Laptop pc streaming music via bluetooth or wifi to AV reciever

[jstigwood]

Hi there does anyone know of a reciever that you plug into a Hifi via Phono leads that can accept music streamed via bluetooth?

Many Thanks,

James

 

[daveh75]

you could look at the chord chordette gem dac, review here. not a cheap option though

 

[John Duncan]

Wifi is much easier to find - airport express would be the obvious cheapest option at £65, which could then be plugged into the digital input of the receiver. There are others such as Squeezebox or things like the Linksys Media Extender or Apple TV which also do it, though their additional functionality comes with additional expense - just depends whether you want a visual display or not, and whether you can plug it into the telly

However, if you don't already have the receiver, some are network-enabled themselves (Onkyo spring to mind), so you could go down that route.

 

[jstigwood]

Thanks for you replies!!

I have an amp set up... and a wireless network.

The idea initial was to sit with my laptop and just access my music from the PC upstairs and stream it to my amp! essentially controlling everything from the laptop.

basically I wanted to keep the expense bellow £50..... and do not intend to steam video. The main reason was that I am thinking about buying a PS3 but just wanted to go down other avenues first that were cheaper.

PS3 may just be the best option...... "airport express would be the obvious cheapest option at £65" ok tell me more about this?

 

[John Duncan]

Airport Express is basically a wireless access point that allows you to stream content from iTunes, and plugs into an amp or receiver. It has a headphone socket which doubles as an optical out, so you can stream the digital feed to the optical in on a receiver, for example, for improved sound quality. Quality just from the audio output is still very good, though.

Note that by default it only accepts a stream from iTunes, and if you want to use another media player (such as Winamp or Windows Media Player), or play a BBC Internet Radio feed from your broweser, you need an application called Airfoil, which allows you to route the audio from any application to the Airport Express.

Some people here have reported issues getting it to talk to their network, but I've had none, either from my iMac or Vaio laptop.

 

[jstigwood]

Thanks for the info....

Ok, so good and bad.... I suppose if you have the room on your HDD then there is no harm converting your existing music to itunes.

I will have a look at Airfoil, Thanks.

so a laptop with wireless on it should sync up with the Airport Express ?

 

[John Duncan]

Yup, mine does and it was totally straightforward, on both my Imac (as you might expect) and my Vista laptop.

You may not need to 'convert' existing music if it's already in a format which iTunes supports (mp3 or WAV, for example) - you can just import them as is. But if you *do* have loads of disk space (or can add it externally or on your network), apple lossless is the way to rip your music going forward.