio files stored on this computer (see section 11). 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.
• Opened browse columns automatically fit their content, including status rows and Companion badges. You can also resize them by dragging their edge.
• Items load in pages of about 100 at a time. Audio Hero requests more as you scroll.
• Play a whole playlist or album. New Rows that are really playable collections show a Play button that queues the entire playlist or album at once. This includes Amazon Music playlists and albums, which previously could only be played one track at a time by drilling in.
• 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 (Settings → Devices & sources → Favorites and source order) 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 devices 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 → Accounts & cloud sync → 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.

Audio Hero adds two sources, YouTube Music and Apple Music, that play those web services on your device 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 devices (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.

• Apple Music is copy-protected, so it also plays on your PC while the device plays it. To hear it only on the device, turn on Turn this PC's volume down to zero when playing copy-protected services under Settings → Audio & volume → PC audio. This silences all PC sound while it streams, and by default puts the PC volume back afterwards.
• "Are you still there?" After a few hours of hands-off listening, YouTube Music pauses to ask whether anyone is listening. Turn on Answer YouTube Music's "Are you still there?" check automatically under Settings → Audio & volume → Playback and Audio Hero answers for you. Music you paused yourself is left alone.
• Started somewhere else. YouTube Music that another controller starts on a device shows up in Audio Hero while it is open, with the current song.
• No camera or microphone. The built-in browser windows never get access to your camera, microphone, location, or similar. Any such request from a web page is turned down silently, so you never see a permission prompt.

The Device + This PC source plays a web music service on your computer and your device 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, Qobuz, Deezer, SiriusXM, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Radio Paradise, and Audiomack. New SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Radio Paradise, and Audiomack are recent additions.

• 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. Drag it, or type an exact figure in the box beside it, anywhere from 0 up to 10 seconds (10000 milliseconds). Devices on a busy network, or a long way from the router, can lag well behind your PC, which is why the range is generous. 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. This delay is deliberately kept on this PC only and is not cloud-synced, since the right figure depends on the network and the device.

The PC Line Out source sends your PC's entire sound output to the selected device, exactly as if you had run a cable from the PC's line-out jack to the device. Whatever is playing on the PC - a browser tab, a desktop music app, a game, a video call - comes out of the device.

• Click the PC Line Out source to start broadcasting, and click it again to stop.
• It works with any device Audio Hero can stream to, and with groups, so several rooms can carry the PC's sound at once.
• The capture happens before your Windows volume control, so you can mute or turn down the PC's own sound and the device keeps playing at full quality.
• This source always runs on the PC you are sitting at; it is the one PC-audio source that never moves to a Companion, because it exists to carry this PC's sound.

Now and then a HEOS device stops a Pandora station by itself, with an error such as "Unable to stream from Pandora". Turn on Restart Pandora when it stops on its own under Settings → Audio & volume → Playback and Audio Hero starts the same station again on that device.

• It is off by default and is a setting for this PC only.
• Only stops that come with a playback error count. Pausing or stopping the station yourself is left alone.
• At most three restarts an hour per device, so a lasting Pandora outage is not retried forever.
• It works while Audio Hero is open. A Windows Companion has the same option in its own settings window; with it turned on there, the Companion handles it instead, even while Audio Hero is closed.

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 device, 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.
• Scheduled automations keep running, and can be managed on the Companion PC, even while Audio Hero and your main PC are off. With Pro, your PCs share one automation list through the Companion.
• 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) and protected by a 4-digit PIN. The Companion makes up a PIN the first time it runs and shows it in its settings window; enter the same PIN in Audio Hero to connect. 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 device plays for itself:

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

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

A Companion can also take over two background jobs from Audio Hero, so they keep working while Audio Hero is closed: skipping songs you gave a thumbs-down on HEOS devices (when Always skip thumbs-down items is on; Settings → Audio Hero Companion shows who is handling it), and restarting Pandora when its own option is ticked.

While a Companion on another PC is connected, its web music services also appear as their own top-level entries in the Music Sources list, named "<service> (Companion)" - for example Pandora (Companion) or Tidal (Companion). These play the service straight to the selected device, with the Companion PC itself kept silent.

• They differ from Device + This PC, which deliberately plays on your PC and the device together. A "(Companion)" source is for when you only want the device to play.
• There is no Audio Sync delay slider, because nothing plays locally that would need lining up.
• The entries appear only while a Companion on another PC is actually connected, and disappear when it goes away.
• Available services include Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, SiriusXM, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Radio Paradise, and Audiomack. YouTube Music is not duplicated here because it already has its own top-level source that works the same way.

One Companion can serve several streams at the same time. From one Audio Hero you can play a different source to each device: pick a device and start YouTube Music, then pick another device and start Internet Radio or Spotify; each keeps playing independently. YouTube Music can even run more than once, so two devices can play two different YouTube Music songs from the same PC: select the second device and start YouTube Music again, and a second player window opens for it. Selecting a device in the sidebar shows and controls the music playing on that device. 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 use the same Windows Companion with the same PIN. Music-service accounts are shared through the Companion's browser profile: signing in once makes that account available to the other connected controllers. Signing out or switching accounts affects everyone using that profile. Controllers with older private profiles may need to sign in once to the shared profile. Connected controllers can discover and control active web-music streams and cached local queues, so coordinate before changing another person's playback. A stream someone else starts appears in your Audio Hero on its own, with the current song, and Audio Hero picks running Companion streams back up after it restarts.

When you play local files or a folder Pro to a HEOS device 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 devices 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 device'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, Snapcast, Squeezelite and piCorePlayer, moOde, Volumio, Verox, the kiosk tablets, and legacy Denon / Marantz devices. 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, under Settings → Audio Hero Companion → Companion PC power. 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 click Rules stored here under Smart devices. It lists the scheduled automations it runs and the smart plug rules it holds. Plug rules are read-only there (change them in Audio Hero's smart plug settings), but scheduled automations can be managed there. See Manage automations from the Companion.

A Companion can run scheduled automations for HEOS, Sonos, Onkyo / Integra, DLNA, Yamaha MusicCast, WiiM, Bluesound, and smart plugs. They run on the Companion PC at the scheduled time, even when Audio Hero is closed and your main PC is off. Handing automations to a Companion is a Pro feature.

One shared list. New With an up-to-date Companion (2.14.0 or later), every Audio Hero connected to it shares a single automation list. The first time a PC connects, it uploads its own automations, and from then on an automation you add, change, or delete on one PC shows up on the others. The Companion runs every automation it can. The rest (for example ones that target Google Cast, AirPlay, Snapcast, Squeezelite, or a PC-only source) still run from a Windows scheduled task on the PC that set them up, and the other PCs show them as running on that PC. Failure alerts are shared too, so dismissing one dismisses it everywhere.

After an automation starts music, the Companion checks the device about 15 seconds later and presses Play once more if it is silent.

To manage these automations on the Companion PC:

1. Double-click the Companion tray icon, or right-click it and choose Settings.
2. Under Smart devices, click Rules stored here.
3. Use the controls beside a scheduled automation: Run now, the enable / disable checkbox, Edit, and Delete. Drag the ☰ handle, or right-click for Move to Top and Move to Bottom, to change the order.

• Run now runs the automation immediately, even if its schedule is disabled.
• Enable / disable pauses or resumes its schedule without deleting it.
• Edit changes the name, time and days, the optional time of year it runs, the volume, and shuffle / repeat for a playlist. Times use the Companion PC's local time.
• Delete removes it from the Companion immediately, and from Audio Hero too.

Changes made here take effect on the Companion immediately and reach Audio Hero on your other PCs, straight away with a shared list or the next time that PC connects otherwise. To change an automation's target device, action, or source, edit it in Audio Hero.

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-2.14.1.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. The companion starts and sits in the system tray (grey when idle, green while playing). On its first run it makes up a 4-digit PIN and opens its settings window so you can see it, along with the address to enter in Audio Hero. Note the PIN; you need it to connect.
4. Optional: double-click the tray icon, or right-click and choose Settings, to rename the Companion, change the PIN, 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 6 hours by default and, when a new version is out, downloads it and installs it silently the next time nothing is playing through it. No prompts appear and nobody needs to be at the PC; the companion restarts itself on the new version. These behaviours are on by default and can be changed near the bottom of the companion's settings window: Automatically check for updates (every 5 minutes up to once a day at a set time), Install updates automatically when the companion is idle, and Count Audio Hero connected but not playing as idle (turn this off to also wait until Audio Hero disconnects). 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. Enter the 4-digit PIN shown in the Companion's settings window.
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. Windows takes the sound away from a PC when a Remote Desktop connection to it is closed, so music streaming through the Companion would go silent, and copy-protected services such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, and Pandora could not start. The Companion setting Keep playing when Remote Desktop disconnects (on by default) handles this for you: closing Remote Desktop puts the session back on the PC's own screen, so the music keeps playing and the desktop stays signed in there. It asks once for administrator permission, the first time you connect with Remote Desktop. If it is off, or you declined that prompt, run tscon %sessionname% /dest:console from an administrator Command Prompt on the Companion instead of just closing Remote Desktop. Do not log off the user, which ends the session and stops the Companion.
• "No audio output." If the Companion PC has no working sound output (for example a closed Remote Desktop session), Audio Hero says so straight away and names Remote Desktop when that is the cause, rather than waiting for music that never comes.
• 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. Changing the PIN disconnects every connected Audio Hero until you enter the new PIN there.
• Uninstall the Companion from Windows Settings → Apps ("Audio Hero Companion").

Audio Hero talks to Home Assistant through an MQTT broker, which is the standard way for other programs to feed information into Home Assistant. If you already use MQTT, use your existing broker and skip to the next part. If not, Home Assistant can run one for you:

1. In Home Assistant, open Settings → Apps (called Add-ons in versions before 2026.2), then the store, and install Mosquitto broker. Start it, and turn on Start on boot.
2. Open Settings → People and add a user for Audio Hero, for example username audiohero, with a password you choose. Mosquitto signs Audio Hero in with a normal Home Assistant user account.
   • Leave Administrator off. Audio Hero never needs it.
   • Leave Local access only on, since Audio Hero connects from your own network.
   • Give it a proper password. It is stored on the PC or Companion that publishes, and any device on your network can try the broker.
3. Go to Settings → Devices & services. Home Assistant should offer a discovered MQTT integration; click Configure and accept it.

1. Open the Settings tab in the sidebar and choose Home Assistant.
2. Tick Publish device state to Home Assistant.
3. Click Detect next to the broker address. Audio Hero looks for your Home Assistant machine on the network and fills the address in. If nothing is found, type the address by hand; automatic detection cannot cross between separate network ranges.
4. Leave the port at 1883 unless you changed it in your broker.
5. Enter the username and password of the Home Assistant user you made. Leave both empty only if your broker allows anonymous connections.

The line at the bottom of the section tells you what is happening: which broker is being published to, and which machine is doing the publishing. Your devices should appear in Home Assistant within a few seconds, under Settings → Devices & services → MQTT.

Each of your devices becomes one device in Home Assistant, named as it is named in Audio Hero, with three entities:

That last one is the piece that settles the confusion of running Audio Hero alongside your own Home Assistant automations: it tells them, at a glance, whether Audio Hero is currently in charge of a device.

• Devices you have hidden in Audio Hero are not published.
• Album art uses the music service's own internet image address wherever there is one, so it loads on phones and tablets. Only local file playback publishes an address on your own network, which a device on a different network range may not be able to reach.
• Track position updates in five-second steps rather than every second, to keep network chatter down.
• When nothing is publishing, the entities show as unavailable in Home Assistant rather than freezing on their last value.

If you use an Audio Hero Companion, it is the natural place to publish from: it is meant to be on all the time, so Home Assistant keeps seeing your devices even when your own PC is asleep or Audio Hero is closed.

You do not have to think about which one is publishing. The Home Assistant settings section always edits the right thing:

• With a Companion. The settings you enter are stored on the Companion and applied there immediately, so it does the publishing. You can also change them on the Companion's own window; either way, both stay in step.
• Without a Companion. The same settings simply apply to Audio Hero on this PC, which publishes for as long as it is running.

When you use a Companion, one extra choice appears: If the Companion is off, keep publishing from this PC. Turn it on and Audio Hero takes over within seconds of the Companion going offline, then quietly hands back when it returns. Home Assistant sees no difference, because both publish under the same names. Turn this on for one PC only; it is a per-PC setting and is never synced between your PCs.

Everything Audio Hero publishes is ordinary Home Assistant data, so it works anywhere entities work: dashboard cards, automation triggers and conditions, history, and voice assistants.

A few things this is commonly used for:

• Showing what is playing in each room on a dashboard, alongside your other home controls.
• Stopping your own Home Assistant automations from interfering while Audio Hero is in charge, by checking the Driven by Audio Hero entity for that device first.
• Dimming lights, or announcing on other devices, when music starts or stops in a room.
• Reflecting real playing state on wall tablets and phone dashboards, which previously had no idea what Audio Hero was doing.

• Check the status line at the bottom of the Home Assistant settings section. It says whether publishing is off, waiting for an address, or running, and which machine is doing it.
• Detect found nothing. Automatic detection relies on network announcements that often do not cross between separate network ranges (a guest, IoT, or VLAN network). Type your Home Assistant machine's address by hand.
• Wrong sign-in. The username and password are those of a Home Assistant user account, not a broker-specific account and not a long-lived access token.
• Broker not running. In Home Assistant, confirm the Mosquitto broker app is started, and that the MQTT integration appears under Settings → Devices & services.
• Publishing from a Companion? The Companion needs to be able to reach your Home Assistant machine on its own network. Check that the Companion is running and connected in Audio Hero first.
• Device missing. Hidden devices are never published. Unhide it in Audio Hero and it appears shortly after.

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, Apple Music, and the community internet radio directory (radio-browser.info). 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. It appears in the Music Sources browser for every supported audio device.

• 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. Audio Hero preserves the native HEOS or Sonos browse identity needed to reopen them.
• Choose who shares them. In Settings → Devices & sources → Favorites and source order, set Starred favorites to By device (the default), By device type, By room, or Global.

Favorites are saved to settings.json with their originating device, ecosystem, and room, plus enough playback context to replay the same browse or play command later. Sonos favorites retain their native browse and playback information. Select the intended receiver before adding a favorite. Current Companions retire old favorites with no device, device type, or room assignment; re-add those on the device you want to use.

When By room or Global combines ecosystems, Audio Hero shows portable sources such as saved internet radio everywhere but keeps device-native catalog entries with compatible devices. For example, a Sonos playlist appears on Sonos, while a HEOS-service playlist appears on HEOS.

Press Thumbs Up while a song plays, then open Liked Tracks in Music Sources. Each device has its own list, and a like remembers the source it came from. The thumbs-up highlight reflects the selected device's like for that song and source.

• Replay. Select a track to play it through its original source. Replayable HEOS songs, local files, and YouTube Music tracks retain the information needed to start them again. The original service must still be available, and local files must be accessible on the PC starting playback.
• Play all tracks. Uses the current list order. The first playable track decides the playback type: local files form a local queue, HEOS songs form a HEOS queue, and a YouTube Music track plays individually. Tracks from other playback types are skipped and counted.
• Organize. Drag tracks to reorder them, or right-click for sorting by title, artist, album, or date liked.
• Remove. Use the track's remove action, clear its thumbs-up, or give it a thumbs-down. Other devices keep their own likes.
• Radio and inputs. A song without a replayable identity can still be liked, but is left out of this list. A short red notice explains that it was liked but cannot be added.
• Older likes. A one-time upgrade dialog offers a CSV export of the older ratings. Those ratings lack device and source information, so the new replayable lists start fresh.

With Pro OneDrive sync or a compatible Companion, likes from different PCs are added together. Removals are remembered so an older offline copy does not bring a deleted like back.

A compatible Companion shares your starred favorites, liked tracks, and saved group restore shortcuts with your other connected Audio Hero PCs. Existing items merge when you first connect, and each PC keeps an offline copy. Sharing a saved group definition does not create a live group or start music; select Restore when you want to use it.

Once Companion sharing is established, incoming favorite and liked-track changes come from the Companion. OneDrive can still receive those lists, but does not replace them while Companion sharing is enabled. Saved group restore shortcuts use Companion sharing rather than OneDrive.

In a YouTube Music player, right-click and choose ★ Add to Starred Favorites to save the open or currently playing playlist. The saved name comes from that playlist. Onkyo NET stations can also be starred and replayed on a compatible Onkyo receiver.

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 devices 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 Single Folder. A row that opens a folder picker and queues supported audio files directly inside the selected folder.
• 📂 Play All Folders. A row that queues supported audio files in the selected folder and all of its subfolders.
• 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.
• Adding to a queue that already has tracks. If you pick more files or folders while something is already queued, Audio Hero asks first: Add puts the new tracks at the end and leaves the current one playing, Replace throws the old queue away and starts the new tracks now, and Cancel changes nothing.
• 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.
• New files in a queued folder are picked up automatically. New When you queued a folder, Audio Hero remembers the folder itself (and whether subfolders were included). Files added to that folder later are merged into the queue when the queue is restored at startup, without changing the existing order or the current position; with shuffle on, new tracks are slotted in at random spots still to come. This is controlled by Automatically add new files from the queue's folder (on by default) under Settings → Audio & volume → Local music, and the Rescan button on the Queue tab does the same on demand.
• Even loudness. Turn on Normalize volume across local tracks (Settings → Audio & volume → Local music) and Audio Hero analyzes each file and applies a steady, peak-safe adjustment while streaming it, so quiet and loud recordings play at a similar level. Fine-tune it with the Local loudness slider above the volume slider in full view. It starts with the next local queue and never changes your files or the device's own volume.
• 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 have several groups and play a different source on each one at the same time. A device can belong to only one group. Every group receives a color, and all of its members show a matching colored G badge in the Players tab.

The Groups tab, and everything in it, is a Pro feature: creating, changing, and removing groups, playing a source to a group, per-member volume, Match volume, and Lock volume. In Free the tab is shown behind a lock badge, and choosing a music source always plays it on the single selected device.

The two kinds of group are remembered in different ways, and the difference matters:

• Same-system groups are live on the devices. When every member is HEOS, or every member is Sonos, the devices themselves hold the active group. A group made in the HEOS or Sonos app, or with the buttons on the devices, appears as an ordinary group card you can use and adjust. If it is broken up elsewhere, the live card disappears.
• Mixed-device groups are saved by Audio Hero. No single brand's system can hold a group that spans different brands, so Audio Hero keeps this one itself. It survives closing the app and comes back the next time you open it, along with its volume-lock choice.

Select the small disk on any group card to save its leader and device list as a restore shortcut. Saved groups appear below Create group. Select Restore to form the saved group again. This works for same-system and mixed-device groups.

Every group has one device doing the actual work: on a same-system group it is the device the others are following, and on a mixed group it is the device Audio Hero is streaming from. Audio Hero calls this the leader and marks it in three places:

• In the Groups tab, the leader's name is shown in bold and listed first, both on the group card and in the expanded member list, with a small Leader tag beside it.
• In the Players tab, the little green play arrow next to a playing device carries an L when that device is the one feeding a group.
• If the audio is coming through an Audio Hero Companion, that same arrow shows a C instead.

You do not have to do anything with this; it is there so you can tell at a glance which device the group is following. Choosing a music source while a group member is selected sends it to the whole group either way.

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 picks the group's leader for you. If one of the checked devices is already playing, the first playing device you checked leads. Otherwise, the first device checked is used. The leader is shown in bold at the top of the group card.

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

The device list in the Groups tab has its own order, separate from the Players list. Drag any device by its ☰ handle, move it up or down, and drop it where you want it. The list previews the new position as you move, and the order is saved as soon as you let go. You can also right-click a device for Move to Top and Move to Bottom.

• Any device can go anywhere. Unlike the Players list, this list is flat, so a HEOS device can sit between two Sonos devices if that is how you think about the room.
• Until you drag. Before you set an order here, the list follows the Players list. A device discovered after you set an order is added at the bottom.
• Where it is kept. Your order is saved automatically and restored the next time you open Audio Hero. With cloud sync enabled it follows you to your other PCs.

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 Line Out, 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.

Your groups appear under Your groups at the top of the Groups tab, including any made outside Audio Hero. Each card lists its members, with the leader in bold at the top.

• 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 group has a colored G. The same color appears beside every member in the Players tab.
• Save for later. Select the disk immediately to the left of ×. The saved device list appears below Create group, where Restore forms it again.

• 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 broken up on the devices themselves, so it disappears from the HEOS or Sonos app too. Any mixed-group followers Audio Hero started are stopped, while the leader 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. The panel itself is Free; only the power toggle needs Pro.

• 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. Pro
• 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 device. 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 device, for example. Sending an input to another device is a Pro feature; playing an input on the device it belongs to is Free.

"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 device; the legacy device follows along in volume and power.

1. Open Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support....
2. Tick 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.

The fully supported, nonexperimental families are HEOS, Sonos, Roku, Onkyo / Integra, DLNA / UPnP renderers, Verox, classic AirPlay (RAOP), moOde Audio, and Volumio. This classification describes the device integration; it does not mean every model offers every control. See each device's section for available features and requirements.

HEOS and Sonos are enabled by default for new installations. Other device families are off by default. Existing installations retain their saved choices. To enable a family, open Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support..., then run Discover Devices.

Legacy Denon / Marantz support is also nonexperimental, but provides limited receiver controls rather than the full HEOS experience. AirPlay 2-only buffered playback is not yet implemented; discovery or successful pairing does not establish playback support.

Audio Hero can discover and switch smart plugs on your local network and link one or more to a player, so each device can follow what the player is doing. The classic use is a subwoofer, amplifier, or lamp on a smart plug that you want powered only while a device 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 each smart device you want, choose a player from the Linked player list. One smart device links to one player, while a player can have multiple linked devices.
• Switch them by hand: use the on / off toggles in the Smart plugs window, beside the linked player in the Players list, or in the player's own ⚙ gear settings panel. Each device can have its own label of up to five characters, such as Sub, Lamp, or Amp 2.

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 device, 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 wireless devices, 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 device and control play / pause / stop, next / previous, volume, and mute.

• Setup: tick Support Sonos devices in the Audio device support selection window, then open the Players tab and click Discover Devices. No app, account, or extra software is needed.
• Sources and favorites: browse Sonos Favorites, playlists, and the music library in Music Sources. Any playable item or browsable container can be added to Audio Hero's Starred Favorites and reopened from there.
• 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-device sleep timer.
• Now Playing: New when a Sonos device plays one of its own services, the Now Playing header shows the real service and station name (for example the actual radio station on TuneIn) instead of just "Sonos".
• Grouping: two or more Sonos devices can be joined into a synced group (see Groups and multi-room).
• Power button: greyed out. Sonos exposes no network power-off; the devices 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.
• Exact volume and mute: set the Roku TV's Control by mobile apps option to Permissive for exact volume levels and a true mute. The Roku setting in Audio Hero's device support window explains how and why.
• Power button: a real power command on Roku TVs (green when on, yellow in standby); 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.
• NET browsing: browse the receiver's built-in services in columns. Large lists load as the receiver returns them, with a loading indicator while work continues. Click a station (such as a TuneIn station) to play it straight away, without opening another column; its row shows a spinner until playback starts, which on some receivers takes 20 to 30 seconds. Star a station for later replay or a scheduled automation; the favorite retains its receiver browse path.
• Setup: tick Support Onkyo receivers, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: a real network power toggle over eISCP.
• Pro The receiver control panel, the power button, and browsing the receiver's built-in network services (TuneIn, Pandora, and so on) are Pro features. Discovery, basic playback, and volume / mute from the main slider work on the free tier.

Device families are optional. HEOS and Sonos are enabled by default for new installations; other families are off by default. Roku, Onkyo / Integra, DLNA / UPnP, Verox, classic AirPlay (RAOP), moOde Audio, and Volumio are supported without an experimental label. The families listed below remain experimental, with controls or compatibility that may be incomplete or change between releases. Turn on only the ones you use.

The experimental device families are Chromecast / Google Cast, Yamaha MusicCast, Snapcast, Sendspin, Squeezelite and piCorePlayer (with or without a 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 Settings → Devices & sources and click Choose audio device support.... The Audio device support selection window opens.
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 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 streamers, 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.

Verox (previously called RoPieee) turns a Raspberry Pi into a network streamer. Audio Hero plays to it through Verox's built-in UPnP / DLNA service, so no extra software is needed on the device. Verox devices are listed in their own Verox group in the Players list, with the Verox logo, instead of as generic DLNA renderers. Older devices still running RoPieee are recognised too.

• Controls: play / pause / stop, volume, and mute. Audio Hero can send local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources to it.
• Setup in Audio Hero: open Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support..., tick Support Verox devices (formerly RoPieee), then click Discover Devices. This works on its own; DLNA support does not need to be turned on.
• Name: the name shown comes from the UPnP service name on the Verox device. A device still using the default name is shown simply as "Verox".
• Power button: mapped to "Stop playback on this device", as for other DLNA renderers.

Recommended Verox settings. Make these changes once on each Verox device:

1. Open the Verox web page in a browser (type the device's IP address or host name, for example http://verox.local).
2. Go to Services › UPnP/DLNA and turn the service on. Audio Hero cannot see the device until this is enabled.
3. Choose your Audio Output (the DAC or HAT the device should play through).
4. Set Volume Control to Software. This is the setting that lets Audio Hero change the volume. With any other choice, Audio Hero's volume slider and mute have no effect and audio plays at full level, which can be very loud.
5. Save or apply the changes. If Verox asks to restart, let it, then click Discover Devices in Audio Hero.

Discovers AirPlay and AirPlay 2 receivers. Playback uses classic AirPlay (RAOP) to send local files, internet radio, and PC or web-music audio to compatible receivers, including AirPort Express, other AirPlay AVRs and devices, and AirPlay 2 models that also accept classic RAOP.

• Setup: tick Support AirPlay devices, then Discover Devices.
• AirPlay 2-only devices: buffered-audio streaming is not yet implemented. Devices such as HomePods that require that transport cannot play Audio Hero's stream, even if discovery or pairing succeeds. AirPlay 2 branding alone does not establish classic RAOP compatibility.
• Power button: mapped to "Stop playback on this device". AirPlay receivers have no network standby.

Discovers Yamaha MusicCast devices (wireless music systems, 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 and mute per zone from the main slider (Free), plus input selection and a real power toggle per zone through each zone's gear settings and power button (Pro).
• 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, yellow 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, yellow 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.

Plays to squeezelite players: piCorePlayer, headless squeezelite instances, and Squeezebox hardware, each with its own gear settings and power button. Audio Hero can stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them. It works with or without a Logitech / Lyrion Media Server (LMS) on your network.

• Setup: tick Support Squeezelite and piCorePlayer devices, then Discover Devices.
• With an LMS server: Audio Hero connects to the server and lists every player it manages, with power, volume, mute, and transport over the server's network interface. 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. The box is only needed for a server Audio Hero cannot find.
• Without an LMS server: Audio Hero acts as the server itself. A piCorePlayer or other squeezelite player that has no server set finds Audio Hero on its own and appears in the Players list. In piCorePlayer, leave the server (LMS IP) setting blank so the player searches the network. Volume, mute, power, and playback all work, and each player's volume is remembered.
• LMS comes first: if a real LMS server is on your network, Audio Hero leaves its players to it and does not act as the server.
• While Audio Hero is running: when Audio Hero is the server, players only play while it is open. After Audio Hero closes, players look for a server again and reconnect about 30 seconds after it next starts.
• Queue: local-file queues advance automatically from track to track. Next / previous buttons on the player itself are not used.
• Power button: a real power toggle (through LMS, or directly when Audio Hero is the server).
• 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, yellow 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) devices (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 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 Samsung Wireless Audio (WAM) speakers, then Discover Devices.
• Power button: greyed out. WAM devices 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.

Discovers moOde Audio players (Raspberry Pi devices running the moOde audio player) and controls playback natively through MPD, moOde's own music player engine, with each player getting its own gear settings and a view of what it is playing. The player name you set in moOde's WebUI is used automatically. Audio Hero can also stream its own audio (local files, internet radio, and the PC / web-music sources) to them.

• Controls: play / pause / stop, next / previous, volume, and mute. Volume and mute go through moOde's own REST API, so they stay in step with the moOde volume knob.
• Setup: tick Support moOde devices, then Discover Devices. If a player is not found automatically, type its host name or IP into the box that appears and click Add.
• Power button: shows whether the player is currently playing; moOde has no network power-off.
• Pro The settings panel is a Pro feature.

Discovers Volumio players on Raspberry Pi and other supported hardware. Audio Hero uses Volumio's own API so transport, volume, mute, and the queue stay in step with the Volumio web interface and app.

• Setup: enable Support Volumio devices in Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support..., then choose Discover Devices. If discovery misses a player, use the Volumio IP-address box and Add.
• Playback: play, pause, stop, next, previous, and seek when the current track supports it. Audio Hero can send local files, internet radio, and PC or web-music streams to the player, including in a mixed-device group.
• Volume: volume and mute follow Volumio's settings. Group member sliders read the player's current volume before you adjust it.
• Gear panel: opens volume, mute, device information, and a link to Volumio's web interface. The panel requires Pro; ordinary playback and the main volume controls are Free.
• Power button: shows playback status. Volumio has no network standby command.
• Network: the Volumio API is normally on TCP port 3000. Allow access from your Audio Hero PC if your network separates devices.

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, yellow 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, yellow 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.
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. This also turns off the track info lookups.
• The panel is hidden automatically for local files (which use embedded tags) and for legacy receivers (which are volume-only).

Turn on Show lyrics above Now Playing. Audio Hero uses embedded lyrics for local files when available, or looks up the song on LRCLIB. The panel credits the lyric source and offers Copy lyrics. This is separate from the Pro Track Info panel.

Timed lyrics follow a reliable song timeline; otherwise the panel shows plain lyrics. Live radio timing, including TuneIn's station elapsed time, is not treated as a song timeline. If both Track Info and Lyrics are open, drag their divider to change how much space each gets, or use Reset Track Info and Lyrics layout.

Open Settings → Audio & volume and enable Share Now Playing with Windows. It is off by default and applies only to this PC. Windows receives the selected device or group's song information and artwork, and exposes the playback controls that source supports.

Compatible lyrics apps can follow this Windows media session. Reliable track timing is shared when available; live radio does not advertise a song seek position. Audio Hero must remain running, including when minimized. This setting works independently of Audio Hero's own Show lyrics option, and compatibility depends on the other app.

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 always remembered until you reset them.

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, the Now Playing height, the album-art size, and the Track Info width. (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. Audio Hero normally backs an enabled automation with a Windows scheduled task. With Pro and an up-to-date Companion, the Companion runs every automation it can instead, so they fire even while this PC is off (see One automation list for all your PCs and phones).

Open Settings → Automations and click Manage 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, WiiM, Bluesound, moOde, Snapcast and more, 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. The list follows the selected device, your Starred favorites scope setting, and what that device can start unattended. Sonos-native playable favorites and Onkyo-native stations are included for their respective devices.
• Time and days. The hour and minute in 12-hour AM / PM format, and which days it repeats: every day, weekdays, weekends, or a custom set.
• Only during part of the year. Optional. Tick this and pick a From and through date to make the automation run only during that part of the year, every year. The range includes both end dates, and it may wrap around New Year - November through March works exactly as you would expect. Handy for things like "wake me with the radio, but only in the dark months".
• Shuffle and repeat. For a playlist or other collection on devices that support it, optionally tick Set shuffle and repeat when this collection starts and pick the shuffle and repeat modes.
• 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, Edit, Delete, and Run now buttons, a ☰ handle to drag it into a new order, and right-click Move to Top / Move to Bottom. A Companion icon means the Companion runs that automation. When the list is shared, each row instead says where it runs: Runs on Companion, Runs on this PC, or Runs on another named PC.

A Windows scheduled task is allowed to wake the PC from sleep to run, as long as wake timers are allowed in the Windows power plan.

Keep a separate backup of automations (off by default, under Settings → Automations) also saves a copy of your list to Documents\Audio Hero\automations.json. Turning it off removes that file.

Automations follow most devices by the device's own identity rather than its IP address, so a router handing a device a new address does not silently break a morning alarm. Automations for HEOS devices, and for any device that reports no stable identity, still target the address the device had when the automation was saved; if one moves, edit the automation to point at it again.

A scheduled action can fail quietly: the device was unplugged, the receiver did not answer, or the station Audio Hero was told to play no longer exists. Because it happens while you are not looking, you would normally only notice the silence.

Alert me when automations fail to run (on by default, under Settings → Automations) makes Audio Hero tell you instead. The alert names the automation and says what went wrong, so you can fix it rather than guess.

• If Audio Hero is open when the failure happens, an alert appears at the bottom of the Players panel straight away.
• If Audio Hero was closed and the Companion was the one running the automation, the Companion notes the failure and Audio Hero shows it the next time you open it. Nothing is lost while the app is shut. Failures of shared automations show on every PC that shares the list, and dismissing one clears it everywhere.
• Only failures from after you switched the setting on are reported, so turning it on does not flood you with old history.

Turn it off if you would rather not be interrupted. Audio Hero keeps recording failures in its diagnostic log either way.

When Audio Hero is set up to use an up-to-date Companion (Companion 2.14.0 or later), your automations become one shared list for the whole house. Every PC running Audio Hero, and Audio Hero for Android, sees and edits the same list, and the Companion runs the automations.

• It switches over by itself. The first time this PC sees a Companion that supports sharing, it uploads its automations and removes the Windows scheduled tasks for any automation the Companion now runs, so nothing fires twice.
• The Companion runs what it can. That covers HEOS, Sonos, Onkyo / Integra, DLNA, MusicCast, WiiM, Bluesound, and smart plugs. An automation the Companion cannot run, such as one for Chromecast or AirPlay, or one that needs this PC's own playback, is still shared but runs from the PC that saved it with a Windows scheduled task. Other PCs show it as Runs on that PC, and the row explains why the Companion cannot take it.
• Run now runs an automation straight away, wherever it lives.
• If you stop using that Companion, this PC goes back to its own copy of the list. Automations the Companion or another PC was running stay with them and are marked as not run on this PC, so they never fire twice. Save one on this PC to take it back.

Checking that playback really started. After the Companion starts a source, it checks the device about 15 seconds later. If the device is not playing, the Companion presses Play once more. It then keeps an eye on that device until midnight and notes in its log if playback stops or starts again, which helps explain a morning alarm that was found silent later. This only records what happened; it does not raise an alert or change the result. It covers HEOS, Sonos, DLNA, MusicCast, WiiM, and Bluesound devices.

Automations use the same scoped Starred Favorites library as the main source browser. HEOS can start HEOS-native favorites and portable streams. Sonos can start playable Sonos-native favorites and portable streams. Onkyo can start its starred built-in NET stations and portable streams. Other renderer ecosystems can start saved internet-radio favorites (direct stream URLs). Browsable folders that do not identify a playable target are omitted. 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.

Use this when Audio Hero behaves unexpectedly and you want to send the developer the information needed to investigate it. Reports are never sent automatically.

1. Open Settings, then open System & advanced.
2. If support asked for detailed logs, turn on Detailed debug logging, reproduce the problem, then return here. Otherwise leave detailed logging off.
3. Click Submit bug report to developer.
4. Review the explanation of what will and will not be included. Optionally describe what happened, then enter the email address where Audio Hero should send your private report-progress link.
5. Click Submit report. Closing or canceling the window sends nothing.
6. After the upload succeeds, keep the displayed report number and check your email for the private tracking link. That page shows whether the developer has reviewed the report, whether it was fixed, and customer-visible developer updates. You can also open the status page directly from the submission window.

Audio Hero compresses the report into a ZIP and sends it over encrypted HTTPS. It includes the report number; Audio Hero, package, Windows, and .NET runtime versions; edition and connection state; culture, time zone, uptime, and a summary of network-adapter types; a device summary with each room/device name, player ID, type, manufacturer, model, firmware, direct-or-presumed detection status, current group role, and group-leader player ID; recent diagnostic logs; your optional description; and the contact email used to deliver the private progress link.

The report excludes settings.json, passwords, tokens, cookies, browser profiles, media files, playlists, ratings, and saved favorites. The device summary retains room/device names and player IDs so an individual device can be matched to diagnostic events. In diagnostic logs, common sensitive patterns, email addresses, computer and known device names, IP addresses, MAC addresses, and user-folder paths are removed or replaced before upload. Diagnostic logs are free-form text, so a station name, file name, service display name, or other text involved in the problem can remain. Your description is sent exactly as entered. Your email is used only for support and to deliver the private report-progress link.

The server accepts only the expected report text, optional description, contact email, and diagnostic-log files, keeps the ZIP in a web-inaccessible folder, and does not extract it to disk. It emails a private, unguessable tracking link to the supplied address. That link opens only this report and shows the submitted description while retained, review and resolution progress, and customer-visible developer updates. It never shows contact information, diagnostic logs, attachments, private investigation notes, or other reports. The raw ZIP, contact email, and original description are removed after 30 days. A minimal record containing the random report number, application versions, status, category, customer-visible update, and developer-written summary and resolution may remain so progress, recurring defects, and completed work can be tracked. To prevent abuse, the server allows up to six submission attempts per hour from one public IP address.

• 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.
• Browser / DRM services. Sign in to web music services such as Apple Music or Spotify ahead of time, or wait and sign in the first time you use each one.

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.

• Sources using this Companion. Tick boxes for YouTube Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Device + This PC, and Local Music. All are on by default; untick one to run it from this PC instead. A change takes effect the next time that source starts, not mid-song.
• Automatic thumbs-down skipping. A read-only status line, not a switch. If you use Always skip thumbs-down items, the skipping normally has to be done by whatever is watching the music. When a Companion is connected it takes that job over, so thumbed-down tracks are still skipped after you close Audio Hero. The line simply tells you who is currently doing it: Handled by Audio Hero or Handled by Companion. Pressing the thumbs buttons yourself always stays on this PC.
• Player-window video smoothness. Only affects the small preview of the Companion's player window that Audio Hero shows you, never the music. Higher settings look smoother and use more of your home network. Low is recommended.

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 Companion-owned scheduled 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 → Accounts & 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 device) 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, and updates are delivered as new Store packages. Audio Hero itself only tells you a new version exists; the Store app does the installing. It works like this:

1. Audio Hero checks for a newer published version at startup and, if Automatic app update check is on, again in the background on the interval you chose. You can force a check at any time with the 🔄 icon in the header.
2. When one is found, a banner appears in the header reading ⬆ v6.x.x.x available! with an Open Store link. Click ✕ to dismiss it until the next check.
3. Click Open Store. A short reminder of the steps appears, then Audio Hero's page opens in the Microsoft Store app.
4. On that page, select Update. If the page shows Open instead, the Store has not noticed the new version yet: choose Downloads in the Store's left menu, then Get updates.
5. Audio Hero closes while the Store installs the update. Reopen it from the Start menu when the install finishes.

The Microsoft Store also updates Audio Hero on its own schedule, so if you leave automatic Store updates turned on in Windows you will often find the update has already been applied before you see a banner at all.

Because the Store closes Audio Hero to install the update, anything Audio Hero itself is streaming from this PC stops: local files, internet radio it is serving, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Device + This PC, PC Line Out, and mixed-brand groups fed from this PC. Music a device plays for itself (its own Spotify, Pandora, favorites, or inputs) keeps going, and so does anything served by an Audio Hero Companion on another PC; Audio Hero simply picks those streams back up when you reopen it. If you would rather not interrupt what is playing, dismiss the banner and update later.

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).

This is the question we are asked most, so here it is in one place. The full table is in Volume and presets.

• Free Master volume slider, mute, volume up / down buttons and arrow keys, on every supported device.
• Free The zone selector (All / Z1 / Z2 / Z3) on multi-zone Denon / Marantz AVRs, and each zone's volume through the main slider. The selector remains visible so the slider's target is always clear. Z2 or Z3 becomes available after that zone is turned on from the receiver's remote or the HEOS app.
• Pro Turning Zone 2 / 3 on or off from inside Audio Hero (receiver panel).
• Free Snapcast client volume, mute, and latency.
• Pro Typing an exact volume, the max-volume cap (global or per device), and the six volume presets.
• Pro Zone mute, zone power, zone input, all-zone power, and zone renaming, which live in the receiver panel.
• Pro Per-member volume, Match volume, and Lock volume inside a group.

• Discovery, connection, and basic playback for every supported device family: HEOS, Sonos, Onkyo / Integra, legacy Denon / Marantz, Chromecast / Google Cast, DLNA / UPnP, AirPlay, Yamaha MusicCast, Roku, Snapcast, Sendspin, Squeezelite / piCorePlayer / LMS, Verox, universal disc players, Samsung WAM, WiiM / LinkPlay, Bluesound, moOde Audio, Volumio, and Fully Kiosk / Dashie tablets.
• Play, pause, stop, next, previous, repeat, shuffle.
• Volume slider, mute, volume up / down buttons and arrow keys, and per-device volume memory.
• Zone selector and per-zone volume on multi-zone Denon / Marantz AVRs, from the main slider.
• Snapcast client volume, mute, per-client latency, and soft on / off.
• Stop button on devices with no network standby (DLNA, AirPlay, Roku sticks and boxes).
• Device settings panels for HEOS devices, HEOS amps (except the power toggle), Sonos, Chromecast, DLNA, AirPlay, Snapcast, Sendspin, and legacy Denon / Marantz devices.
• Playing an aux / physical input on the device it belongs to (sending it to another device is Pro).
• Smart plug discovery and linking (switching a plug is Pro).
• 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 device at the same time.
• PC Line Out: broadcast this PC's entire audio mix to your devices, like a virtual line-in.
• 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 and Liked Tracks.
• Internet radio (custom streams and catalog browser).
• Scheduled automations that start a source or stop playback on a timer, run by this PC (power on / off is a Pro action).
• Lyrics, and sharing Now Playing with Windows.
• Publishing device state to Home Assistant.
• 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 (the editable local-file queue is Pro).
• Renaming and rebooting devices.
• Sign-in / sign-out for HEOS music services.
• Audio sync delay and loudness normalization for PC-streamed audio.
• Always on top, bug reports, and diagnostic logs.
• App and firmware update notifications.

One-time purchase. No subscription or recurring fees. Audio Hero Pro remains permanently unlocked through your Microsoft Store account.

• Create any number of saved playback groups, with tight HEOS or Sonos synchronization or multi-device playback across different brands, and play a source to a whole group at once.
• Control each group member's volume, match all members to the quietest level, or lock their relative volume levels together.
• Full receiver panel for HEOS-equipped Denon / Marantz AVRs: power, inputs, surround modes, Audyssey, tone and channel levels, tuner, system settings, and the multi-zone controls (zone mute, zone power, zone input, all-zone power, zone renaming). Zone volume from the main slider stays Free.
• Power toggle for HEOS amps (PMA-900HNE, HEOS Link, etc.). The amp panel and input switching are Free.
• Power toggles and settings panels for other device families: Onkyo / Integra, Yamaha MusicCast, Roku TVs (including the on-screen remote), WiiM, Bluesound, moOde, Samsung WAM, Squeezelite / LMS, universal disc players, and Fully Kiosk / Dashie tablets.
• Browsing an Onkyo / Integra receiver's built-in network services (TuneIn, Pandora, and so on) from Audio Hero.
• Sending an aux / physical input from one device to another player or group.
• Smart plug switching: turn Kasa and Shelly plugs on and off by hand, by follow, or from an automation. Power on / off actions in automations generally.
• 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.
• Live input-signal details for AV receivers and Onkyo / Integra receivers, inside their control panels.
• Precision volume control: type the exact volume value.
• Volume presets (six slots) with auto-sort and drag-to-reorder.
• Limit max volume: one cap for every device, or a separate cap per device.
• Sleep timer: stop playback or power off after a set time, for one device or all of them.
• Automations run by the Companion, even while this PC is off, and one automation list shared by all your PCs and phones.
• 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.

Everything not listed above is Free. 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).
• When Scan additional local subnets for devices is on, Audio Hero also probes the known audio-control ports of other private network ranges reachable through your own router, to find devices multicast cannot reach. This never touches a public internet address. See Devices on other networks.
• 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.
• Lyrics lookups go to LRCLIB (lrclib.net) as anonymous HTTPS requests with the song's title and artist.
• Internet radio catalog searches go to radio-browser.info (anonymous).
• If you turn on Home Assistant publishing, device state and now-playing details go only to the MQTT broker you enter, normally your own Home Assistant box.
• 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. The Audio Hero bug-report server is not involved and never sees the file.
• If you explicitly submit a bug report from Settings > System & advanced, Audio Hero sends its version, Windows and runtime versions, recent sanitized diagnostic logs, and basic system and device information over HTTPS to bommerts.com. Nothing is sent until you click Submit report. See Submit a diagnostic bug report for the complete contents and steps.

Audio Hero collects no automatic 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). Bug reports are user-initiated, sanitized, and used only for support. 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.

• Check whether the device is on a different network range from your PC (for example your PC is 192.168.1.x and the device is 192.168.20.x). Audio Hero searches other ranges as well, but the feature can be switched off, and a guest or IoT network is often walled off by the router. See Devices on other networks.
• 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.
• Confirm the device family is ticked in Settings → Devices & sources → Choose audio device support.... Audio Hero only looks for the platforms you have enabled.

• 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 device with no network power button, which is most HEOS devices, 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, 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.

This almost always means the Companion PC is signed in through a Remote Desktop session that was closed rather than ended properly. Windows gives a disconnected Remote Desktop session no sound, so copy-protected services such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, and Pandora cannot start, and a stream that is already playing goes silent.

• Audio Hero tells you when this is the cause, names the Companion PC, and shows the exact tscon command to run there.
• Quick fix: connect to the Companion PC with Remote Desktop, open Command Prompt as administrator, and run the tscon ... /dest:console command Audio Hero showed. Remote Desktop closes and the PC stays signed in with sound. Reconnecting alone also brings the sound back.
• Permanent fix: in the Companion's settings window, turn on Keep playing when Remote Desktop disconnects. Closing Remote Desktop then puts the session back on that PC's own screen, so the music keeps playing. Setting it up asks once for administrator permission.
• Do not sign out of Windows on the Companion PC, which ends the session and stops the Companion.

See Audio Hero Companion for more.

• 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.

This is the most common multi-zone question, and it is not a Pro limitation. On a multi-zone Denon or Marantz AVR (Cinema series, AVR-X, AVR-S, AVC, and similar), zone volume is a Free feature: the All / Z1 / Z2 / Z3 bar under the volume slider lets you pick a zone, and the slider then controls that zone.

• The bar remains visible on a detected multi-zone receiver so it is always clear which zone the slider controls. Z2 or Z3 is unavailable while that zone is in standby. Turn the zone on with the receiver's remote, its front panel, or the HEOS app; Audio Hero notices within a few seconds and enables its button.
• Extra zones are checked independently. Zone 2 or 3 can remain available even while Main is in standby, when the receiver exposes its zone status over the network.
• Turning a zone on or off from inside Audio Hero (and zone mute, zone input, and zone renaming) is done in the receiver panel, which is a Pro feature. That is the only part of multi-zone control that needs Pro.

See Multi-zone receivers for the details.

• 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 device 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.

• Audio Hero does not install updates itself. Click Open Store on the banner and apply the update from the Microsoft Store app; see App updates.
• If the Store page shows Open rather than Update, choose Downloads in the Store's left menu and click Get updates to make it look again.
• 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, and that you are signed in to the Store with the account that installed Audio Hero.
• Sometimes a Store cache reset (wsreset.exe) fixes stuck updates.
• If an older version of Audio Hero used to install updates on its own and stopped, check your antivirus quarantine history for a file from Audio Hero's relaunch helper; that is the reason the in-app installer was retired. Updating from the Store once puts you on the new behavior.

Use Settings > System & advanced > Submit bug report to developer. Audio Hero displays a report number, emails your private tracking link, and automatically notifies the developer. Keep the tracking link private. You can also post the report number and any additional details on the r/AudioHero subreddit.

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 devices and receivers.
• Playing local files (Pro). Audio Hero runs a tiny web server so a HEOS device can stream a file straight from your PC. The device opens the connection to your PC to pull the audio.
• PC Line Out and web-music sources (Free). The Audio Hero streaming engine serves live audio and network feeds that your devices 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.

Audio Hero builds its list of subnets from several clues, so it does not have to guess:

• Networks your PC is directly connected to. If your PC has both Wi-Fi and a network cable, or a wired connection to two ranges, all of them count. These are always searched and cannot be turned off.
• Windows' own routing table. If Windows knows the way to another network range, Audio Hero picks that up. These ranges are exact.
• Devices that announce themselves. Some devices manage to get a message through even when a broadcast search does not. If Audio Hero hears from a device at an address outside your own range, it notes the neighborhood that address belongs to.
• Devices you have used before. Addresses of devices and receivers Audio Hero has connected to in the past.
• Ranges you add yourself. See below.

The first two are precise. The last three only tell Audio Hero one address, so it assumes the usual home-network size around it and labels the entry Estimated /24, which simply means "the 254 addresses that share the first three numbers".

Open Settings → Devices & sources and look under Device support.

• Scan additional local subnets for devices (on by default) turns the whole feature on or off. With it off, Audio Hero only looks at the network your PC is sitting on, exactly as older versions did.
• Manage local subnets... opens a window listing every range Audio Hero knows about, where it learned about each one, and when it last saw it.

In that window you can:

• Tick or untick a range to include or exclude it from searches. The network your PC is directly on is always searched and its tick box is fixed.
• Add a range by hand. Type the first three numbers of the address, for example 192 . 168 . 20, and click Add subnet. Audio Hero then searches 192.168.20.0/24. Use this when you know a device's address but Audio Hero has not spotted its neighborhood yet.
• Edit or remove a range you added yourself. Ranges Audio Hero detected on its own cannot be deleted, only unticked, because it would simply find them again.
• Refresh detected subnets re-checks Windows and your device history right away.

Virtual and VPN network ranges are listed but left switched off, because they belong to software on your PC rather than to your home. Ranges that are too large to search politely are shown for reference only, marked Shown for reference.

Audio Hero is deliberately gentle about this, so it does not look like something scanning your network for weaknesses:

• On your own network it asks each address at the lowest level whether anything is home, which every connected device has to answer, and only then talks to the ones that replied.
• On another subnet it goes straight to the handful of doors that audio equipment is known to answer on (for example the HEOS control port, the Sonos control port, and the equivalents for Onkyo, Roku, WiiM, Bluesound, MusicCast, Samsung and Squeezelite), and only for the device families you have actually enabled in Device support. When a door opens, it then speaks that device's own language to confirm what it is.
• Nothing about this leaves your home network. Audio Hero never contacts an address on the public internet as part of discovery.

Searching extra ranges takes a little longer than searching one, which is normal. The progress line under the Discover button tells you when Audio Hero has moved on to the additional subnets.

• Check the device's address in its own app or on its screen, then add that range by hand as described above and run Discover Devices again.
• Some routers and mesh systems deliberately wall off a guest or IoT network so nothing on it can be reached from your main network. Audio Hero cannot cross a barrier your router enforces. Move the device onto the same network as your PC, or allow traffic between the two in your router's settings.
• You can always add a device directly with Or enter IP address on the Players tab, whichever subnet it is on.
• Smart plugs are searched on the additional subnets too, using the same setting.
• If your device is on a different subnet from your PC and you play local files or PC audio to it, the device has to be able to reach your PC back again for the audio to arrive. A router that blocks traffic in that direction will let the device appear but not play.

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

If you turn on Keep a separate backup of automations, a copy of your automations is also saved to Documents\Audio Hero\automations.json.

You can safely delete the entire folder to reset Audio Hero to a clean state. The app rebuilds anything it needs on next launch. Deleting it also signs you out of the web music services.