Music from PC to AV Receiver

[admin_exported]

I am looking for a wireless way to play the music saved on my PC via my Onkyo AV receiver.

I have considered doing it via my xbox 360 but that would involve buying the 360 wireless networking adapter which seems massively over priced.

I've googled it a few times but only seem to find bluetooth AV receivers as opposed to a dongle of some sort. It seems like such an obvious accessory yet I can't find any info on it.

How have you connected your PC to your sound system?

Cheers guys

 

[John Duncan]

40 quid was cheapest I could find it, and that seems reasonable compared to any other options I'd come up with - Apple Airport Express, Apple TV, Squeezebox, Soundbridge etc etc. Does the X-box accept wired ethernet connections instead of wireless?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]Does the X-box accept wired ethernet connections instead of wireless?[/quote]

It does however there is no way I would be able to run a wire between the two. I think I might no where you are going though, I have looked at the plug in the wall style wireless ethernet connectors but my knowledge of what constitutes a good one is so low I dismissed the idea.

What are you thinking?

 

[John Duncan]

First, do you have a wireless network of any sort?

I can't recommend ethernet through your mains, from a hifi point of view - mate of mine had horrendous problems with it sonically.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm currently using a wireless network for my PC.

I would have thought there would have been a bluetooth style dongle that attaches to the PC and then to the audio inputs on a stereo.

If only life was that simple! Maybe I should go on dragons den!

Cheers for your help so far

 

[John Duncan]

There are - maplin do one. Not best solution sonically, though. Will discuss further tomorrow.........

 

[John Duncan]

OK. For starters, the X-Box wireless adapter does the job, and I assume allows you to view your music collection on screen (though I haven't investigated this, so don't take my word for it). It does, however, only work with the X-Box so you're going to need to have that involved, which isn't terribly flexible.

Apple Airport Express is a plug-socket sized thingie which will pick up your music from your wireless-network PC and has either analogue or optical digital out, so you can plug it straight into your receiver (provided you have any optical digital ins left). You have no remote control though, or means of visual display - you have to do that from your PC (which has to be running iTunes, note), which also, obviously, has to be on.

Apple TV is like an iPod that sits under your telly - it is also wireless-enabled and can do two interesting things - it can either stream your music (or video) stored on your PC, or it can sync with your PC like an iPod, so that a copy of your media is held on its hard disk (up to 160gb), so you can play without the PC being on. Your TV is used as the browser, and the interface is rather lovely. Not cheap though - 200 quid or so.

In between the two are dedicated media clients like the Squeezebox and Soundbridge (amongst others) which act like the Airport Express, have their own display and remote, are relatively inexpensive, and can also output audio or digital signal.

 

[Anonymous]

I used a wireless bridge hooked up to my XBOX 360, but as i'm using it for video as well it wasn't up to the task of high def video. So i'm now using a pair of Devolo dLAN 200 AV adapters which work brilliantly, but they're even more expensive than the bridge (about £120 for a pair).

However, if you're just doing audio over them a pair of 85Mbit/sec ones would suffice - can get a pair of them from someone like Solwise for £50.

There are audio specific ones too but they're more expensive and can suffer more from interference.

 

[Anonymous]

cheers for the help, much appreciated.

My 360 runs into my Onkyo AV receiver via optical cable so I'm tempted to go through that to keep the sound quality high. There is only 2 optical in's on my Onkyo and the Sky HD box has the other.

I think I'll start another thread asking how people are finding the PC - 360 link as according to Microsoft "there are so many things you can do" so maybe my £50 or so quid can get me more than just PC - HiFi music.

Will look into those options though JohnDuncan as I still idealy begrudge paying microsoft any more money, especially as I'm lucky enough to still be on my first 360 and it could explode at any time!