Question: Best way to get music from my home server to my stereo system?

3 February 2013 | Notary Sojac

[Notary Sojac]

I have over 300 GB of high quality (256 and 320 MP3, and FLAC) digital audio in a hard drive on my home server.

About forty feet away is my living room stereo, an old but quite decent sounding Technics receiver (which far predates the networking era) and floor-standing JBL speakers.

What I would like to figure out is a way to get the latter to pull tunes from the former, via my wireless router.

Is there a device that will read the server contents and feed them to my existing receiver's audio inputs?? What is it?? Or do I need to get a new receiver that will recognize the network, and if so, what sort??

The only "must" feature is that I want to be able to browse the folders and files of my music collection from the living room (receiver) location.

And yes, I have thought of just buying a laptop and sticking it in the living room, but the design of my stereo shelving wouldn't permit that without a major rebuild. Something with front panel display, that would fit in a stereo component sized hole (replacing the CD player it would make redundant) is what I'm really hoping to find.

Thanks as always to the Freeper community for your expertise......

[bmwcyle]

Are you Logged in?

[Mr. K]

there is a simple connector that plugs into the same port as for your earphones on the computer, with RCA jacks on the other end

less than $10 at radio shack

[al baby]

What model JBLS ?

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

LOL

[G Larry]

If only I could upload photos to FR.....

(Butler setting a stack of 45 rpm records onto a stereo....)

[kjam22]

Wireless..... cloud service, mp3 player plugged into audio inputs on receiver. Its easy.

[overtaxedindc]

You could get an unamped sonos box and plug that into your receiver. The sonos app on the ipad/phone is great and would work anywhere in your house.

[G Larry]

>home.provide.net/~djcarlst/45EY2.htm<

I don’t see the problem.....?

[KarlInOhio]

I have a Sony blu-ray player that will connect to a DLNA server either built into some newer routers or as a PC program. I've used Serviio (with two i's) on a PC before I got a router with it.

I also have a bluetooth receiver I picked up for about $20 which will take music sent from my iPod Touch and play it on the stereo.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Ge JasHO97686 Wireless Computer To Stereo Transmitter

[G Larry]

>http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/45EY2.htm<

ok...how’s this

[Las Vegas Ron]

I use Push 2TV. You will need WiDi on your computer though.

I also have a wired cat 5 connection. The former is great for YouTube videos, the latter is great for stored music. The quality of hard wired vs wireless is noticeable but negligible.....depending on how critical you are when listening to music. Push 2TV is also 5.1 capable as well as 1080P.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

This might help

Airfoil = Mentioned in the artical

[Last Dakotan]

I just did this - but even better.

All my music is now on a hard drive wired to the wireless router. I used a WD My Book, though I use some cloud storage too.

Then I use a cheap laptop with Bluetooth connectivity to send it to a Bluetooth speaker.

The Bluetooth speakers like the JBL Charge are really nice and can go anywhere in or outside.

Time to ditch the old stereo system.

[brandon24]

I use an HP netbook for this and it works nice. If you search ebay for “netbook 311” you’ll see some results for HP netbooks for pretty cheap. These netbooks have HDMI out and Nvidia ION chips for even gpu accelerated video. I can even play x264 encoded (H.264/MPEG-4) 1080P movies i’ve downloaded on it. I installed 3GB of RAM on mine and installed Win7. Though its a slower ATOM processor it runs fine as long as you don’t load a bunch of crap that runs in startup like antivirus. Just don’t web browse on it or do stupid stuff that will get it infected and you can use it just as a media player.

[BornToBeAmerican]

I stream my collection through my Roku. I created a music channel and linked it to my PC. I am hoping for something that will stream Google play seamlessly. I make do now by streaming through my smartphone via an HTC hdmi / Bluetooth adaptor. I can stream video surprisingly well this essay too.

Just for music I stream from and old smartphone to my sound bar wirelessly to Google play where all my music can be found, works pretty good.

[Jayster]

http://www.ccrane.com/radios/fm-transmitters/fm-transmitter-2.asp After you get it you need to to a Mod on it to improve the distance and output. http://www.outlawradio.us/CCrane_Mod.html
http://youtu.be/n71jvpeAhSs

[BBB333]

I use iTunes and AppleTV.

Wife loves it.

700 CD’s and 400 movies.

P.S. I am not an Apple fanboy - typing this via Windows 7. If you do have an iPhone or an iPad there is a remote app (Apple Remote App) that is wonderful. Much less than a Sonos setup.

Good luck!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

There is a device you can buy that will plug in to your PC's 1/8" audio line out (or headphone out) and then transmit an FM signal that can be picked up by your tuner (or receiver) and amplified at that point. It transmits on a range between 88Mhz and approx. 95Mhz FM. Get one that is a bit more expensive than the crap ones on eBay to get more features and better signal lock (cheap ones tend to drift). I've used one on long trips to get my MP3s on my phone to play on the car stereo. They work very well.

That's just off the top of my head but with some additional cipherin' I could come up with something that will use the wifi connection.

You say a laptop is out? Why not an inexpensive tablet like the Asus MeMo?

139 bucks and you're in business. Wireless networking, shared folders and an audio app that probably comes with it and bingo!