I'm just thinking this out load, so there may be a really obvious solution to this!
I have a raspberry pi with an IQAudio Pi-Amp+ to a pair of Q Acoustic 2020i, this is currently running MoodeAudio. It works fine to be able to directly play music from the nas library and is easy for my partner to use airplay from her phone and ipad.
Across the other side of the room I have a wall mounted all-in-one touchscreen pc running windows 10. I just need to get the sound from the pc to the speakers, I've played with various bluetooth adapters but it's a really unreliable connection in this environment with smart bike trainers, heart rate monitors, cycle power meters, causes lots of dropouts. The latency wasn't great but could have lived with it. I've tried the windows software 'stream what you hear' which works ok, but a latency of 2 or 3 seconds and I lose my remote volume control on Windows means it isn't ideal for anything interactive or with video playback.
I've thought of running a cable from the line-out to the speakers, but I'm not sure the Pi can handle an analog input through to the IQAudio amp.
Perhaps a different small amp on the speakers with multiple inputs and getting a different hat for the Pi with line out. But this is unlikely to be 'seamless' solution that is wife friendly.
Thanks.
I have a raspberry pi with an IQAudio Pi-Amp+ to a pair of Q Acoustic 2020i, this is currently running MoodeAudio. It works fine to be able to directly play music from the nas library and is easy for my partner to use airplay from her phone and ipad.
Across the other side of the room I have a wall mounted all-in-one touchscreen pc running windows 10. I just need to get the sound from the pc to the speakers, I've played with various bluetooth adapters but it's a really unreliable connection in this environment with smart bike trainers, heart rate monitors, cycle power meters, causes lots of dropouts. The latency wasn't great but could have lived with it. I've tried the windows software 'stream what you hear' which works ok, but a latency of 2 or 3 seconds and I lose my remote volume control on Windows means it isn't ideal for anything interactive or with video playback.
I've thought of running a cable from the line-out to the speakers, but I'm not sure the Pi can handle an analog input through to the IQAudio amp.
Perhaps a different small amp on the speakers with multiple inputs and getting a different hat for the Pi with line out. But this is unlikely to be 'seamless' solution that is wife friendly.
Thanks.
You could try the Zoudio amp I use. Given your area is congested already BT wise, I'm not sure if going through that channel would work any better. It does have a 3.5mm stereo input.
You can find more info in the Vendor Bazaar section. There's also the little "Nobsound" amp on ebay for <30, with both BT and 3.5mm connect. I've no experience with it.
If you have SPDIF output, you could use a hat with the SPDIF input https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-...crossovers-correction-etc-45.html#post6234081
Another option would be jackd, something like Running Jack between Windows and Linux - Stack Overflow
Another option would be jackd, something like Running Jack between Windows and Linux - Stack Overflow
Thanks, the Zoudio looks a nice little unit for something I have in mind. The pc does have spdif output.
In order to keep my life easy (and quiet), I'd probably still need to support airplay for others in the house, which means network connectivity somewhere. The Pi is nice because it can be just stuck with velcro behind the speaker on the wall, apart from getting the sound from the Windows pc it works well. I really don't have the space to start fitting something like a full blown receiver which could handle all this.
In order to keep my life easy (and quiet), I'd probably still need to support airplay for others in the house, which means network connectivity somewhere. The Pi is nice because it can be just stuck with velcro behind the speaker on the wall, apart from getting the sound from the Windows pc it works well. I really don't have the space to start fitting something like a full blown receiver which could handle all this.
If you're happy to run an SPDIF cable, then this may be a possible solution:
Ian asynchronous I2S and S/PDIF FIFO KIT group buy
This looks interesting, I see Moode Audio supports IanFIFO II. How would this work with the S/PDIF audio? Would it just pass through when nothing else is playing from the Pi, or a software setting?
You don't need the FiFo, just the ReceiverPi. The ReceiverPi fits between the RPi and the DAC HAT, and is transparent to the RPi operating system.
My understanding is that if the RPi is not sending any data to the DAC, and there is input to the ReceiverPi via SPDIF or I2S connections, then this is routed to the DAC and thence to the amp/speakers.
A look at the manual should describe it better than I can!
DocumentDownload/ReceiverPiUsersManual.pdf at master * iancanada/DocumentDownload * GitHub
My understanding is that if the RPi is not sending any data to the DAC, and there is input to the ReceiverPi via SPDIF or I2S connections, then this is routed to the DAC and thence to the amp/speakers.
A look at the manual should describe it better than I can!
DocumentDownload/ReceiverPiUsersManual.pdf at master * iancanada/DocumentDownload * GitHub
I came to the same conclusion, SWYH technically works but 2-3 seconds is just way beyond usable.
Have you tried the Scream virtual sound card?
It creates a virtual sound card that windows can play to and sends the audio via network. By default it multicasts it on the local network but you are free to set any unicast IP.
There are receiver implementations for the Pi that can either talk to ALSA or pulseaudio.
Latency can be as low as your network allows. Scream was made with PC gaming in mind so audio needs to be in sync as much as possible. For your application I guess you could buffer a few milliseconds more to avoid dropouts.
If this does not work you can always go for a hardware approach.
If I understand yours correctly, you can stream music from your pc to pi (renderer) by foobar2000, jmc..app.
from moode, turn on upnp client.
foobar2000 needs to install upnp plugin, and foobar remote control.
If you want all sound from pc to pi (to amp), then you can install TuneBlade on pc.
(as long as pc and pi are on the same network, this is possible)
from moode, turn on upnp client.
foobar2000 needs to install upnp plugin, and foobar remote control.
If you want all sound from pc to pi (to amp), then you can install TuneBlade on pc.
(as long as pc and pi are on the same network, this is possible)
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Thanks! This works really well. Latency is very low. Sound quality isn't too much of a priority in this application, but this solution has by far the best sound from the pc so far. I installed the receiver on the MoodeAudio install and it works fine. Configured for unicast as I have no need for other devices to play this back.
I have used Foobar, although not for some time. It's not a solution for this as I need to be able to stream audio from different applications. I have tried TuneBlade in the past, I forget exactly why I stopped using it, but there were issues.
While I now have a solution for the pc streaming, having spent time looking at all the cool pi dac and amp boards I'm going to have to see how good the sound quality can be with some of these.
Thanks.