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Forums › Home Theatre › Streaming audio from laptop to hi fi (not via TV or media player)


87 posts

Master Geek
Topic # 107897 21-Aug-2012 21:31 Send private message

Hi there

I wish to stream audio I am playing on my laptop to my hifi.

I have a jailbroken Apple TV2 which is just fantastic, and we use it particularly for playing videos from our laptops on our TV (XBMC/ATVflash).

However I just don't find the media player ('pull' media) concept that convenient or intuitive for music - I want to 'push from my laptop. For various reasons I don't want to run the music through my TV either.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a box/software to achieve this? Airplay/airfoil seems the best but are there any catches? Are there any other similar solutions?


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1799 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber
  Reply # 675266 21-Aug-2012 21:42 Send private message

An Apple Airport Express?
Or an Apple TV with a stand alone toslink to RCA DAC?

18 posts

Geek
  Reply # 675490 22-Aug-2012 14:21 Send private message

Have you considered bluetooth?

I use the Belkin bluetooth music receiver - http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=508754 - to stream music from my laptop or phone to my av receiver.

If you're a stickler for sound quality bluetooth might not be for you, but I've found it works quite well and haven't had any problems really.

Logitech also have a similar product as well.

4196 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
  Reply # 675507 22-Aug-2012 15:14 Send private message

Get a networkable receiver?

785 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber
  Reply # 675508 22-Aug-2012 15:16 Send private message

Jared777: Have you considered bluetooth?

I use the Belkin bluetooth music receiver - http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=508754 - to stream music from my laptop or phone to my av receiver.

If you're a stickler for sound quality bluetooth might not be for you, but I've found it works quite well and haven't had any problems really.

Logitech also have a similar product as well.


+1 for the Logitech unit. I stream music from my iPad and my Galaxy SII to our stereo in the lounge. Works great up to about 10 metres but needs to be pretty much line of sight.

An alternative (that we also use to get a Sky TV signal from MySky box to a TV in our kitchen downstairs) is an AV transmitter at the box end and an AV Receiver at the TV end. Also works brilliantly - and will work for just just stereo audio into your receiver. You can get the AV Tx/Rx quite cheaply at Dick Smith.



87 posts

Master Geek
  Reply # 675648 22-Aug-2012 21:06 Send private message

Thanks for the suggestions. The Airport Express suggestion got me googling which lead me to Airfoil for Windows which I have tried and seems fantastic - streams audio from laptop to Apple TV.  And the key thing (which the ATV toslink to RCA doesn't achieve) is that I control the audio from the laptop and not from ATV - when you start AirFoil it simply 'starts up' in ATV

However the final step is that I don't need to turn on my TV so I will still need a toslink to RCA adapter - are $50 on ebay.

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