How to play (wirelessly?) audio from PC to hi-fi across house?

[David Combs]

computer -->acrossHouse--> hi-fi? (Boss says "SEE NO WIRES!")

(Why the effort: hi-fi has vintage-1969 BOSE 901 incredible-sounding speakers, backed against old-house HARD plaster wall (ideal/required for the 901's audio backwards-reflection scheme).

Method 1: Buy cheap computer for hi-fi AND HOPE wifi reaches (6 plaster wall-faces; see below).

(Yes, wifi, transmitted from kitchen computer-site, does nicely reach laptop in basement, but that path is through only ONE wall and one wooden floor.)

Method 2: Hang cable from ceilings: kitchen (where PC is), across front hall, living room, and into where hi-fi is. (GUARANTEED RESULT: end up living on the street or in the car!)

Method 3: Hire electrician to run cable out kitchen window, around back of house, & into hi-fi's window.

Method 4: MY DESIRED IDEAL: (wireless scheme) Concoct scheme to transmit wireless signal from computer, received at hi-fi amp.

Distance: 13 yards;

Impediments to wireless transmission: must go through three OLD 1945 HOUSE walls, each surfaced with heavy plaster, probably backed with wire mesh, thus 3 * 2 = 6 layers of it (ie one layer on each wall face).

Question: how to implement such a solution -- and at a reasonable cost?

THANK YOU!

David

[micky]

Do you really need an electrician to do this?

Method 5. Run cat-5 or cat-6 cable through small hole in kitchen floor, preferablly under the kitchen sink where no one will see it, along the basement ceiling to a spot under the amp, and up through another small hole.

Purchase 3 foot drill bit to go through floors, walls, and ceilings.

Purchase a set of baluns for each end of the cat-6. (Hard to find, but you seem to already know how you will terminate your cable.)

IIRC, 100 feet for 8 dollars at monoprice.com If it's much more there, then there's a cheaper place.

[ps56k]

added the Internet Wireless - these kinds of WiFi questions come up all the time on the "wireless" newsgroup -

[George]

Why couldn't you load the songs on your portable player of choice (ipod etc) and plug it into the aux input on the amplifier? That immediately negates the need to keep a computer running and devising a method to connect the computer on the other end of the house to the amp.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

why is it necessary to get music from your PC? Wouldn't it just be easier to burn DVDs and get a d DVD player?

[Dean Hoffman]

Some cut due to AIOE quotation limit. What can I say? AIOE is free and I'm cheap, er, frugal.

Would a wifi repeater/range extender be what you're after? Amazon link:

[Dean Hoffman]

I don't know about the OP but I like internet radio. One can listen to stations from all over the world. I use an iPod with wifi. TuneIn is one of the apps for iPod that makes it work.

[mike]

I gave up on trying to get sound to the other end of the house wirelessly. I wanted to have music in the living room and the bedroom. Problem is that there's delay involved in the wireless process. Was ok on either end, but if you were in a position to hear both at the same time, it was unlistenable.

I was using networked computers. If you use analog wireless EVERYWHERE, you can do better.

My solution was to give up and use a $1 garage sale PDA with a flash card to play music elsewhere thru Yamaha computer speakers. Nobody would accuse the system of being audiophile quality, but It's pleasant enough that I rarely fire up the Klipchorns.

Hearing two different tunes is far less grating that hearing the same tune with an echo.

YMMV. Bottom line is...consider delays in the process before you spend a lot of money on it.

[micky]

I'm not sure if you were doing what I do (or did before I moved the computer to the basement, but didn't move the sound transmitter)

I have 2 1/2 pair of RCA wireless speakers. I only use one speaker per room. The computer is normally in one bedroom, and one speaker is in the bathroom, another in my bedroom, one in the kitchen, one in the basement, and one is for outside (though I havnt used that one.)

I never noticed a delay, and I would think I could hear the main speakers even when I was in the bathroom.

RCA wireless aren't really available, and the only other brand I've found is what they sell at Best Buy, about 100 a pair, much more than I paid a surplus guy at a computer show. One of the two transmitters that came with two pair didn't work, but he gave me another one to replace it. I bought the half pair at a hamfest. But I'll buy the expensive ones if I have to.

[micky]

Me too. The last thing I want to do is spend time picking out songs I want to hear and copying them somewhere. That's what they pay the folks at the radio station to do. Plus I like the surprise of hearing what someone else picked out for me.

And I don't always want music.

I don't know how I didn't notice this earlier, but Win Media Player 9 has a tab called Internet Radio, and ver. 11 has the same thing at Media Guide. Under that is a,b,c,d, Internet Radio, and under Internet Radio are lots of good things, some of them broadcast stations and others just on the net.. When one changes from one station to another, there is practically no wait time, plus it saves a list of stations you've listened to, most recent first.

Right now I'm liking this more than Pandora, and all of you probably have it.

When

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Media player and/or NAS?

[gfretwell]

Take your laptop up there and see if it works. If so get any kind of old computer and put it under the HiFi. You can hit the same music library on your main computer and run any number of different music programs on that PC. My favorite is still a DOS app called MPXPLAY. It allows the songs to be selected by number like a jukebox and defaults to random play. I used this in my car without a monitor at all. I just had a numeric pad on the console. If you have a TV in that location you can use that for your console with the added advantage of having internet content on the TV (Hulu, HBO Go etc)

[mike]

I think I had a bunch of those in use for a while. They're simple wireless RF speakers. They work fine.

The delay comes from digital processing. Bluetooth, wifi, etc. use complex modulation schemes that introduce a slight delay. It's not about the RF, it's about the digital processing.

If you look at competent media players, like vlc, there's often a menu item that can change the relative delays between the sound and picture to match the words with the lips. On my computer, some video formats are off by 0.4 seconds. Same concept.

If you buy wireless headphones that use simple modulation and plug into analog audio at the same place as your main speakers, they work fine. If you buy bluetooth wireless headphones, you may experience annoying delays.

My neighbor's TV has a sound bar connected optically. There's also a standard audio out. Even wired headphones didn't work well because of the delay introduced by the digital processing of the sound bar.

My point is, check it out before you spend a bunch of $$$.

[krw]

Why would anyone want TV video coming from their PC?

[gfretwell]

A quick one, get HBO Go in a hotel room, watching free movies instead of their $13 movie, using their TV and their WiFi.

[micky]

No cable or satellite charges.

[micky]

I guess I will. I would hate the delay if I had it.

I had my bedroom tv connected to the computer so I could watch movies, but I never watched one. Well, I bought "Burn" in PAL format (by accident) and watched that straight from the computer, because the DVD player wouldn't play it, but that's all.

[mike]

I record/timeshift/watch ATSC TV on a 24" lcd monitor three feet from my face. Total cost at garage sales under $20.

My neighbor has a shiny new 60" TV and a cable subscription. But he can't timeshift or record. Care to guess what he has invested?

My easy chair is about as comfortable as his.

[krw]

Why indeed. The satellite box does a far better job of it. ;-)

[krw]

Who in their right mind pays $13 for a "movie" on a little box?