Wireless Audio

[teachjava]

How do I do the following? (Cost is no object, quality is.)

Business case: In the summer, I would like to listen to my battery powered speakers in my field where there is no power and wires are not possible.

PC --> Digital Wireless Transmitter --> Air (channel) -->

• Digital Receiver1 --> Digital Audio Amplifier1 --> Speaker1 (Left)
• Digital Receiver2 --> Digital Audio Amplifier2 --> Speaker2 (Right)

Issues:

• How do I broadcast lossless digital audio?
• How do I synch up the two independent speakers given there are no wires going to Left or Right?

Possible Solutions:

• Use small pc's in each speaker and use WiFi. How do I sync Left and Right?
• Use bluetooth. Not great quality and limited distance.

Ideas?

Mike

 

[mayhem13]

Get an iPad2, send all your stored content to the Cloud and plug your battery powered speakers into the iPad....done.

 

[theAnonymous1]

Some analog video transmitter/receivers can transmit SPDIF. It can be as easy as just feeding the SPDIF signal into the video input.

 

[teachjava]

Some analog video transmitter/receivers can transmit SPDIF. It can be as easy as just feeding the SPDIF signal into the video input.

So use RCA/SPDIF out to RCA/SPIDF in?

 

[Salamanteiga]

Why go digital? Cheap FM transmiters/receivers can be had for peanuts and the quality is good enough for open air. Power draw on these receivers is also low enough to give you a pretty good uptime.
If left and right output speakers are far from each other just use two receivers and ignore one channel.

 

[lillahimmel]

I use the CC8520solution fro Texas Intruments at home for something similar. Got this small kit this summer and use it to stream from my laptop over USB to my stereo. In my setup it's a cable replacement only but multiple receivers can be synced automatically for your setup (you will need two kits though).

Super happy with the solution and the quality is good (48kHz and 16 bit).

 

[teachjava]

Why go digital? Cheap FM transmiters/receivers can be had for peanuts and the quality is good enough for open air. Power draw on these receivers is also low enough to give you a pretty good uptime.
If left and right output speakers are far from each other just use two receivers and ignore one channel.

So, analog over FM? Are you talking about something like a pro audio wireless FM transmitter or cheep audio/video FM transmitters for tv?

 

[teachjava]

I use the CC8520solution fro Texas Intruments at home for something similar. Got this small kit this summer and use it to stream from my laptop over USB to my stereo. In my setup it's a cable replacement only but multiple receivers can be synced automatically for your setup (you will need two kits though).

Super happy with the solution and the quality is good (48kHz and 16 bit).

Are there any other dev boards with higher sampling rates?

 

[imix500]

Take a look at this:
TM400
If it's good enough for a measurement mic it's probably good enough for music.

 

[teachjava]

Take a look at this:
TM400
If it's good enough for a measurement mic it's probably good enough for music.

So just plugin a xlr from the pc to where the mic would be?

 

[lillahimmel]

Are there any other dev boards with higher sampling rates?

Do not think do. They do have this with optical in/out addition to line in/out.

 

[imix500]

You would need two systems obviously, but yes the transmitter will accept a line level signal and tge reciever will run on anything between 8-18v dc, so it's an option. Plus, those guys are great.

 

[teachjava]

Do not think do. They do have this with optical in/out addition to line in/out.

Wow perfect!

 

[aeiah]

i think you're over complicating things by having the left/right independent and having to deal with sync. i think id do it like this, if your field is in wifi range:

stream from house to field using wifi. receiver could be anything that can act like a pc (hacked router, embedded platform, netbook)

if you still want a large separation between speakers, use a short-range wireless solution like off the shelf wireless speakers, bluetooth etc

 

[teachjava]

i think you're over complicating things by having the left/right independent and having to deal with sync. i think id do it like this, if your field is in wifi range:

stream from house to field using wifi. receiver could be anything that can act like a pc (hacked router, embedded platform, netbook)

if you still want a large separation between speakers, use a short-range wireless solution like off the shelf wireless speakers, bluetooth etc

The speakers are not allowed to have wires for this discussion. So two different pc's? Can't synch them....

 

[dangus]

Can the speakers be linked by a wire? If so, just use a local lossless source. Like a Rockboxed iPod, or Sansa Clip+. Or a portable CD player with optical out. It's not a common feature, but they exist.

If using WiFi, you can probably use VLC to serve a stream, and configure each receiving VLC client to default to that stream.

Or if cost is really no object, build a bandstand and put musicians in there.

 

[teachjava]

Can the speakers be linked by a wire? If so, just use a local lossless source. Like a Rockboxed iPod, or Sansa Clip+. Or a portable CD player with optical out. It's not a common feature, but they exist.

If using WiFi, you can probably use VLC to serve a stream, and configure each receiving VLC client to default to that stream.

Or if cost is really no object, build a bandstand and put musicians in there.

No wires are possible as the field is 4 acres. I put in the comment about cost because I did not want people say that it would cost too much so and not discussing the solution.

MikeD

 

[teachjava]

I want to use wireless hookups and speakers with class d amps running on a 12v battery for family parties and movies in the field via projector...

 

[qusp]

why is this being made difficult? use wifi, personally i would use something like airport express, perhaps with an Apple TV for the video and if you cant use it directly for the audio as well, just use separate base stations, they have USB or toslink/mini analogue combo output.

No need for separate channels, they will both receive the same stereo signal and you just use left or right depending on which side speaker it is. i'm sure there are other similar non-apple solutions if you are not in favor of the 'white goods'. the airplay receivers will work just fine with a windoze pc on 802.11n. you can use an iphone, ipad, or similar netbook as remote, in fact the apple TV has its own remote. if its too far for wifi i dont think it would be that hard to make a headless mac mini or similar run on batteries out in the field and all the same options apply.