Audio open standards / recommendations for portable-ish wireless speakers
Hi, all. I recently sent my trusty hi-fi which had reached a grand old age of over a decade and a half of useful service off to be recycled. The CD player had long-since stopped working and the radio was never very good, so it ended its useful life being a glorified amp. I'd like to replace it with something but I'm not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, so I haven't really got much of a clue in this area. I want something I can connect wirelessly to stream stuff from my Android smartphone, tablet and PC etc. I expect it needs to connect to wi-fi whilst at home where it will be most of the time, but I'd like to be portable enough to move it without too much hassle on occasion to locations where it won't have access to a wi-fi network. As an example, my last hi-fi was recently used to run a few ceilidhs - so I'd like it to be moderately powerful, so I can take it a hall in the middle of nowhere and be capable of playing music streamed from my smartphone, over bluetooth I imagine, and loud enough to work at such an event. In an ideal world, if I could buy two such devices and have them stream together so that I can have the same music playing in two separate rooms, that'd be quite handy. Maybe synced over wi-fi? Now, my (vague) question is - are there any open standards I should be looking for in this area of audio streaming / hi-fi? Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?). I'm not looking for a full-on surround sound system, and I don't want to be locked into proprietary technology - I want something which will play nicely with my rooted OmniROM smartphone and, if I ever get round to building one, a Linux-based media server. I don't yet have a NAS setup, but I'm in the market for one of those eventually. I'd like to be able to play stuff from the NAS when I get that setup, so what sort of things should I be considering from the speaker side and also the NAS side? I've heard of DLNA but not done much reading around on it yet. I've also heard of Sonus and the (arguably defunct?) Squeezebox as decent proprietary options but not sure they quite fit my requirements? Has there been any open technologies in this area I should look for? Or, as I'm beginning to suspect, should I be looking at something which doesn't have much intelligence in and is basically just a big wi-fi & bluetooth speaker. I fully intend to do some proper reading around, but I was Interested in anyone's general opinions of things to look for and to give me some pointers to decent buzzwords / protocols that might be worth googling. I thought it might be a topic of interest to others too. Cheers in advance for any help! Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote: [ALL SNIPPED] First thought (before a more detailed reply), on the Gadget show last night, they pointed out that you could add one of these boxes to a simple stereo to give bluetooth streaming functionality. Would this simple solution fit the bill for you before you scrap your existing box. They said they could get one for 9.99, but the cheapest I found is £14, bluetooth & NFC http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301399658743?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l4456&_trkparms... Steve
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote:
Hi, all.
I recently sent my trusty hi-fi which had reached a grand old age of over a decade and a half of useful service off to be recycled. The CD player had long-since stopped working and the radio was never very good, so it ended its useful life being a glorified amp.
I'd like to replace it with something but I'm not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, so I haven't really got much of a clue in this area.
I want something I can connect wirelessly to stream stuff from my Android smartphone, tablet and PC etc. I expect it needs to connect to wi-fi whilst at home where it will be most of the time,
Sonos would do most of those things, but it's pricey. I don't know if it will stream from a smart phone, but it's certainly controllable from one. It can play files on a shared (Samba/Windows share'd) folder. It can play/download from Spotify.
but I'd like to be portable enough to move it without too much hassle on occasion to locations where it won't have access to a wi-fi network.
Well most Sonos things are reasonably portable, but I don't know if they'll work with no local wifi. I suspect they will if you plug the smart phone audio out into a sonos with a line in socket.
As an example, my last hi-fi was recently used to run a few ceilidhs - so I'd like it to be moderately powerful, so I can take it a hall in the middle of nowhere and be capable of playing music streamed from my smartphone, over bluetooth I imagine, and loud enough to work at such an event.
In an ideal world, if I could buy two such devices and have them stream together so that I can have the same music playing in two separate rooms, that'd be quite handy. Maybe synced over wi-fi?
There are bluetooth speakers too, which connect to a smartphone (for example) over bluetooth. This works well, and is simple and a lot cheaper than a sonos. As for if it would be loud enough for a room, I suppose it depends what you buy. Even simpler than that, is just get some powered PC speakers and plug them into your smarphone with a cable.
Now, my (vague) question is - are there any open standards I should be looking for in this area of audio streaming / hi-fi?
I've looked at this various times, and for various reasons not entirely come up with a good solution. My first attempt was with DAAP running a server called mt_daap, AKA firefly. This is an old Apple protocol, but I think the firefly project (and equivalents) is pretty much dead. On the phone, I ran an app called DAAP media Player by Miceli Bros. The app's crude but it works. This requires a server on all the time you want to play music, the server streams the music to the phone. I gave up on this mostly because I have mp3s and ogg files, and firefly couldn't reliably transcode them as the player wouldn't play the Ogg files on my phone, or I couldn't get it to work. I wanted to persevere so that my media server could stream the files over the internet to my phone when I was away from home, but without the transcoding, it was just too slow and too much data. I came to the conclusion that Spotify would be a better way to go if I wanted remote music steaming, but I didn't want to pay for it, so I gave up. I eventually went with a raspberry pi computer running raspbian and mpd - media player daemon. I have two actually. One is headless, and one has a screen. Both can be controlled from a command line (over ssh if required) using mpc - media player client. Also, there's a graphical utility gmpc which I use on the one with a screen to control it. I can also control both from my laptop with gmpc. One's connected directly with my amp, one to a bluetooth speaker (gear 4 I think), which is actually connected via the screen's (a tv) sound out socket and a cable. I did read somewhere about how to stream in sync to remote boxes, but I failed to bookmark the article, and I've never found it since. Other quick thoughts (I've run out of time) Squeezebox - I'm not sure it's completely dead, and there's a linux package to talk to it I think. DLNA is I think the modern way to do things. I think it's also called and/or related to uupnp. There are various media server packages around, e.g. twonky. There's one I think it was called xbox media centre (XMC?) but it's recently changed name. You can get a raspberry pi distro to run it. Other ideas, stuff like an apple tv box, or similar do? Hope this helps. Not snipping the rest to remind me what I haven't commented on, so I can comment later. Good luck!. Steve --
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?). I'm not looking for a full-on surround sound system, and I don't want to be locked into proprietary technology - I want something which will play nicely with my rooted OmniROM smartphone and, if I ever get round to building one, a Linux-based media server.
I don't yet have a NAS setup, but I'm in the market for one of those eventually. I'd like to be able to play stuff from the NAS when I get that setup, so what sort of things should I be considering from the speaker side and also the NAS side? I've heard of DLNA but not done much reading around on it yet.
I've also heard of Sonus and the (arguably defunct?) Squeezebox as decent proprietary options but not sure they quite fit my requirements? Has there been any open technologies in this area I should look for? Or, as I'm beginning to suspect, should I be looking at something which doesn't have much intelligence in and is basically just a big wi-fi & bluetooth speaker.
I fully intend to do some proper reading around, but I was Interested in anyone's general opinions of things to look for and to give me some pointers to decent buzzwords / protocols that might be worth googling. I thought it might be a topic of interest to others too.
Cheers in advance for any help!
Peter.
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote: [Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?). Sonos? Squeezebox or its replacement. Also, if you're using phone and speaker, you can have internet radio via the Tunein radio app (there are other radio apps). More choice and better, provided you have a data signal. If you're at home, you can use the RadioTray program. You can also play via the individual radio station websites, or via the http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/ website, which lists most of the UK radio stations and their feeds - it's brilliant. Also, you can play radio via mpd/mpc by just providing it with the radio feed address.
This reminded me about my raspberry pi mpc setup. I've installed something called ROMPR (I think) which is a web front-end for mpd - you also need a web server installed. This lets you chose the music, or radio stations.
I'm not looking for a full-on surround sound system,
Sonos is configurable, you can set up separate speakers as mono, or stereo, possibly even surround
and I don't want to be locked into proprietary technology
No sonos or squeezebox then! :-)
- I want something which will play nicely with my rooted OmniROM smartphone and, if I ever get round to building one, a Linux-based media server.
You may have to!
I don't yet have a NAS setup, but I'm in the market for one of those eventually.
You could build your own media server or NAS or research media server boxes (apple tv etc). Raspberry Pi, xbc, twonky server etc. There's also the old "slug" device that's been used as a NAS I think with Open WRT installed on it I think.
I'd like to be able to play stuff from the NAS when I get that setup, so what sort of things should I be considering from the speaker side and also the NAS side?
Speakers? How long is a piece of string. Depends on how much of an audiophile you are, how much you want to spend, how compressed your music/mp3s/oggs are. Many bluetooth speakers are low power and typically battery powered. This is probably incompatible with your ceilidhs requirement. Hire a speaker and plug it into your phone!
I've heard of DLNA but not done much reading around on it yet. Do read up on DLNA. Also, UPnP (not uupnp as I said earlier!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UPnP_AV_media_servers_and_clients
There's also MythTV http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_dlna.php My current to-read list http://blog.scphillips.com/2013/01/using-a-raspberry-pi-with-android-phones-... http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-upnpdlna-servers-streaming-media-devices-cros... http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Productivity-Sauce/Set-up-a-DLNA-... http://lifehacker.com/5975362/five-best-desktop-media-servers (Oh yes, I forgot Plex server & Gnu's Tygel media server) Build a raspberry pi with speakers to act as a bluetooth music receiver and player http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-your-Raspberry-Pi-into-a-Portable-Bluet...
I've also heard of Sonus and the (arguably defunct?) Squeezebox as decent proprietary options but not sure they quite fit my requirements?
Not open source. DOn't know if it'll work without wireless network. Simpler but More expensive.
Has there been any open technologies in this area I should look for? Or, as I'm beginning to suspect, should I be looking at something which doesn't have much intelligence in and is basically just a big wi-fi & bluetooth speaker.
Inteligence or not, really depends. I have a bluetooth speaker which is great for portable - music where I go (but won't run a disco/ceilidh), and 2 Raspberries - 1 via and amp, 1 via a tv.
I fully intend to do some proper reading around, but I was Interested in anyone's general opinions of things to look for and to give me some pointers to decent buzzwords / protocols that might be worth googling. I thought it might be a topic of interest to others too.
Cheers in advance for any help!
Peter.
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server! Good luck. Steve
Thanks for that Steve. Lots of food for thought! I forgot to mention Plex - I have heard of that one as well, and it looks interesting. I'll add that to my list of things to google. :) I do have a Google Chromecast, and I believe that comes with a Plex app too. The synching multiple speakers conundrum has led me to Caskeid [http://www.caskeid.com/] which appears to be a form of technology licensed to Pure devices which is designed to solve just this problem, though I'm not sure how well it works. I am sort of erring in looking for a fairly beefy bluetooth/wifi dumb speaker at the moment, depending on whether the Caskeid stuff leads anywhere - my phone does pretty much everything I could want music-wise, atm, so using that as the base sort of makes sense and probably means I won't have to spend anywhere near as much. I have the paid-for TuneIn radio app already etc. I'm afraid the old hi-fi has already gone - it was on its last legs, and I'd really like to move to a wireless solution anyway. I'll read around more of the stuff you've linked to - thanks muchly. I think I'm on the right track, but it's not really my area so always of interest to read what others have been up to. Peter. On 17 March 2015 at 17:18, <steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk> wrote:
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote:
[Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?).
Sonos? Squeezebox or its replacement. Also, if you're using phone and speaker, you can have internet radio via the Tunein radio app (there are other radio apps). More choice and better, provided you have a data signal. If you're at home, you can use the RadioTray program. You can also play via the individual radio station websites, or via the http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/ website, which lists most of the UK radio stations and their feeds - it's brilliant. Also, you can play radio via mpd/mpc by just providing it with the radio feed address.
This reminded me about my raspberry pi mpc setup. I've installed something called ROMPR (I think) which is a web front-end for mpd - you also need a web server installed. This lets you chose the music, or radio stations.
I'm not looking for a full-on surround sound system,
Sonos is configurable, you can set up separate speakers as mono, or stereo, possibly even surround
and I don't want to be locked into proprietary technology
No sonos or squeezebox then! :-)
- I want something which will play nicely with my rooted OmniROM smartphone and, if I ever get round to building one, a Linux-based media server.
You may have to!
I don't yet have a NAS setup, but I'm in the market for one of those eventually.
You could build your own media server or NAS or research media server boxes (apple tv etc). Raspberry Pi, xbc, twonky server etc. There's also the old "slug" device that's been used as a NAS I think with Open WRT installed on it I think.
I'd like to be able to play stuff from the NAS when I get that setup, so what sort of things should I be considering from the speaker side and also the NAS side?
Speakers? How long is a piece of string. Depends on how much of an audiophile you are, how much you want to spend, how compressed your music/mp3s/oggs are. Many bluetooth speakers are low power and typically battery powered. This is probably incompatible with your ceilidhs requirement. Hire a speaker and plug it into your phone!
I've heard of DLNA but not done much reading around on it yet.
Do read up on DLNA. Also, UPnP (not uupnp as I said earlier!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UPnP_AV_media_servers_and_clients
There's also MythTV http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_dlna.php
My current to-read list http://blog.scphillips.com/2013/01/using-a-raspberry-pi-with-android-phones-... http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-upnpdlna-servers-streaming-media-devices-cros... http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Productivity-Sauce/Set-up-a-DLNA-... http://lifehacker.com/5975362/five-best-desktop-media-servers
(Oh yes, I forgot Plex server & Gnu's Tygel media server)
Build a raspberry pi with speakers to act as a bluetooth music receiver and player http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-your-Raspberry-Pi-into-a-Portable-Bluet...
I've also heard of Sonus and the (arguably defunct?) Squeezebox as decent proprietary options but not sure they quite fit my requirements?
Not open source. DOn't know if it'll work without wireless network. Simpler but More expensive.
Has there been any open technologies in this area I should look for? Or, as I'm beginning to suspect, should I be looking at something which doesn't have much intelligence in and is basically just a big wi-fi & bluetooth speaker.
Inteligence or not, really depends. I have a bluetooth speaker which is great for portable - music where I go (but won't run a disco/ceilidh), and 2 Raspberries - 1 via and amp, 1 via a tv.
I fully intend to do some proper reading around, but I was Interested in anyone's general opinions of things to look for and to give me some pointers to decent buzzwords / protocols that might be worth googling. I thought it might be a topic of interest to others too.
Cheers in advance for any help!
Peter.
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server!
Good luck.
Steve
_______________________________________________ main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
-- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum
On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:18:39 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote: [Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?).
[ Lots of deletia ] I'll add to what Steve has said (and share my experience). Actually I've been meaning to blog about my setup for some time now, but my blogging is woefully behind at the moment. This query may be just the nudge I need to get something done. Server wise I have two devices. One is my dedicated Music box - a Cocktail Audio X10 which has all my CDs ripped to FLAC. I used to have that plugged into two wired bookcase speakers but after experimenenting with a Sonos Play 1 I managed to convince my wife to buy me a couple more for christmas/birthday (as Steve said, they ain't cheap). I now stream all my music over wifi to two Sonos speakers (set up as a stereo pair) in my study. I have the original Play 1 in the kitchen so that I can listen there as well. The X10 is set up as a Samba server in order to feed the Sonos speakers. I didn't have to do anything clever to get it to work, I just used the default Samba settings on the X10 and pointed the Sonos speakers to it and let it go. Of course the Sonos and X10 have to be on the same network for this to work (I actually have two, an "outer" and "inner" network so that phones and guests can use one and my own stuff is separate). The Sonos devices have no problem handling FLAC files and they sound really good. One of the nice things about the Sonos system is that the speakers can be "grouped" so that they all play the same thing (so you can wander from one room to another and hear the same stuff) or they can all play separate streams (so I can listen to what I want in the study whilst something different is playing in the kitchen (or wherever). The system can also stream the usual huge range of internet radio plus a bunch of paid for music services if that is your thing. The downside of course is that the Sonos system is proprietary (and expensive) and needs a good wifi system in place. You can use wired ethernet, but obvioulsy this is les flexible. There is also no possibility of wired audio input. Now onto the second device which is my debian based NAS come allsorts server (it runs my DNS and a few other services). This server holds one copy of all my desktop's data (so it includes my photo and video collection as well as my personal data). I NFS export copies of my videos and photos (and MP3 files - see below) to my wife's laptop so that she has access to the collection. I also run a copy of the mediatomb DLNA server on that box so that all my DVDs (ripped to MP4) are available to my (rather too) smart telly. Now the nice thing about having all my music on the X10 in FLAC format is that I can then re-encode to MP3 on the NAS (which I do with a home spun script) for use on USB sticks in the car or on my portable MP3 player when I'm pounding the treadmill in the gym. None of this really answers the question about portable hiFi to events, but I hope it is of some use. Mick
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server!
See comment above about separate streams
_______________________________________________ main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks, Mick. Yes, lots of food for thought there. I need to sit down and do some proper research, but hearing how other people have been managing their music / audio setups is very helpful. :) Peter. On 17 March 2015 at 18:34, mick <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:18:39 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote: [Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?).
[ Lots of deletia ]
I'll add to what Steve has said (and share my experience). Actually I've been meaning to blog about my setup for some time now, but my blogging is woefully behind at the moment. This query may be just the nudge I need to get something done.
Server wise I have two devices. One is my dedicated Music box - a Cocktail Audio X10 which has all my CDs ripped to FLAC. I used to have that plugged into two wired bookcase speakers but after experimenenting with a Sonos Play 1 I managed to convince my wife to buy me a couple more for christmas/birthday (as Steve said, they ain't cheap). I now stream all my music over wifi to two Sonos speakers (set up as a stereo pair) in my study. I have the original Play 1 in the kitchen so that I can listen there as well. The X10 is set up as a Samba server in order to feed the Sonos speakers. I didn't have to do anything clever to get it to work, I just used the default Samba settings on the X10 and pointed the Sonos speakers to it and let it go. Of course the Sonos and X10 have to be on the same network for this to work (I actually have two, an "outer" and "inner" network so that phones and guests can use one and my own stuff is separate). The Sonos devices have no problem handling FLAC files and they sound really good. One of the nice things about the Sonos system is that the speakers can be "grouped" so that they all play the same thing (so you can wander from one room to another and hear the same stuff) or they can all play separate streams (so I can listen to what I want in the study whilst something different is playing in the kitchen (or wherever). The system can also stream the usual huge range of internet radio plus a bunch of paid for music services if that is your thing. The downside of course is that the Sonos system is proprietary (and expensive) and needs a good wifi system in place. You can use wired ethernet, but obvioulsy this is les flexible. There is also no possibility of wired audio input.
Now onto the second device which is my debian based NAS come allsorts server (it runs my DNS and a few other services). This server holds one copy of all my desktop's data (so it includes my photo and video collection as well as my personal data). I NFS export copies of my videos and photos (and MP3 files - see below) to my wife's laptop so that she has access to the collection. I also run a copy of the mediatomb DLNA server on that box so that all my DVDs (ripped to MP4) are available to my (rather too) smart telly.
Now the nice thing about having all my music on the X10 in FLAC format is that I can then re-encode to MP3 on the NAS (which I do with a home spun script) for use on USB sticks in the car or on my portable MP3 player when I'm pounding the treadmill in the gym.
None of this really answers the question about portable hiFi to events, but I hope it is of some use.
Mick
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server!
See comment above about separate streams
_______________________________________________ main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________ main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
-- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum
On 18/03/15 13:59, samwise wrote:
Thanks, Mick.
Yes, lots of food for thought there. I need to sit down and do some proper research, but hearing how other people have been managing their music / audio setups is very helpful. :)
Peter.
Not quite a squeezebox, but if traditional radio manufacturer Roberts are doing things like this, there must be something that'll fit the bill for you somewhere! http://www.robertsradio.co.uk/product_details/STREAM107.htm Steve
participants (3)
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mick -
samwise -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk