[LAU] digital input to stereo receiver, maybe through ethernet

Dan Hitt dan.hitt at gmail.com
Wed Mar 29 03:23:03 UTC 2017


Thanks Len for your extensive reply, Arnold for the information about
your personal experience with the Denon, and Claude for the DLNA info.
And Arnold, if you do yield to the temptation and do a DIY project
with the ethernet, please post somewhere! :)

Len --- i'll try to respond to your questions since you were so nice
to reply (and likewise for anybody else who wants to ask about this!).
And thanks for the suggestion about using the multiple HDMI ins on the
Denon (presumably on other receivers as well).  Maybe that's what i'll
have to use, if the HDMI spec allows for cable that's long enough to
reach all the computers.

But first i should clarify what i want to do, because i don't think i
was very clear before.

The ultimate ideal state for me would be to use the stereo receiver
something like a network printer, so that any of several machines can
send it a stream of samples, and it will play them with as little
touching as possible.  (I would like to avoid having to select an
input on the receiver, but that's probably unreasonable.)  Everything
should be wired, nothing wireless.

Further, i don't want to send any analog information to the receiver.
Some of these new receivers seem to have very good D-to-A converters,
and presumably they are designed just with audio in mind (versus the
noisy inside of a computer).

So those are the two big requirements for me: (1) that i be able to
wire something up and leave it wired up, from several computers, and
(2) that it be digital all the way to the receiver.

(I guess it's probably possible that i could just dedicate a computer
to being a gateway to the receiver, but i would like to avoid tying up
a cpu for that purpose.)

That's the state i would like to arrive in.

Oh --- and of course i want to do it with free software, and these
boxes will all or mostly all be linux.

Now: as to your specific questions:


>> I have a pretty ancient stereo receiver that i'm thinking of replacing
>> or supplementing with something newer.
>
>
> Is it broken? When I want an amplifier, I generally go to a second hand
> store and find that $30 CDN gets a 100watt amp. Speakers make a much bigger
> difference for monitoring than the amp (unless it is really bad).
> A good set of 12in Tannoys in the right box with a $30 amp and the average
> cheap DVD player sounds better than any amp with cheap speakers.

No, it works fine, but just no digital input, and very unhandy to
switch in different computers to the one analog input i have on it for
such usage.

>> It looks like some of the new receivers have an ethernet jack, as well
>> as usb.  For example, see these Denons:
>> https://usa.denon.com/us/news/news/177
>
>
> ethernet... sounds great, but what protocol? AES67? AVB? something else?
>
> Well I took a look... it says HEOS link ... which after looking appears to
> be something like icecast (think 500ms latency... noticable for sure). So
> wireless would probably not be a problem (HEOS is designed for wireless).
> They suggest twonky server for this and while there is a version for linux,
> it is closed. The twonky website is not overflowing with info at all (
> http://twonky.com/ ) The front page is one of those click here to buy pages
> with just enough text to let you know it transfers media.



Very good point, and i wondered about it, and thought maybe somebody
on LAU would have such a device and have tried it out (cf Arnold's
experience posted later).

It sounds like it's probably not the path of least resistance though.
(There must be something running on the other side of the port, but
probably not so easy to control.)  However, your HDMI suggestion may
just be the ticket.

> .....
>
> USB... this is not a usb client port, but a host port, it expects a USB
> storage device to plug in, like a 32meg usb stick for example. (my dvd
> player does that too) However it would not plug into your computer.

That's too bad, but what you say sounds right, so that's not a path for me.

> .....
>
> If your MB has spdif out, those amps have that too.

My ignorance of the world is really unbounded, did not realize that
MBs could have spdif out.

>
> Quite honestly, Linux does streaming quite well, icecast for audio... and I
> know there are some for video as well. The quality can be very good, but the
> kind of latency you are looking at would make game playing that relied on
> audio cues alomst impossible. There are good low latency network audio
> transports like opus, jack or zita-njbridge, but they are unlikely to be
> supported by any consumer amplifier maker. Linux can transfer audio via AVB
> from one computer to another, but I don't know if it is far enough along to
> work with a comercial amp at this time... or at least with out some manual
> intervention. There are certainly AVB speakers out there.

More gaps in my knowledge!  Thanks for sharing all this info.



>
> If all you want is to be rid of using the 1/8in plugs in the back... get a
> USB audio interface and use 1/4 or rca jacks and be happy. There are PCIe
> cards out there that have RCA right on the card for that matter. Much
> cheaper than a new amp.

A 'USB audio interface'?  I have a pair of usb logitech speakers, but
i'd like to be able to send the samples through good speakers (but
maybe that's not at all what you mean?).

Thanks again Len, and Arnold, and Chris for the info and suggestions and leads.

dan

PS: Len, sorry for sending you this twice, my fingers slipped before i
checked the receivers list.  (And man oh man RMAIL is ever so much
easier to use than these dang web mail clients.)


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