[DanPackMan]

I am looking for a simple low cost device to send my music to my living room stereo. All I need/want is control from my desktop pc only, I don't need or want local control. A hardwired ethernet connection is available.

I have my music on a media center PC in a TV room with XBMC and Win 7 sharing. My living room stereo is just a 2 channel with analog RCA inputs.


What is the lowest cost device that can meet my needs?


All I can think of is trying to find a cheap Mini-itx board w/ audio out and running linux off of a USB stick with XBMC or other software. I might then use a VNC connection to control it. This seems like overkill and would probably cost me about $120. It would be nice to find something for less. Any suggestions?

 

[MarkHotchkiss]

Hi Dan,


I think the cheapest would be an old Audiotron on eBay. Besides streaming your local content, it also streams Internet radio. It has more functionality then you need, with its front panel and remote control, but I usually just control it from a web browser on my laptop. It is old, but I haven't seen anything yet that I like better.


The last one I saw went for $15 dollars the other day. I have two, and they cost me about $30 each.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Turtle-Beach-Aud...item4cf91dc083

 

[mayhem13]

or just run a pair of quality balanced cables with RCA adapters from the one system to the other.

 

[srauly]

How about a used iPod Touch? You won't be able to hook it up via ethernet, but for music streaming, 802.11g WiFi should be fine. You'll just need an adaptor cable to convert it from mini-headphone to RCA stereo.

 

[MarkHotchkiss]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mayhem13 /forum/post/20781461


or just run a pair of quality balanced cables with RCA adapters from the one system to the other.

Yes, if the Ethernet drop is not being used for anything else, you could pipe the analog audio directly from the media-center PC through the cat5 with a pair of baluns.

Quote:
Originally Posted by srauly /forum/post/20784492


How about a used iPod Touch? You won't be able to hook it up via ethernet, but for music streaming, 802.11g WiFi should be fine. You'll just need an adaptor cable to convert it from mini-headphone to RCA stereo.

Can the Touch pull music from a media-center PC and play it? I thought that it could only play music stored within itself. That could be an interesting tool that I haven't tried.


I have a system that plays from a Nano into a Sansui BA-2000, but the Nano's DACs are pretty poor quality, compared to the Sansui. And the music has to be stored on the Nano, which is a major headache.

 

[DanPackMan]

Thanks for the tips. The Audiotron looks a lot like what I'm looking for. I'll check it out further.


Hadn't thought about an IPOD. Good idea too, although I'm not sure how I'd control it from the PC.

 

[DanPackMan]

Forgot to mention, my Ethernet cables are not spare, so that is a no go, and don't want to run more wires.

Just remembered I also need to play FLAC as well as MP3. Hope the Audiotron can do that.

 

[MarkHotchkiss]

Forgot to mention the FLAC issue. The Audiotron predates FLAC. The Linux solution is to use a plug-in for Samba that transcodes FLAC to WAV on the fly. I don't know whether there is a similar solution for Windows.