[HN Gopher] Modernizing my 1980s sound system
___________________________________________________________________
Modernizing my 1980s sound system
Author : woodruffw
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-11-07 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.yossarian.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.yossarian.net)
| daggersandscars wrote:
| Depending on how you feel about using outdated network hardware,
| an Apple AirPort Express functions as an AirPlay receiver, DAC,
| and USB to network printer adapter. Have it join your existing
| network or, depending on the version, connect it via ethernet.
|
| The 1/8" stereo audio out has a fiber optic digital out in it if
| you want to BYO DAC.
|
| Using the network printer requires Bonjour for Windows. It
| generally works out of the box on most Linux distros.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Apple AirPort Express
|
| I agree with you. It's absolutely the biggest bargain secret in
| the audio world. Glorious dirt cheap dead simple lossless
| 44.1/16 bit perfect streaming. Install one in every room for
| the world's easiest multiroom audio solution.
|
| They're available dirt cheap and in plentiful supply on eBay.
|
| The only drawback is a lot of apps don't work with Airplay
| directly on Windows, need a third-party sound driver app or
| whatever (it's been ages since I looked)
| woodruffw wrote:
| I didn't know AirPort Expresses could do that! That would
| definitely have been an option, if I owned one :-)
| JohnBooty wrote:
| They are dirt cheap on eBay if you ever get the itch. No
| DLNA, though, which your current solution supports. So many
| guests would be left in the cold.
|
| But an Airport Express plus an RPi serving as a simple DLNA-
| to-Airplay bridge might be a way to go
|
| (Thank you for the great article, by the way!)
| ezconnect wrote:
| Is there a minimum model that we need or even the first version
| is ok?
| daggersandscars wrote:
| I'm not sure an 802.11g one will work -- I'm not sure it uses
| AirPlay to receive network audio.
|
| I'm not sure the first gen 802.11n will work either -- I have
| a second gen one and no longer have the older ones. Sorry.
| buescher wrote:
| That's exactly how I would "modernize" the system. Maybe add a
| modern DSP equalizer for room correction, too - his receiver
| has two monitor loops.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Maybe add a modern DSP equalizer for room correction,
| too - his receiver has two monitor loops.
|
| Oooh, that's nice. I hate that most modern systems don't
| include these.
|
| DSP correction to compensate for speaker+room issues is just
| stunning when done well. Turns many cheap speakers into
| legitimate hifi.
| SECProto wrote:
| It functions as an Airplay receiver, does it also function as
| DLNA receiver? A friend has some sort of Apple thing attached
| to his audio system, it works fine for streaming audio for
| anyone with itunes, but doesn't do anything for android folks.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| That's the only (admittedly, a dealbreaker for many!)
| downside. It does not do DLNA.
| gedy wrote:
| Thanks, had an 802.11n one sitting here and just tried, though
| seems like it doesn't want to join an existing network. Even
| when I had it create a network and joined, macos Ventura didn't
| seem to see it as Airplay device.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| I have a similar setup and it works. Here's my info in case
| it helps.
|
| AirPort Express 802.11n 2nd gen running firmware 7.8.1. It's
| joined to my 5Ghz network using 802.11n.
|
| I have my home wifi configured with both 2.4 and 5Ghz
| networks and the AirPort Express is aware of both. Not sure
| if this makes a difference.
| gedy wrote:
| Thanks! Was old firmware, update did the trick.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > Using the network printer requires Bonjour for Windows.
|
| Offtopic, but I'm shocked that Windows still doesn't support
| Bonjour/Zeroconf out-of-the-box.
|
| I guess RFC 6762/6763 aren't enough for them?
| vel0city wrote:
| Windows does support zeroconf networking out of the box, just
| different flavors from what Apple does out of the box.
| NetBIOS and LLMNR _are_ Zeroconf DNS /service advertising in
| the same vein as Bonjour.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| AFAIK, NetBIOS & LLMNR handle only the _hostname_ lookup.
| Zeroconf adds the crucial ability to advertise _services_
| (SSH, VNC, IPP...), so they 're not really the same thing.
| vel0city wrote:
| They're most known for hostname lookup but they can also
| do service discovery. Although service discovery is then
| tied closr to things like SSDP or WSD.
|
| My Windows machine knows my home theater receiver is a
| home theater receiver and knows it's a DLNA and a web
| server running on it. My Windows machine knows my Brother
| printer is a printer and scanner and can auto configure
| the WSD drivers for it. My Windows machine can see my NAS
| and can know it has fileshares on it to access as well as
| knowing it has some DLNA functionality.
|
| It does this through zeroconf networking protocols.
| Different protocols from Bonjour, but it would be
| incorrect to say it does not have any zeroconf networking
| support out of the box.
| maratc wrote:
| To add, it is readily available on eBay and costs less there
| than the _usual_ price of Raspberry Pi.
| snalty wrote:
| This would have been a perfect opportunity to use a Chromecast
| audio, it's a shame Google canned it when it was still useful.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I just use the RCA plug to feed stereo to my 1980s Carver preamp,
| then 1980s Carver amp, then 1980s Dahlquist speakers.
|
| Been doing that forever. It all runs basically 16 hours a day,
| every day, for decades.
|
| No complaints about it.
| gregschlom wrote:
| >Been doing that forever
|
| ^H^H^H^H^for the last 42 years
| mihaylov wrote:
| Seems like a good use-case for the chromecast audio (RIP). It
| lets you stream to it over wifi and connects to the receiver with
| 3.5mm to RCA cable
| psalminen wrote:
| It was also an spdif optical out which was super nice to hook
| into a better DAC.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yes, although the actual streaming was lossily compressed,
| which more than negates any gains from using a better DAC.
|
| (edit - this is incorrect; the Chromecast Audio was
| apparently updated at some point to support lossless
| streaming)
| jensgk wrote:
| No, that is not true. Chromecast streaming is lossless, so
| it is certainly possible to stream hi-res flac files bit-
| perfect.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. I think Chromecast Audio
| initially didn't support lossless streaming, but at some
| point it was updated to support it?
|
| Regardless, thanks, and I updated my post!
| Melatonic wrote:
| Still using mine to this day
|
| You can also put multiple chromecast audios in a group in
| google home and they will perfectly sync audio across
| multiple rooms like a ghetto Sonos setup!
| bryanmgreen wrote:
| One of the best dollar-to-performance purchases for home audio.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Which is especially nice if you install Owntone (
| https://github.com/owntone/owntone-server/ ) -- now you have a
| nice web interface for playing music to any or all of your
| systems.
| matthewmcg wrote:
| I know that it's probably pretty well insulated with the layer of
| black crinkle paint, but I still get uneasy seeing that picture
| of the bare Raspberry Pi printed circuit board sitting directly
| on top of the conductive metal case of the receiver while powered
| on. At least put a piece of paper or something behind it, right?
| Does anyone else worry the solder blobs or connector pins on the
| bottom of the board will short out?
| neverartful wrote:
| I had the same thought when I saw the photo. I agree with you
| on this, I'd put something in between (probably at least
| cardboard).
| woodruffw wrote:
| I do indeed worry about it -- I plan on putting it in a case
| pretty soon.
|
| (This is not a justification since you're absolutely right, but
| I've had a handful of different Pis running for years while
| sitting on painted metal. In my experience, SD corruption is
| much more common than shorts.)
| criddell wrote:
| I used to use my Raspberry Pi as an Octoprint server but
| after the third dead SD card, I unplugged it.
|
| Are you doing anything on this setup to prolong the life of
| your SD card?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Nothing in particular: I believe HiFiBerryOS does some
| stuff under the hood to minimize unnecessary writes, but I
| didn't look too closely into it. The also provide shutdown
| and reboot buttons via their Web UI, which I greatly
| appreciate (and presumably help avoid any corruption that
| can happen when just yanking the power).
|
| For the other Pis I use, I see corrupted SDs roughly once
| every 18 months. I replaced a couple of repeat offenders
| with new cards (from a different vendor) a while back and
| things seem to have stabilized, so my (lay) guess is that
| some cards are just more finnicky on the Pi than others.
| squarefoot wrote:
| "It turns out that nothing really runs well on a 32-bit x86
| machine anymore, including major Linux distributions and web
| browsers."
|
| Not true. The EeePC 701 netbook is a really minimal underpowered
| machine, still it will run small Linux distros just fine (it was
| actually sold with Linux in the first place). If you want a music
| player that you can control from another room, you can do that by
| installing a very small distro such as the x86 Alpine Linux image
| (https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/) then the mpd daemon
| (https://www.musicpd.org/ - it's in standard repositories install
| it with "apk add mpd" from root shell) which can work headless,
| therefore requiring very few resources, then a suitable control
| app for your phone or tablet (search for mpd control app), so
| that you can do pretty much everything through your home WiFi
| from any room, basement, backyard, etc.
|
| Should you experience noises, cracks, hum and static when
| connecting the netbook to an amplifier _and_ to a mains adapter,
| that is a common problem of ground loops and not of that
| particular netbook, that will be easily solved by adding a small
| audio transformer in between.
| iquerno wrote:
| International banking systems still rely on mainframes that
| don't even support time sharing! I'm sure an x86 rack would
| blow the socks off of the guy who has been maintaining the
| COBOL clusters by himself for 30 years. On another note, my
| EeePC still seems to work as well some old 32 bit Thinkpads
| I've seen recently. It actually doesn't have overheating
| problems like modern laptops do and I can simply replace the
| ram, network card, pcmcia slots if I needed to. We need to stop
| x86 discrimination :c
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > International banking systems still rely on mainframes that
| don't even support time sharing!
|
| [citation needed]
| iquerno wrote:
| I think I mixed up this information with the fact that DOD
| is still running a cluster of IBM Series/1s to administer
| the US nuclear force. (pretty sure there's no time
| sharing). Definitely more interesting than international
| banking ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Automate
| d_Command_an...
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| The eee line were gems.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I'll grant that I hadn't tried installing Alpine -- I tried a
| few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into the same
| handful of issues (including a few installers failing
| completely.)
|
| That being said, MPD is not a good solution for my particular
| use case: I have family and friends that come over regularly,
| and they want to play music. None of them are technical and are
| easily dissuades by anything that doesn't immediately work with
| AirPlay or another UPnP-style setup.
| leni536 wrote:
| > I tried a few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into
| the same handful of issues (including a few installers
| failing completely.)
|
| Did that include plain Debian?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yep. I think the problem with plain Debian happened when
| the base install momentarily exceeded the available disk
| space (probably while decompressing packages during
| install). I didn't bother debugging it further.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just
| need to install a web-based client and they can point their
| smartphone browser to it.
|
| To make it even easier for friends and family, I set up a
| dynamic DNS with a friendly URL like myjukebox.duckdns.org
| that points to the 192.168.xxx.xxx address where this is
| hosted.
|
| Mopidy (https://mopidy.com/) as the MPD server with Iris
| (https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/) as the client is a good setup
| for this.
|
| Even the tech-illiterate can get along with it.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just
| need to install a web-based client and they can point their
| smartphone browser to it.
|
| There are different standards for this: my non-technical
| friends could probably browse to a local website on their
| smartphones. My parents would forget how to do it each
| time, and would be annoyed that it doesn't look like
| Spotify or Apple Music.
|
| As it is, everybody on my network is able to auto-discover
| the Pi using their phone or computer's native AirPlay/DLNA
| support and play music using their application of choice
| (meaning my server, their own MPD server, Spotify,
| whatever). That kind of flexibility was a necessity for my
| case.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| Doesn't that have the drawback, though, that you aren't
| able to share the playlist? My biggest complaint about
| Airplay (and also Bluetooth) is that someone might put
| their music on but when I want to put "my" music on I
| can't because they're paired to the given speakers.
|
| The MPD approach is far better because each person's
| client view is a shared view of a single playlist. People
| can all add or update that playlist together.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is definitely true -- there's no shared playlist
| state, as far as I can tell, with this setup. I _think_
| HiFiBerryOS supports MPD, but I haven 't looked too
| closely into it.
|
| At least for my purposes, this isn't too big of a
| drawback: HiFiBerryOS seems to take a "FIFO" approach, so
| taking over control just involves playing over AirPlay
| and booting the last person off. Someone could of course
| do that do me, but that's what social etiquette is for
| :-)
| sam1r wrote:
| This is incredible! I wonder if there is any limitations with
| audio streaming rate, especially for large flac files.
| whycombinetor wrote:
| Uncompressed 2ch 44.1kHz 16bit PCM is only 1.4Mbps. Even 7.1ch
| 96khz 24bit is only 18.4Mbps. Should be plenty of headroom even
| on "only" 100Mbps.
| disposition2 wrote:
| If you are referring to in-network, I've never had issues with
| FLAC files up to 24/192. Out of network, I use Plex and PlexAmp
| which can encode the same files to OGG for more mobile friendly
| streamging
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's on my list of things to find out! I believe the Pi I'm
| using (the Model 3B) only supports 10/100 Ethernet, so
| bandwidth _might_ be a concern. From a quick search plenty of
| other people are using Pis (including via HiFiBerryOS) as FLAC
| players, so that part shouldn 't be an issue.
| DrPhish wrote:
| I did something similar, except I netboot a diskless hp thin
| client (cheap for previous gen and no/bad storage) with openelec.
| I opted specifically to not use a pi because I've had atrocious
| luck with reliability, especially of the sd drive. Once Kodi is
| running under openelec, everything can be controlled via Kodi
| remote on a phone. No bluetooth, but that's a feature imo.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| I went the other way. I tried laptops and raspis wirelessly, and
| then with audio over ethernet but the difference in timing caused
| by differences in signal decoding meant that you can couldn't sit
| in one room with the door open with the speakers in the next room
| also going because of microshift flanging (although I say micro,
| some rooms were over 100ms out of sync, which is unbearable).
|
| What I ended up doing instead of just running TRS cables along
| the ethernet cables that were already going to the various rooms
| I care to spend most of my time in, with some 4x4 audio
| interfaces that take care of sending the audio to the various
| speaker sets in those rooms (for rooms with more than one set).
| Any interface's output can route to any other interface, so if
| there's more than one thing playing you just press enable that
| input in the room you're in, and done.
|
| And of course, you can get the same done with some second hand
| professional audio routing rack units, but (a) those are rather
| inconveniently sized, and (b) you kinda need to have a hookup for
| those, or get lucky, whereas audio interfaces are a few clicks
| away and designed to at least look reasonably decent sat on a
| bookshelf =)
|
| More expensive? Probably. "Perfectly" synced audio across rooms?
| Very much so.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Or just multiple chromecasts in the same group (chromecast
| audio ideally but theoretically I suppose you could use any
| chromecast with an HDMI converter to whatever audio format you
| need)
| bombcar wrote:
| It's effectively impossible to "sync" audio across a large area
| (because if it is perfect in one area it will be imperfect in
| another) so often the best you can do is adjust it until it
| "sounds right".
|
| Some software and some hardware have built-in delays you can
| use to adjust as they do in a stadium, but often just getting
| everything "speed of light" in a house is good enough.
|
| The main thing is that you don't hear a delay when standing in
| the doorway between rooms.
| solardev wrote:
| Don't Sonos, Ultimate Ears, Echo, Google Home etc solve this
| problem pretty effectively? I know there was a bit of a
| patent war between them for a while, but don't they still
| have this feature?
| bombcar wrote:
| They do - if you're using one kind for all. That's why
| starting a song can sometimes take a bit as it
| buffers/aligns.
|
| It's when you're mixing software systems that the fun can
| begin.
|
| (Also if you can route cables in your walls whole-home
| audio is way cheaper than you might expect:
| https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761 kicks ass)
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Those send the actual file data to the speakers, so you're
| not "playing the audio" so much as each speaker literally
| playing its own copy of the file, using synced playback
| timing.
| solardev wrote:
| Is that the case even when you're streaming from Spotify
| or Airplay, or say using their wireless 5.1 setup from
| the soundbar?
|
| And I mean, in the age of wireless speakers... aren't all
| digital speakers receiving "file data", whether it's one
| file at a time or one chunk at a time? What's the
| difference?
|
| Even if it's just timing data, I don't think I would be
| able to figure out how to sync up two different devices'
| times down to that level of precision. A little bit off
| and you'd build up weird interferences, wouldn't you?
| bombcar wrote:
| There are speakers/etc that use actual streaming
| protocols - but that's become relatively rare.
| creeble wrote:
| FWIW, most of the patent war was about how Sonos syncs the
| _volume controls_ so that changing a master volume level
| changes all the synced volumes. Seems obvious (and
| therefore unpatentable) but there is an ever-so-slightly-
| not-quite-obvious-at-first-glance aspect to it.
|
| I believe Google caved on this and doesn't allow master
| level control with their devices. And of course they have
| been counter suing Sonos on other patents as a result.
| solardev wrote:
| What an interesting tibid! I didn't realize that. Thanks
| for sharing :)
|
| What is it about the volume controls that are anymore
| non-obvious than multi-room syncing to begin with?
| creeble wrote:
| It has to do with tracking the levels in the group.
|
| You want to be able to slide a master level up and down
| and have the levels maintain the "same" balance, even if
| one of the players ends up going to (effectively) zero
| level when you have turned it down. Takes a little bit of
| thinking about how you represent the range of the levels.
|
| I think the patent is actually quite a bit broader, and
| covers using a UI that has a master volume control across
| players whose individual volume levels are displayed as
| well.
|
| Google pulled all "master" level control in response.
| bombcar wrote:
| Apple still has one when casting to multiple HomePods; I
| wonder if they licensed it.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| I suppose the argument would be that the "volume setting"
| is metadata or out-of-band compared to the audio itself.
| mastercheif wrote:
| It's not open source or free, but Roon provides multi-zone
| synchronized playback and has excellent Linux support
| (including x64 and arm easy install scripts). See:
|
| http://roonlabs.com
|
| https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/linux-
| instal...
|
| Many Roon users use Raspberry Pi's as audio "bridge"
| devices for their various audio setups around the house.
| There's even dedicated RPi distros that offer Roon
| packages:
|
| https://ropieee.org (semi-open source)
|
| https://dietpi.com (GPL)
|
| You can read more about how Roon handles playback clock
| sync using its RAAT protocol here:
|
| https://community.roonlabs.com/t/raat-and-clock-
| ownership/69...
|
| Disclaimer: I work at Roon Labs LLC.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's not free, to the tune of $10/month! I'm willing to
| pay for things, but I'm sorry, that's just not workable.
| I'm _not_ going to pay for yet another subscription
| service, especially one for my _speakers_.
|
| I was really hopeful for a competitor to Sonos too. Ah
| well, back to hoping Google ever brings back Chromecast
| audio.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| Shout out for the open source option:
|
| Snapcast - https://mjaggard.github.io/snapcast/
| solardev wrote:
| Interesting... so this isn't a device-specific firmware
| hack, but a pipe? Does that mean it only works on things
| running user-accessible Linux, not your typical smart
| speaker?
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| The client doesn't run on typical smart speakers, but it
| can run on Android, or through a web page, or on a
| Raspberry Pi, amongst other things.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Unfortunately, decoding drift makes that seem initially fine,
| and then half an hour later you're going "w. t. f." so after
| several days of "why the f does this audio not STAY synced?"
| I gave up and went cables.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, I really like physical cables myself, and if
| necessary you can buy analog audio delay units.
|
| For real fun, you can get into 70 volt speakers, which many
| people don't even know exist: https://www.parts-
| express.com/70-volt-systems-beginners
| royjacobs wrote:
| Ah, very interesting to read about Subsonic being used here. I
| was in the market for a similar setup a while ago and tried a
| bunch of different servers. Navidrome was clearly one of the
| better ones but didn't seem to support folder-based navigation,
| which I want to use (since most of my music is not structured as
| album-per-folder but rather as playlist-per-folder).
|
| Like a good HN user I ended up writing my own Subsonic compatible
| server [0]. It also does things mentioned in this blog post
| series, like automatically grab cover art and metadata from
| Musicbrainz/CoverArtArchive, Discogs and last.fm. I haven't
| officially released it yet since it's missing a few features
| (most notably transcoding, documentation and support for deleting
| files) but looks like it might be worthwhile to spend that
| effort. If you're feeling brave, you can compile it from source
| or grab the Docker edge image[1].
|
| It looks like I missed evaluating
| https://github.com/sentriz/gonic though, so I might give that a
| go as well.
|
| [0] https://github.com/datatrash/beatlocker [1]
| https://hub.docker.com/r/datatrash/beatlocker-server
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think this may have changed since the last time you checked
| it out! For my setup (Navidrome with Sonixd as the client), I
| can navigate through folders just fine.
|
| Screenshot here[1].
|
| [1]: https://imgur.com/a/NPHyjgC
| royjacobs wrote:
| Are these folders actual folders on your disk, though? Last
| time I checked I could use Navidrome to browse folders, but
| it would actually be browsing through albums instead.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yeah, each of those corresponds to a folder on disk.
| However, each of my artists is auto-managed by beets[1] so
| I end up with one folder per artist, including one folder
| per "feat." artist (like in the screenshot). So this may be
| a case where my folders _happen_ to align with the artists
| /albums, which might not work for you.
|
| [1]: https://beets.io/
| royjacobs wrote:
| Right, I think your assumption is correct - it just
| happens to align. Kudos for organising your collection so
| well, though :)
| jmathai wrote:
| This looks great. I wish I had heard of HiFiBerryOS a year ago.
|
| I ended up going with two Sonos Amps (one requirement for me was
| everything be wired) to play music in 2 zones. I searched a bit
| and didn't come across anything like this.
|
| Nonetheless, it seems worthwhile enough that I might tinker with
| it.
| jordanthoms wrote:
| If you want something which runs on the Raspberry PI and can do
| airplay/DLNA etc to a USB DAC without any hacks, try RoPieee XL:
| https://ropieee.org/xl/
| colinb wrote:
| Forgive my thread hijacking, but I suspect this is a place with
| people who might know the answer to my question.
|
| Given that I have a pair of reasonably nice speakers but a lack
| of convenient wiring opportunities, I had thought to come up with
| something like an RPi based amplifier connected to each, with
| WiFi linking the two to form a stereo pair.
|
| I.e. I have two speakers. Putting both of them near mains
| electricity is easy. Having wires connecting both to the same amp
| is a PITA. What cover thing could I do?
| lifty wrote:
| Not an expert but I think synchronising the signals might be
| challenging if you hack it yourself. I know Airplay 2 has the
| feature to pair speakers so perhaps if you can get Airplay 2
| working on rpi then it might work. But in my experience the rpi
| experience is sub par; it was working great while it was
| working and then all of a sudden it stopped working.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| It's very difficult and fighting an uphill battle to get two
| totally independent wifi music receivers to together output a
| single stero signal split across them. I don't think even
| dedicated systems like Sonos support it. Run speaker wire
| around the room perimeter to an amp and you will be infinitely
| happier.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| It's a massive challenge implementing this yourself but
| various smart speaker protocols have supported syncing
| speakers for a while now. I can't speak for if they also
| split stereo signals (I think I read Yamaha can) but
| splitting a stereo signal is very easy even without comparing
| it to the challenge of syncing speakers.
| fuckstick wrote:
| > I don't think even dedicated systems like Sonos support it.
|
| They do. So do HomePods, other mass brands. Not my cup of
| tea, but people seem to love them when they work.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| I'm unclear of the exact problem. Are you having a problem with
| powering two passive speakers from the same amplifier? Or you
| have two active speakers (each with its own internal amplifier
| and plug into the wall) and you have a problem with connecting
| a stereo music source to them?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Bookshelf speakers in a small room only really need to be 4'
| apart, up to 6' or 8' for floor-standers in a large room. You
| could run the wires behind items on a shelf, under the floor,
| through a "wiremold" cover, paint the wire and tack it along a
| baseboard, or try "flat speaker wire".
| mrj0e wrote:
| I have a Technics SU-C800U and SE-A900S with the wonderful VU
| Meters. I have a Pi running Volumio.
|
| Volumio can do all that HifiberryOS does but is not hardware
| tied, ie you can use any DAC https://volumio.com/en/get-started/
| Volumio has a great web UI. Jellyfin is a great OS server. I use
| Plex as my music server and the rather wonderful Plexamp app on
| my phone but it's paid and proprietary, but worth it.
| nrki wrote:
| Another plug for Volumio. I added smart features to my hifi
| system with it. Very reliable and great Spotify integration.
| throw4566 wrote:
| Did they finally upgrade from jessie? They had really outdated
| versions when I last checked them out?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I definitely saw Volumio at some point and
| completely forgot about it; I'll have to give it another try.
| anthk wrote:
| I would love a USB audio(4) (OpenBSD) compatible FM transmitter.
| That's it, an FM transmitter detected as a USB sound card.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Not sure how it's this complicated. I have normal laptops,
| desktops and phones connected to 70s and 80s vintage stuff all
| over the house. $10 Bluetooth dongle here, PS10 DAC there, and
| Bob's my uncle. Sounds fine most of the time; over to vinyl for
| whisky time.
|
| Examples: - USB to basic DAC to RCA from desktop
| to huge 70s Sansui G-7000 receiver - 1/8" jack to RCA jack
| input from desktop to Tivoli Audio radio - 1/8" jack to RCA
| jack input from Echo Dot to McIntosh MX-115 preamp -
| Bluetooth dongle to RCA from iPhone to 60s Leak Stereo 70 amp
| iquerno wrote:
| I once worked for a PA "contractor" and the thing that blew me
| away the most was how not one of the self professed audiophiles
| could reliably tell the difference between a universal audio
| preamp with flat presets and a 1.50$ crapbox I built with some
| scrap op-amps and a soldering iron.
| mellavora wrote:
| Well naturally not, because obviously you were using low-
| quality speaker cable and the cable capacitance would muddy
| the sound. Also, the speakers were probably the wrong brand.
| /s
| iwillbenice wrote:
| JohnBooty wrote:
| That's awesome. =) self professed
| audiophiles
|
| The positive news here is that in recent years, there has
| been a growing trend of objective audiophiles who understand
| things from an engineering perspective and eschew that kind
| of snake oil stuff.
|
| We would find it totally unsurprising that your $1.50
| "crapbox" was indistinguishable from the fancy gear. And
| congratulate you for helping to expose those frauds.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I have a similar setup with a TEAC receiver, a technics
| truntable , and some nice speakers I got from my dad.
|
| When the fan went out on the TEAC, I just wired it to a tiny
| power amp I got off amzn which had bluetooth, and just stream
| off bluetooth from whatever device I am wanting to use.
|
| I'd ditch the receiver all together (cause I don't really need
| FM or CDs), but it has a phono preamp for the turntable and I
| occasionally like to listen to records. It's nie when we can
| make these things simple.
| woodruffw wrote:
| At the end of the day, I don't think it actually _is_ that
| complicated. The narrative style makes it sound that way (since
| I wrote it as a culmination of trying a few different things),
| but the final setup with the Pi only took about 3 hours
| including the patching.
|
| The two constraints that I mentioned in the post should help
| explain the residual complexity: I didn't want to buy any new
| equipment (including a Bluetooth dongle, which I don't own),
| and I wanted the setup to be _maximally_ accessible to my
| friends and family while still working with my own computers
| (in different rooms). AirPlay and DLNA achieve that; Bluetooth
| is finnicky and wouldn 't connect at the distance between my
| receiver and my office.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| As a person who routinely spends hours trying to save 5
| minutes, I get you ;) I also hear that a lot of people like
| to have sound through multiple rooms and be able to control
| it remotely, which I don't really do.
|
| And to be fair, I sometimes hate the Bluetooth dongle, which
| works fine for streaming and longer albums and if I'm sitting
| still, but powers off annoyingly (even when plugged in) 2
| minutes after the signal stops or if I dare to step out of
| range.
|
| I switched the dining room system over to an old iPhone with
| 1/8" jack (I'm hoarding those) after looking for a DAC for
| the iPhone and basically seeing that the onboard is not so
| bad. Wifi to Amazon Music, done.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Cheap crappy PS5 bluetooth chip PCB off eBay, small mod to the
| cassette player in the factory stereo in my 1997 Range Rover,
| and I now have a bluetooth stereo that my phone works through
| without any annoying dangly dongles or aftermarket bodged-in
| stereo wiring.
|
| I could have spent a couple of hundred quid on a decent head
| unit, and then some more on the interfaces to go down to line
| level for the amps in the doors and subwoofer, and then some
| more on interfaces to make the steering wheel controls and CD
| player work, and then some more to ensure the door amps
| actually switch on.
|
| Or, PCB the size of my thumb, covered in heatshrink and held
| against the cassette drive PCB with a dot of hot glue.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah, I do similarly.
|
| But OP wanted something that any guest could connect to over
| WiFi. OP's setup also offers the advantage of AirPlay which
| offers true lossless 44.1/16 streaming and other advantages
| relative to Bluetooth.
| recursive wrote:
| When playing a single source on multiple speakers, I'd expect
| bluetooth latency to present a synchronization problem. How is
| it in practice?
| criddell wrote:
| Which HiFiBerry DAC are you going to use? Looks like they have
| about a dozen different DACs and I'd love some guidance on what
| would probably be a decent default choice.
|
| Also, you mentioned that volume control is a next step. For me,
| that feels like a pretty fundamental thing. Isn't that built-in
| to the Spotify, AirPlay protocols, and DNLA protocols?
| doubled112 wrote:
| One thing that doesn't seem immediately obvious with the
| HiFiBerry DAC+ ADC Pro I have is that input and output are
| separate devices.
|
| I assumed it would be a checkbox or two, but I couldn't mix the
| input jack into the output without doing it in software, and
| PulseAudio would drop samples at lower latencies. I admit I
| didn't troubleshoot this very long though.
|
| MPD, Bluetooth and an AUX input was all I wanted, and I could
| make it work for scenarios that didn't need the low latency
| part.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| For hifi use, the HiFiBerry DAC2 HD is reasonable. All the
| other HiFiBerry DACs are good "for the price" but not that
| great on an absolute scale.
|
| You'd be much better off with a USB DAC. For example, the
| Topping D10s or the JDS Atom DAC+ are both about $100 and
| you're unlikely to be able to tell the difference between them
| and literally any other DAC available at a higher price.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I bought the DAC2 Pro. I don't know if it's the right pick for
| me yet -- I guess I'll find out!
|
| The part about volume control was a little ambiguous: I can
| absolutely control the volume via the "soft" controls in
| AirPlay, DLNA, or my desktop's own soft mixer. What I meant was
| the "main" volume control on the receiver itself, which is
| motorized and controllable via an IR remote.
|
| It's kind of a non-issue since I can just set the receiver's
| volume sufficiently high and then moderate using the "soft"
| controls, but I thought it'd be fun to try and automate the
| main control as well.
| gaoshan wrote:
| He mentions a Yamaha RX-495 and asks "circa late 1990s, I
| think?". I can confirm that it is. I bought that same model in
| 1997 or 1998 and still use it for my turntable.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| As someone who used to do all this kind of stuff, what I settled
| on in the end was having a subwoofer and two speakers on a desk
| with a 3.5mm cable strewn across in case anyone wanted to use it.
|
| I mostly gave up on wireless this and that and constantly on
| electronics doing things in the background. Now I just watch
| shows on my laptop, keep my media on a 2.5" sata HDD with a sata
| to USB cable, and be sure to copy anything I've downloaded onto
| it every once in a while. I keep it simple, I'm now of the
| opinion that if you spend more time administering than using
| software it's not worth it. And to me, the amount of time I'd put
| into setting this stuff up, troubleshooting, updating software
| and whatever else just doesn't make up for having to plug things
| in when I need to.
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