OT: Network Capable Stereo Receivers

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jay Honeck
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We've got some techno-geek audiophiles here, so please pardon the intrusion. I'm on a mission, and I need advice as to how best to proceed.

I have moved all of our music to The Cloud, specifically Google Music. This works great from our smart phones and tablets, anywhere, and we love it.

My next task is to get this music playing through our home theater stereo system. The traditional way of plugging our phones/tablets into a dock (that is connected to an auxiliary input on my stereo receiver) works fine, but I want to be able to stream our music wirelessly to the stereo system, while controlling it from the device at hand, be it a Droid phone or tablet, anywhere in the house.

To that end, I've ordered a Logitech Bluetooth receiver that will be connected to my stereo receiver, receiving signals from our devices and playing the music through our stereo.

I expect this will work, but it will be of limited range (line of sight) and quality. It will also eat our battery life. I therefore view this as a half-step toward my ultimate goal, which is to be able to stream our music collection directly from The Cloud into/through my home stereo via our home network. This will require connecting the stereo directly to my home network, somehow, either via one of the new internet-capable stereo receivers, like Onkyo and Denon make, or through some sort of external box that will work with my existing stereo receiver.

Right now, I'm exploring boxes, since my current stereo receiver works great. Basically these boxes appear to be purpose-built network bridges, with music outputs to connect to your stereo receiver.

Has anyone tried doing this? I've read up on the Slingbox, which seems to do what I'm looking to achieve, but I'm not sure how you control it. I do NOT want to be tied to a PC to make this work.

The basic goal is to be able to view the music collection on Google Music, using our smart phones/tablets, and to be able to control and play the music on our stereo, without moving our lazy butts from our chairs. Anyone already doing this?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
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Jay, I do what you describe using my AppleTV box, but (of course) it relies upon me looking at the tv screen to see what it is that I am selecting (song, artist, album, genre, playlist). The device costs about a hundred bucks, and the Remote app for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch is free. You have to have a computer with iTunes on the network somewhere. Works fine.

An early stab at this was the Turtle Beach AudioTron, which was a stereo component which connected to the network, and would play Internet radio and MP3 music. An amazing device for when it was released, but TB apparently did not make money with it because he pulled the plug on the product years ago. I bought one on eBay, but it managed to die.

For what you are describing, I think the Logitech Squeezebox line is likely to get the closest, and it has the added benefit of having survived the shaking-out of competing products, so you are not likely to be saddled with an orphan, like I am with the AudioTron.

Here's a pretty comprehensive list of current stuff to do what you describe- I would keep the player and the "stereo" separate, but that's me. The lines are getting kind of blurry, aren't they?

http://reviews.cnet.com/home-audio-reviews/?filter=500891_103222_

Good luck!
 
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You know, if Heathkit were still around.... sigh.
 
Jay, I think your biggest challenge will be getting a device which is capable of playing the music from the Google Music storage... without having a PC on all the time to act as a "server."

What you really should do, is have a cheap NAS (network attached storage) drive with the entire music library loaded on it, mirrored to the Google doohickey (for your use with the Android devices, and for a backup). The NAS remains on and available to the network, and is used for playing music on the stereo.

Dang. Still nothing better than the AudioTron was - it played from anywhere on the network, required only shared drive (no special host software on the storage device), and could be controlled with a remote control, at the front panel or with any web browser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AudioTron

http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2002/11/27/thg/atron.jpg
 
My wife just bought me an apple tv and airport extreme for our anniversary yesterday. I have about 10k mp3's from when I used to DJ and am trying to get my external HDD to network using the USB on the airport.

From what I have been reading so far, I should be able to open that HDD to incoming connections , for remote access to what is on that HDD.

That may be something that might work along the lines you are trying to do.
 
SCCutler said:
Jay, I think your biggest challenge will be getting a device which is capable of playing the music from the Google Music storage... without having a PC on all the time to act as a "server."

What you really should do, is have a cheap NAS (network attached storage) drive with the entire music library loaded on it, mirrored to the Google doohickey (for your use with the Android devices, and for a backup). The NAS remains on and available to the network, and is used for playing music on the stereo.

Dang. Still nothing better than the AudioTron was - it played from anywhere on the network, required only shared drive (no special host software on the storage device), and could be controlled with a remote control, at the front panel or with any web browser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AudioTron

http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2002/11/27/thg/atron.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've looked at the NAS option, but that seems to negate the whole Cloud idea. I've already got the music on various computers and formats (like, a brazillion CDs), but I want to get away from all that.

I hear that Google is about to come out with a device (pictures make it look like an orb -- cute, but dumb) that will allow access to their music in precisely the way I've described. For some reason they have delayed the release date.

As for Apple TV and Sling box, they seem to have put their emphasis on TV, and I'm not sure if they can access other web portals than the ones that come preloaded. That's the problem I've got with my BlueRay player -- its connected to the internet, can play Netflix, Hulu, and internet radio (Pandora) through my stereo, but cannot be programmed to access anything else on the web. Its controlled through the TV, which is awkward. (The interface is laughably bad.)

The Audiotron sounds like a product ahead of its time. We needed Cloud computing to be accepted before that concept could be economically viable, I guess.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
One program I did mess around with was called subsonic. You could share a folder on your network and it would be accessible from a music player that you could point to its ip address . XXX.XXX.XXX: port


It was a little cryptic , but it worked. I have not messed around with it much more than an hour since using Itunes and Itunes match.

But once again , was needing a pc turned on all the time.
 
I've done this a number of ways, but today as with Spike, the AppleTV is the most convenient.

In the past, they made docks for Apple devices that included a remote control. I've still got one hooked up here from Keyspan that had an RF remote that would control the iPod devices while they sat in the dock hooked to the stereo, charging. It's worked now for four generations of products, which is impressive in the tech world. If I took a Dremel tool and cut notches in it, it'd work as an iPad stand and remote too. Haha.

Kinda don't need it with AirPlay though. ;)

Perhaps someone has made a dock with a remote for it for the Android stuff? Does that Google device of yours have a standardized connector on it for docking? (Honestly don't know. Just thinking a powered dock with a remote that knew how to control the device and gave a Line Out level port, worked great here for years and years...)
 
I'm uploading my collection to the cloud using Itunes match. Yeah it's 24 bucks a year, but I don't have to sync the actual music on the device its self.

If not familiar , when you put your music into Itunes, it looks through it's database and matches music and you can then play it from a cloud . If your music doesn't exist ( as much of my remix's do not , since they were from a dj music service) , it will upload the music for me , then copy it to the cloud.

But that will not work in this situation , since he is tied to google .
 
cavmedic said:
I'm uploading my collection to the cloud using Itunes match. Yeah it's 24 bucks a year, but I don't have to sync the actual music on the device its self.

If not familiar , when you put your music into Itunes, it looks through it's database and matches music and you can then play it from a cloud . If your music doesn't exist ( as much of my remix's do not , since they were from a dj music service) , it will upload the music for me , then copy it to the cloud.

But that will not work in this situation , since he is tied to google .
Click to expand...

Actually, Google Music does everything you just described, including auto-synching all of your devices to either iTunes or Windows Media Player, for FREE.

It's a wonderful set up.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
rainsux said:
I expect that all the hardware vendors will be adding support for Google Music.
Click to expand...

Heh, not ALL. I'm betting Apple won't be adding Google Play support to my AppleTV. ;)

All the brand name TV type folks, probably. It all depends on what Google says they'll give them for it.

They don't put that stuff in their devices for free much anymore. Maybe back when it was all new...

Netflix is in everything nowadays, yet their business model is still a long-term loser. They're not making money at it.

The content providers can (and will continue to) demand whatever prove they want for their content.

That was one of the huge paradyme shifts when iTunes opened their store... for the first time someone had an Internet delivery system for DRMed content, and enough users already lined up to buy, that was compelling enough to get the RIAA and eventually the MPAA on board, and then to eventually switch to all DRM Free formats.

Google is coming in as what, the fourth player in the market space? It's rare to see a 4th place tech company in anything end up on top. Because of their clout elsewhere they may have some ways to twist the arms of the content providers, but in the end, dilution of the users across four or five platforms will just make it easier for prices to rise, not be negotiated downward.

It's similar to the problem of airlines. Always too many of them for the number of people flown... except at busy season.

Google is losing money on the devices, and may lose money or break even on the content... we shall see!
 
denverpilot said:
It's rare to see a 4th place tech company in anything end up on top.
Click to expand...

Seems to me that Apple, once upon a time, was far, far lower than #1 in the tech world - they are now on top.

Like others, they are pushing the definitions of "monopolistic behavior" to see where the limits are. I think as long as G is a strong competitor that Apple will be able to mount a good argument. From that aspect, Apple may well be better off having G to kick around for a while longer. And vice-versa.
 
I am reading Google's limitations for use of their service, and it could be a real problem. They authorize use of no more than one device at a time, which would mean that, if you were playing off of a (presumptive) home stereo-connected device, Mary or Becca could not (at least, in compliance with G's terms) also play from the same library.

I re-assert my general suggestion: use the Google cloud service for (1) playing, when you are away from home, and (2) a good backup to your music library.

That way, you can play local and not impede remote use as well. In addition, you will not have to worry about Internet traffic impeding the clean playback of your music at home.

This is the smart way to go. You know it is, because I suggested it.
 
SCCutler said:
I am reading Google's limitations for use of their service, and it could be a real problem. They authorize use of no more than one device at a time, which would mean that, if you were playing off of a (presumptive) home stereo-connected device, Mary or Becca could not (at least, in compliance with G's terms) also play from the same library.
Click to expand...

My bet is that is driven by RIAA and the music industry. My bet is also that it is generally ignored, though under a subpeona the data about your use could be provided....

I'm too lazy to look it up - does it say "same library" or "same tune"? Obviously if I have a collection of CD's in my library at home then I could have different ones playing on different devices.
 
It definitely referenced devices, not songs, but I can't find exact language just now, and I have to get ready for a seminar. Will hunt it down later.

Got inspired to reconnect my AudioTron last night (have not been using it for reasons of distraction), amazed again at what a nice, simple and effective device it really is.

Looks like you can get one on eBay for fifty-seventy five bucks, or thereabouts. I may just buy one for the office.
 
SCCutler said:
I am reading Google's limitations for use of their service, and it could be a real problem. They authorize use of no more than one device at a time, which would mean that, if you were playing off of a (presumptive) home stereo-connected device, Mary or Becca could not (at least, in compliance with G's terms) also play from the same library.

I re-assert my general suggestion: use the Google cloud service for (1) playing, when you are away from home, and (2) a good backup to your music library.

That way, you can play local and not impede remote use as well. In addition, you will not have to worry about Internet traffic impeding the clean playback of your music at home.

This is the smart way to go. You know it is, because I suggested it.
Click to expand...

I'm looking at their terms of service, Spike, and see no such limitation. In fact, if you had access to my Google account, you would see that I currently have many devices synched to my Google Music account.

Two tablets, three cell phones, and three PCs, to be precise.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Okay, here's what just came in the mail. Thank you, Amazon.

http://mobile.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/home-pc-speakers/wireless-speaker-adapter

Connecting was bone simple. Plug the provided AV cable into the bridge, plug the other end into available jacks on your receiver. (I used "Tape", which tells you how old my Technics receiver is.). Plug unit into wall.

Pairing the Bluetooth could not have been easier. Push button on box. Select device now visible on tablet.

Butt firmly planted in my Barca-lounger, I opened Google Music on my Nexus 7 and selected Aerosmith. Voila! I am now streaming my music from the cloud (via WiFi) through my Nexus 7 to my stereo via Bluetooth.

Un-freaking-believable, this technology stuff. I now have access to thousands of MY songs, stored somewhere in Google's Cloud, controlled from this thing I'm holding in my hand, that I'm also using to post on P of A.

The sound quality is excellent. Range is amazingly better than advertised. I just walked into another room and the music never missed a beat.

Downsides? Um, I still have to get up to turn on the receiver? Lol. Seriously, I suspect battery life on the tablet/phone will be hacked in half by having both Bluetooth and WiFi running, but that's what charging stations are for.

Cool beans.
 
Follow-up post...

I've had the Bluetooth system connecting my Cloud music to my stereo for two days, and about 10 hours of use.

So far, its been flawless. Sound quality is excellent, range is beyond line-of-sight (something I did not expect), and the interface is bone simple -- just turn on Bluetooth on your mobile device and play your tunes.

Battery life on my Nexus 7 is...many hours. It never died, so I guess its a non-issue.

I've discovered some other fun uses for this technology. LiveATC sounds much better over a real sound system. Listening to the police scanner is cool, but annoying. Your personal assistant (Siri, on Iphones) sounds awesome, too.

I've only found one flaw really. When my daughter plays her stuff, the system doesn't remember my device anymore. I have to re-pair my Bluetooth -- a 2 second but annoying to repeat task.

Overall, this is EXACTLY what I wanted. Maybe someday I will connect the stereo directly to the Cloud music, but for now streaming it through our mobile devices via Bluetooth is great.



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
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