why what a big audio cable you have

November 19, 2007 3:52 PM

AudioH4x: How can I remotely play on my stereo?

I used to own an Airport Express with Airtunes and loved it so much. The biggest downfall was of course, it was locked to iTunes last I checked.

Is there a client/server application of SOME SORT that will let me remotely stream audio? The 'dream' would be an application that could latch into my audio driver, so I could stream music ad-hoc. If that isnt possible, even VLC, or Winamp with a plugin that will send music to an embedded system of some sort (I have a tinsy motherboard that can boot off a USB stick... so 128mb linux with a TCP/IP stack and some sort of sound 'receving' system).

I use Windows. Multiple 'senders' (though not at the same time) would rock.

Thoughts?

posted by SirStan to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Airfoil.
posted by kcm at 3:56 PM on November 19, 2007

It's not software, but we use the LinkSys G-Music Bridge. You plug it in to your stereo and connect wirelessly to your computer to play all the sounds your computer plays.

Although on preview, if you still have the Airport Express and Airtunes, Airfoil would probably be awesome for you.
posted by robinpME at 4:58 PM on November 19, 2007

I use this dongle from Logitech.

It works pretty darn well, and if you have Windows 2000 or Vista you can tell it to only suck sound from one application (whether it be Itunes, Winamp or whatever).
posted by selfnoise at 6:03 PM on November 19, 2007

Slimserver + a Squeezebox would fit your needs perfectly. It's similar to the Airport Express, but has a display and a remote, and is completely usable without interacting with the computer that's running the server software. You can also control it via a web browser if that's more convenient.

The software is open source, and includes a Java emulator of the hardware, so you can try the whole system out totally for free. If you like it and buy the hardware, you can continue to use a PC as an extra station.

Note that this is NOT a soundcard emulator; it's server software that indexes your music files (of many many different kinds) and plays them on demand.
posted by Malor at 7:33 PM on November 19, 2007

Some useful information in these threads:
Ripping and listening to my CD collection
How do I play music throughout my home on 2 stereo systems attached to a Powerbook G4 and WinXP Desktop, repsectively?
posted by jewishbuddha at 8:31 PM on November 19, 2007

Malor: You can't stream audio from your PC to a squeezebox.

Also, he already has the hardware.

Airfoil works great. You may have to tweak some of the settings in VLC because you may experience lag in the audio/video sync.
posted by mphuie at 12:57 AM on November 20, 2007

Malor: You can't stream audio from your PC to a squeezebox.

I said that; it's not a soundcard emulator. But you can stream music files, and he could run Softsqueeze on his hardware if he didn't want a Squeezebox.
posted by Malor at 8:45 PM on November 20, 2007