Wireless comp to stereo device?

[Dave Smith]

Is there a good device for sending audio from a computer to a home
stereo system wirelessly? The comp and stereo system are in the same
room, only about 10 feet apart, but it's impractical for me to run
wires.

Thanks very much.

Dave

 

[DaveW]

You sound like you would love the Slim Devices "SqueezeBox", by Logitech.
It allows the transfer wired or wirelessly of your computer's music (CD's,
harddrive MP3's, Internet radio stations, etc.) to your stereo system in 128
kbps high end sound. I've used mine for a year now, and I could never go
back to not having it!

DaveW

 

[CBFalconer]

DaveW wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***

You sound like you would love the Slim Devices "SqueezeBox", by
Logitech. It allows the transfer wired or wirelessly of your
computer's music (CD's, harddrive MP3's, Internet radio stations,
etc.) to your stereo system in 128 kbps high end sound. I've used
mine for a year now, and I could never go back to not having it!

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
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[mricu1]

Is there a good device for sending audio from a computer to a home
stereo system wirelessly? The comp and stereo system are in the same
room, only about 10 feet apart, but it's impractical for me to run
wires.

Thanks very much.

Dave

I too am looking to do this and so far all I've found is a creative
labs CB2500 which isn't available in north america. Any other ideas?
In this day and age of FM transmitters, wireless headphones and such
I'm surprised it's hard to find something for our specific application.

 

[John McGaw]

Is there a good device for sending audio from a computer to a home
stereo system wirelessly? The comp and stereo system are in the same
room, only about 10 feet apart, but it's impractical for me to run
wires.

Thanks very much.

Dave

Am I reading you correctly? You want to transmit audio from your
computer to your home stereo, basically using the stereo's speakers as
replacements/supplements to the computer speakers? If so all you need to
do is find a small FM transmitter operating in the normal broadcast band
(Google turns up many candidates) which you can attach to the audio
output of the computer. Set the transmitter to a locally unused
frequency. Then tune your stereo's FM receiver to that frequency. And
presto, your stereo is playing the output from the computer. This is a
very common application for those wishing to play back from their pocket
MP3 player to the car radio without fiddling with a wired adapter.

Or is that too simple an interpretation?

 

[mricu1]

Am I reading you correctly? You want to transmit audio from your
computer to your home stereo, basically using the stereo's speakers as
replacements/supplements to the computer speakers? If so all you need to
do is find a small FM transmitter operating in the normal broadcast band
(Google turns up many candidates) which you can attach to the audio
output of the computer. Set the transmitter to a locally unused
frequency. Then tune your stereo's FM receiver to that frequency. And
presto, your stereo is playing the output from the computer. This is a
very common application for those wishing to play back from their pocket
MP3 player to the car radio without fiddling with a wired adapter.

Or is that too simple an interpretation?

I've looked into FM transmitters and they are notorious for poor
quality, especially if the signal has to travel far from the
transmitter since the output power is very low (compared to radio
station transmitters). I was personally looking for something that
transmits at higher frequencies (ie 900 Mhz, 2.4 Ghz) as the sound
quality is better and can travel farther without degrading. Although
if the receiver was not that far away (ie 10ft) the FM transitters
should do.

 

[Bob Horvath]

On 13 May 2007 18:13:44 -0700, Bob Horvath wrote:


I have a Belkin Tunecaster ll that works great for that purpose. There
is a mod on the i-net that I did and it transmits about 150 feet now.

ob

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Is there a good device for sending audio from a computer to a home
stereo system wirelessly? The comp and stereo system are in the same
room, only about 10 feet apart, but it's impractical for me to run
wires.

Thanks very much.

Dave

buy a wireless headset, and modify it to
your purpose.

 

[kony]

I too am looking to do this and so far all I've found is a creative
labs CB2500 which isn't available in north america. Any other ideas?
In this day and age of FM transmitters, wireless headphones and such
I'm surprised it's hard to find something for our specific application.

Transmission power is limited so the fidelity may be lower
than expected, or else it's digital and that tends to drive
up prices quite a bit more than a piece of cable.

There are some products though, it just depends on how you
want to get the job done logically. For example-

http://www.dlink.com/products/?model=dsm-120

"Sending audio" isn't very specific. We could assume in
it's simplest form it means the system sound output is
converted to analog or digital transmission to a receiver at
the stereo, but in doing that, you might have to be at the
PC to control it instead of at the stereo.

The other remaining question is, "in this day and age of FM
transmitters", already concedes there are wireless FM
transmitters. So why not just use one? It's input is the
PC's output, the stereo receiver tunes that. Possibly one
step up from that would be the following (but I have no idea
how well it actually does),
http://www.progressive-concepts.com/info/item.html?id=288
but it's still analog. Whether that is better or worse that
2.4 or 5.8GHz digital, might depend on the quality of the
device and it's ability to pre-buffer enough that any other
devices in same freqency range don't cause significant
interference. 1W at 10ft with your choice of analog
frequency could sound pretty good, certainly less
degradation than already present on may PC lossy compressed
audio formats.

Here's an option with integral amp to directly drive the
speakers. If the PC is the control for the stereo anyway,
it may not need the rest of the *stereo rack* at all, just
to get that signal from the PC to the speakers, amp'd.
http://www.amazon.com/Transmitter-Amplifier-Amplifiers-Extenders-Converters/dp/B000KE7K86

Other more cost effective options might be searching for
"USB wireless Audio" on ebay, adding the keyboards "FM" Or
"2.4GHz" depending on type desired.


Basically we need a more clear definition of the
requirements besides "good device". Otherwise some might
think at a mere 10 feet distance, even some crummy little
MP3 player car FM transmitter would suffice... and it might,
but probably not - more likely it would be the lowest
quality result.

 

[CBFalconer]

Bob Horvath wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***

On 13 May 2007 18:13:44 -0700, Bob Horvath wrote:
.... SNIP ...


I have a Belkin Tunecaster ll that works great for that purpose.
There is a mod on the i-net that I did and it transmits about
150 feet now.

The FM standards can handle mono and sterio up to about 19 kHz. If
you get appreciably worse you have a bad system.

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[Mike Walsh]

The FM stereo sampling rate is 38 Khz. You can get frequency response up to about 40% of this i.e. 15 Khz.

 

[kony]

Bob Horvath wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***

The FM standards can handle mono and sterio up to about 19 kHz. If
you get appreciably worse you have a bad system.

The problem is the low output power, prevalence of other
signals on FM, and generally poor transmitter (device)
quality to make it cheap. If one were to spend a lot on a
high quality transmitter, at that point they might as well
just go digital. Seems a high expense to avoid a 10' wire,
especially when there are also emerging audio devices that
can use wifi to transmit which have now dropped under $50.

 

[CBFalconer]

Mike Walsh wrote: *** AND top-posted - fixed ***

The FM stereo sampling rate is 38 Khz. You can get frequency
response up to about 40% of this i.e. 15 Khz.

You are correct. IMHO that is not appreciably worse.

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