Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gakaudio]

Hello all,

First, I'm not sure if this is the proper location for this post. Second, my goal is to have a straight forward way to output music from my home audio rig to wireless speakers largely for outdoor BBQ and pool-party purposes. I don't yet have the wireless speakers. I have a NAS which holds my audio files and is connected to my wireless router. My computer is also connected to the router by an Ethernet cable and is served from the NAS. The computer itself has no intrinsic wireless capability. The computer uses JRiv. MC-17 for audio play to a traditional 2-channel audio system. The signal chain is: computer/Dac/preamp with home theater bypass/2-channel speakers. My wife has a bunch of iTunes music that she would like to be able to play outside, in addition to our lossless library that I play using MC-17, potentially complicating matters.

Sorry for the long preamble. I am considering getting one or two sonos speakers but as I understand, sonos is played by its own software that I fear will further complicate things. I would like the speakers to sound good but they don't have to sound outstanding in my opinion.

I am looking for recommendations regarding the connectivity format (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc...), specific speakers themselves, and a detail explanation of how to implement the wireless connectivity. I have heard terms such as dlna and things of that sort but I don't really understand what that means so I would appreciate the explanation to be very simple.

Currently my budget is around $400 and my computer is PC based running windows 8. I would really appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks, Garth

[jmone]

I've played with a bunch of different wireless speaker options, and it sounds like you may like one with WiFi & Ethernet that supports both DLNA (for playing from MC) and also Airplay (for playing from Apple Stuff).  You can also get ones with a battery pack.  The two that I have that met this requirment are:

- Pioneer A3 - Enty level and now discontinued but you may be able to find the odd one around.  It was cheap and works well but is hardly a powerful box.  Better for small spaces
- Axiom Air - High End, expensive and large but it does produce very high SPL for a "portable" speaker.  You can even run MC ON this speaker (see my thread here on this) but it works fine out of the box as it is.


There are sure to be many examples that others will have between these price points.  I did have a look at the Sony SRSX77 but never purchased one.

Thanks
Nathan

[jmone]

Regrading the Connection, I've also tried a few methods:

WiFi / Wired :  This is my preference, as if you already have a WiFi AP, then all you then need is the speaker to connect to your home network and any devices also to be on that network (either wireless like a Phone or using a wired connection like your PC running MC).  All devices will "see" each other and the DLNA Speaker will appear as a Zone in MC.  Just play to that "zone" and music will come out of that speaker.  It gets more complicated if you decide to have multiple speakers playing in sync, but apart from that it is very straight forward.

Bluetooth : This can be handy for add-hock connections (like a visitors phone) as they don't have to connect to your network instead connecting directly to the speaker (a bit like what you can do with your car radio).  I've also played with adding a Long Range Class 2 BT adapter to my HTPC to output MC audio to the speaker but the results are not as good (quality and hassle wise) as using WiFi / Wired connections

[gakaudio]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for your reply. I have narrowed down my criteria to a wireless speaker having both Bluetooth and wifi functionality and both battery and AC power options. It seems to me that as you mentioned, the sony srs x77 fits all of those needs and stays within my price range.

Conceptually, I prefer a connection over my wifi network for playing music around the home. However, when first setting up my home audio system, I experimented serving music to my audio PC over wifi but experienced dropouts in sound. I don't know exactly why this happened or how to solve it so I defaulted to a hard wire connection between my wifi router and my computer. This has worked well for me. Suggestions as to how to prevent audio dropout over wifi with a portable speaker?

In addition, could some one explain DLNA as it pertains to my setup, and how I would utilize it to my advantage?

Thanks, Garth

[jmone]

A DLNA Speaker will "advertise" it's existence when connected on your network (either wired or wireless), and in this case it will be a "Renderer" (eg that it can play music).  MC will "see" this DLNA Renderer and make it appear as a Zone in MC's Playing Now Options.  MC will act as both the "Control Point" and "Server" so it can both serve up tracks and control the speaker (stop, start, pause etc).  For a single speaker setup it just works and will probably also be fine on WiFi (I too prefer the stability of wired - but you will have to give it a go).

Once you have it and connected there are a few tweaks that can be done to maximise the quality of the Audio that is transmitted but associating a DLNA profile to your speaker.  A good tool to see what the speaker will support is to use AndrewFG's Digital Media Renderer Analyser that can be found here - http://www.whitebear.ch/dmra

[DJLegba]

At the BBQ I use an old set of computer speakers (with sub) connected to Chromecast Audio, which needs a WiFi signal. It works really well. So my advice is buy the powered speakers of your choice and for USD$35 more let CCA handle the wireless connection.

[blgentry]

Others might disagree with what I'm about to say.  It's just my opinion.

As a non-technical person, you're in for a world of hurt trying to set up a wireless speaker system in an ad hoc manner.  DLNA and wifi have issues in the scenarios you are talking about.  Wifi in particular.  Bluetooth is a joke for computer based audio.  Bluetooth only works for very short ranges (under 30 feet in most cases) and is only suitable for portable speakers if the source (phone, etc) is also outside with the speakers.

DLNA isn't so much a "big problem" as it is a non-standard standard which can be very complex for a non-technical person.  Hell, I'm very very technical and I find DLNA's lack of interoperability confusing.

Sonos is a more complete solution because it uses it's own built in radios to talk between Sonos hosts.  This is superior to wifi in many ways because the Sonos devices automatically build a self extending "mesh network", which means reception is usually very good.  Sonos has it's own ecosystem and is really designed to be used with the Sonos app.  The Sonos app can talk to most music services I've heard of (Pandora, Spotify, etc).  It can also connect to file shares and possibly to DLNA servers.  However, making Sonos run from a JRiver host seems to be not that straight forward.  I'm pretty sure it can be done, but again, it's a technical process.

So what's the answer then?  It's easy:  Hard wire some speakers and be done with it.  Run a dedicated RCA output from a sound card or DAC to a dedicated amplifier (receiver) and run speakers from this amp to your chosen location.  This will work.  This will not cause you configuration headaches.

Wireless speakers seem convenient and wonderful.  The only ones I've ever seen work worth a darn are Sonos.  ...and Sonos doesn't work all that well through outer walls of houses.  Even in those cases, you find people hard wiring to outdoor speakers.  I don't think Sonos makes any models that are entirely waterproof.

Again, just my opinion; I'm sure others disagree.

Brian.

[JimH]

Brian, I think that may be a little exaggerated.  If I recall correctly, you've said that you don't use DLNA.  Maybe I'm wrong.

Remember that we tend to see the problems people have here.  We don't often see the successes.

Bluetooth is fine for short distances.

[blgentry]

Brian, I think that may be a little exaggerated.  If I recall correctly, you've said that you don't use DLNA.

As I said, I'm sure people will disagree with me.

Yes, I've used DLNA with several devices and had various degrees of success and frustration.  You're of course correct that we see more problems reported here than successes.  I see enough problems here, that I don't personally want to mess with any kind of DLNA renderer.

Brian.

[JimH]

By definition, it is the problems that we see.  If people aren't having trouble, they don't post.

I personally think we've got an amazing DLNA implementation and that most people do get it working.  That's about as good as it gets with computers.

[blgentry]

I personally think we've got an amazing DLNA implementation and that most people do get it working.  That's about as good as it gets with computers.

We keep having this discussion where you think I'm saying JRiver's DLNA is "bad".  That's not what I'm saying at all.  What I'm saying is DLNA is troublesome and is non-standard.  Every DLNA device does not work like consumers think they do.  JRiver has trouble communicating with some of them in various ways because DLNA is not a tightly defined standard.

I could detail various things, but I don't think you're all that interested and frankly I don't care about trying to fix them in my environment.

I'm sure there are lots of people that are happy with their DLNA setups.  <shrug>

Brian.

[JimH]

What I'm saying is DLNA is troublesome and is non-standard.  Every DLNA device does not work like consumers think they do.

You might say the same about computing, in general.

[jmone]

Garth, I think you will be fine with the Sony and MC for what you want to do.  It will require a reasonable WiFi connection in the locations you want to put the Speaker, but it will be more about a consistent connection rather that high bit rates.  I have a very good WiFi setup at home (8 x APs) but still prefer to use the Wired Connection for my speakers where I can.

BT is also good for when guests come over and want to play music from their phone (eg Hijacking the speaker). 

You should have no issues getting it up and going for a single speaker (at present there is no simple soln for MC keeping multiple speakers in sync, aka what Sonos does so well).

Thanks
Nathan

[gakaudio]

Hi Guys, Thanks again for all of your help. I purchased two sony srs x77. They arrived and I hooked up one of them so far. It worked with BT readily and I got it connected to our home network. It then appeared as a zone in MC-17 and I was able to play music to the speaker from my music library. This was actually kind of exciting and I was surprised at how good the speaker sounded. Unfortunately, the speaker would periodically disappear from the zone area in media center and the music would stop playing. Other times, it seemed near the end of a track, the music would stop and MC would display an error message stating something to the effect that MC was having difficulty controlling this DLNA device. I have not yet tried AndrewFG's Digital Media Renderer Analyser. I don't know if it would help with these issues I am having. Can I go into my wireless router settings and, for example, prioritize the speakers above other devices, or make sure that they are on the same SSID as another piece of the signal chain? Truthfully, I don't know what SSID is but I remember reading about it somewhere, and the NAS that houses my music library and the computer are connected to the router by Ethernet cable so I'm not sure if syncing up the SSID's would be applicable. 

Regarding BT, Sony has an app called songpal that can control more than one speaker and get them to play in stereo or surround. I like the idea of having my two speakers play in stereo with this app. I would like to be able to connect my phone to the speakers by BT, while at the same time using my phone to control media center via Gizmo or JRemote. Is this a reasonable option? I don't currently have jremote on my phone but I use gizmo to start and stop music playing and so forth.

I can definitely appreciate what Brian is talking about. I wanted to just get some speakers and hard wire them to our external walls but the wife wanted portable wireless speakers... and its her birthday. So anytime she asks for something that supports my music habit...she gets it.

Thanks, Garth

[JimH]

Bluetooth has a nominal range of 30 feet.  Are you anywhere near that?

[jmone]

Hi Garth,

First to to work out why your speaker is dropping out (it could be it is in a marginal reception for your WiFi).  You may be able to see from your WiFi Router what the signal strength is.  Alternatively, test by plug it in using an Ethernet cable then play from MC and see if you have any issue (bet you don't).

AndrewFG's Digital Media Renderer Analyser will help you "fine tune" the MC settings for the best quality settings.  It will not help you fix any connective issues.

I don't know how sonpal works but you may be able to use it to configure two speakers as Left/Right then push music to it from MC using Gizmo/JRemote but.... I'd be surprised if this worked (though my two Axioms let me group my speakers so you will need to play with this one).

As Brian said nothing beats a wired connection but I have no issues with using WiFi for my wireless speakers (but then again I do have 7 wireless access points to get good all round coverage!).