I was playing around with the idea of putting one of these in a boominator - seems like a nice airplay alternative
Turn a Raspberry Pi Into an AirPlay Receiver for Streaming Music in Your Living Room
Turn a Raspberry Pi Into an AirPlay Receiver for Streaming Music in Your Living Room
I've been looking at that guide (and others.. i thought about the Raspberry Pi too) but what made me doubt it was the whole question of internet. How is my phone gonna connect to the pi when there's no WiFi? I guess the idea of the AirPort Express is to use it to create a LAN where the phone then can do AirPlay - but maybe i'm overcomplicating things here?
Edit: It also seems fairly pricy compared to a used AirPort Express on DBA.
Edit: It also seems fairly pricy compared to a used AirPort Express on DBA.
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I don't get why you don't just use a bluetooth reciever capable of A2DP. All phones regardless of make can use it, and A2DP is certainly good enough for the purpose. Also uses far less power both on the sender and receiver end, we're talking in the order of 10 times less power used. Also around 5-10 less expensive.
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^Well.. I haven't really done anything yet. This is purely thinking and idea-making, if you will. Nothing's settled yet. In regards to the power usage - that's exactly why i asked PressureFM about it.
Haven't even thought of bluetooth - how's the quality (i imagine there's tons of different receivers with varying quality)?
Haven't even thought of bluetooth - how's the quality (i imagine there's tons of different receivers with varying quality)?
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As long as it's A2DP enabled sound quality should be acceptable. I'd look for BlueCore5 based cards (but that would be 90% of all current cards).
It transfers mp3 (aac and tons of other codecs) files directly and is decoded in the receiver, where airport is a bit stream which in principle is better. However, since iOS doesn't support any lossless formats (except their own ALAC format which no one uses) any quality advantage airport express might have had is completely lost.
Besides, who has lossless audio on their phone anyways? I bet 99.9% of all audio files stored on any phone/mp3player is in either mp3 or aac formats, and in those cases (ie. with mp3/aac files) bluetooth a2dp will actually have better sound quality than airport express
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I see your points, and i think you're absolutely right. It's all MP3 or maybe if you're lucky AAC indeed. There's just 2 things that worry me about using bluetooth.
One is range. I know that bluetooth can be very picky about range. We can't have the party stopping because the "DJ" moves to a different chair in the opposite of the camp.
The other is configuration. With this i mean at the festival. Some guy wants to play music form his phone. With the bluetooth receivers we'd have to access the receiver (most likely in the battery/electronics room) to get i paired. With a WiFi-based solution like AirPlay it's just a matter of telling people the password for the network.
I always try to get in the electronics rooms as little as possible, let alone having other people go in there, because they saw how you hooked people up with bluetooth. To me that'll just end up bad.
One is range. I know that bluetooth can be very picky about range. We can't have the party stopping because the "DJ" moves to a different chair in the opposite of the camp.
The other is configuration. With this i mean at the festival. Some guy wants to play music form his phone. With the bluetooth receivers we'd have to access the receiver (most likely in the battery/electronics room) to get i paired. With a WiFi-based solution like AirPlay it's just a matter of telling people the password for the network.
I always try to get in the electronics rooms as little as possible, let alone having other people go in there, because they saw how you hooked people up with bluetooth. To me that'll just end up bad.
Why would you think that? It's wireless, you access it wirelessly, put in the 4 digit code you have given the receiver, and voila! you're connected. I have no idea why you'd think you need physical access to the receiver at any point.
A2DP is a lot more stable than bluetooth data transfer, btw, as it's a uni-directional stream it does not require the handshake package to be accepted by both transmitter and receiver for every set of data sent.
I was under the impression that most (at least those i’ve encountered) had a button, or something similar, that needed to be pressed in order for the device to go into “pairing mode”
Maybe i’m just looking at the wrong ones?
And then there’s still the subject of range. The receivers i’ve looked at all said about 10 meters, but with reviews saying that they got nowhere near that. It’s probably only 10m on a very good day with no interference, but i guess that’s hard to know for sure (with both technologies, and various products) without doing it yourself.
Maybe i’m just looking at the wrong ones?
And then there’s still the subject of range. The receivers i’ve looked at all said about 10 meters, but with reviews saying that they got nowhere near that. It’s probably only 10m on a very good day with no interference, but i guess that’s hard to know for sure (with both technologies, and various products) without doing it yourself.
I'm not sure which products you have seen reviews of but try searching youtube.
Every single one I have seen, and tried, does not require any physical access to the receiver to pair it. None. Plug it in. Turn it on (here I must note that it's far from all products you actually have to turn on, they turn on by themselves when they sense that a device is scanning for bluetooth devices). That's all that is needed.
Range is typically specified as "minimum 10m" with any BlueCore5 device. 30m is more realistic outdoors though.
Every single one I have seen, and tried, does not require any physical access to the receiver to pair it. None. Plug it in. Turn it on (here I must note that it's far from all products you actually have to turn on, they turn on by themselves when they sense that a device is scanning for bluetooth devices). That's all that is needed.
Range is typically specified as "minimum 10m" with any BlueCore5 device. 30m is more realistic outdoors though.
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Any recommendations then?(with things like this, i value actual experience veeeery highly)
7dayshop Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Audio Receiver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
A little higher price than the cheapest but it's BlueCore5 and thereby support up to 320kbps mp3 files natively. This is very important to notice since the main problem for audio quality on bluetooth in the past is people using it with unsupported bitrates in which case the mp3 file is converted to analog signal in the mp3 player then run through a DAC, then compressed into a supported format and sent to the bluetooth reciever. Naturally such a process would incur major loss of quality. With this supporting the highest bitrates there is and most normally found formats (though not all) you should have no problem with audio quality.
I was about to build a Qubinator since the portability is realy awesome, but ofcourse is the HP-10T out everywere in the middle of the summer. But the HP-12T is in stock. I know that it hurts your eyes Saturnus to hear these but; if you would guess, would the resiezed qubinator for HP-12T be reasonally big or would it become huge?
If someone now were HP-10T is in stock would that solution be even better
If someone now were HP-10T is in stock would that solution be even better
Looks great, but some of the reviews worry me:
This is a great device but from what I can see you always need to turn it on. I have connected it up with the power but it still turns itself off when it is not being used.
So you can't hide the device somewhere and connecting automatically when you come in range
Seems like it can't be charged while in use?
and that it has to be turned on with a little button when it goes into auto-off
You can use a big button if you want, that's ok...
Would that be a real problem? I mean; you'll be near the Boominator I guess and the music would be continuous I suppose, unless you like switching between FM and Bluetooth constantly.
Besides, how long does it take before it auto shuts down?...
Surely there'll be switching between the jack cable and bluetooth (we have en old 80GB iPod Classic as our "main" source). The receiver would then have to be turned on everytime someone wants bluetooth because of the auto shut down.
I know that these "demands" might sound a bit.. steep, but when it comes to festival-building the most important thing to us is having it as drunk-guy proof as possible. Can't have stupid people opening the electronics compartment thinking they're the king of electronics. People tend to get very owner'ish when they've seen how it's done - surely they can do the switching on too - they've only had 100 beers!
I know that these "demands" might sound a bit.. steep, but when it comes to festival-building the most important thing to us is having it as drunk-guy proof as possible. Can't have stupid people opening the electronics compartment thinking they're the king of electronics. People tend to get very owner'ish when they've seen how it's done - surely they can do the switching on too - they've only had 100 beers!
Let me know when you find one you like. I consider the matter closed in so far as you asked for my opinion. You got it. Now start your own thread if you don't like the advise.
USA volume buy of P.Audio Drivers - anyone interested?
Hi,
I'm considering a volume purchase of P.Audio HP10W and PHT407N.
The prices would be:
- HP10W $45 each
- PHT407N $25 each
plus shipping to where ever you might be in the USA.
So one full set of drivers would be $280, plus shipping to you.
I do not have a delivery time, but I know that they will be delivered to the USA by container ship, so it would be weeks to a few months.
Since these are not imported to the USA at all, this would be a great opportunity to get good Boominator drivers.
Is anyone interested? If so, I'd take your check and hold it until I get delivery, then cash it and send you the goods. That would reserve your drivers.
/torrmundi
Hi,
I'm considering a volume purchase of P.Audio HP10W and PHT407N.
The prices would be:
- HP10W $45 each
- PHT407N $25 each
plus shipping to where ever you might be in the USA.
So one full set of drivers would be $280, plus shipping to you.
I do not have a delivery time, but I know that they will be delivered to the USA by container ship, so it would be weeks to a few months.
Since these are not imported to the USA at all, this would be a great opportunity to get good Boominator drivers.
Is anyone interested? If so, I'd take your check and hold it until I get delivery, then cash it and send you the goods. That would reserve your drivers.
/torrmundi