Basic advice needed about streaming audio over a LAN

[admin_exported]

Excuse the basicness of my question, but I'm looking for a simple way of streaming digital audio from my pc to my stereo (well, DAC) through my existing LAN, mainly in order to do away with the limitations of the long phono lead I'm using at the moment. I've done some resesarch but all the products available seem to be aimed at the commercial market, are expensive and involve quite an extensive dedicated setup.

I suppose ideally what I'm looking for, if it exists, is some sort of dedicated "network soundcard" with a SPDIF output which I could connect to the network somewhere near my stereo and have its digital output going into the DAC. That way I could hopefully stream CD quality audio from my PC which is some distance away and have it sound as good as a CD player going into the same DAC.

I'm not really interested in streaming to multiple rooms, but possibly the opposite, have maybe more than one pc on the network which can be used to stream to the stereo. The LAN is a combination of wireless and wired, I don't know if this would make a difference (see below) but being wireless would not be crucial. I'd just have it all wired if need be. The device used to receive the streamed audio would not need to have wireless capabilities.

The solution I'm imagining would be something like a small box with an ethernet connector and a SPDIF and phono out, and would obviously have software to deal with the streaming at the PCs end.

So, does this already exist, am I being completely blind, or am I being completely unrealistic in thinking it would be that simple? Any input, advice, pointers, links would be a great help!

P.S., I have read that some of the lower level network protocols (1, 2 and 3) are not compatible with streaming audio and that's why often dedicated equipment is needed, although I don't see how they couldn't be.. To the low level protocols, data is data, innit? They just carry it. Again, I may be being short-sighted.

 

[nads]

I would look at a Squeezebox or similar product.

it will play your music stored on the PC/server wired or wirelessly and can output to a separate DAC if needed.

there are other media streamers out there as well.

It depends on how much you want the PC to play the music.

 

[John Duncan]

You've just described exactly an Airport Express, which is the simplest of the lot. It has some limitations straight out of the box, eg:

- only plays iTunes content
- has no remote

These can be surmounted at additional cost - you can use an iPod Touch or iPhone (and some other network- or bluetooth-enabled devices) as a remote control, and you can buy Airfoil software which allows you to use any media player of your choice, or stream things like BBC iPlayer and Spotify.