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The key piece of equipment in this is what sits in front of the amplifier. If you could "AirPlay" or "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice, it would be signific

The key piece of equipment in this is what sits in front of the amplifier. If you could "AirPlay" or "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice, it would be significantly better than a whole house Sonos. If only the protocols was open, so you could use an off the shelf computer with enough audio out, then it would be nice.

core-questions 7y ago
You might like https://volumio.org/ https://volumio.org/
shawabawa3 7y ago
> "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice This is actually what "Chromecast Audio" was, sadly now discontinued I bought a bunch before they stopped selling and have them all over my house, attached to cheap dumb speakers They still work for now, hopefully they will for a while
- Zigurd 7y ago
  I use a mix of Chromecast Audio, Chromecast video, and Google Home devices of varying vintage. The Chromecasts are the audio source to a TV and a handful of stereos in different rooms, some with really old gear. The Google things can be grouped across types. They used to be unreliable, but before I could get annoyed enough to get Sonos gear, Google seems to have fixed the problems. I have whole house audio with relatively little at risk of being EOL'ed, and individually pretty cheap to upgrade if eventually needed. The key thing is: Audio is not a moving target. My Klipsch speakers are over 40 years old. They are connected to a McIntosh receiver I found literally on the scrap metal pile at the town dump. This seems to be a more resilient approach than either going 1970's analog with wiring in the walls, or buying a suite of proprietary speakers with audio distribution built in. The expensive bits have an indefinite lifespan. Sonos decided to combine that with microprocessors, NICs and software that, they discover, has to have the lifespan of a PBX or airplane control panel, not a mobile phone.
hanklazard 7y ago
Not exactly the setup you’re talking about but I use a series of raspberry pi’s each with these great little hifiberry amps and running Volumio software to achieve whole house audio. There’s a plug-in called snapcast that allows for a server that streams audio to all the clients, keeping everything in sync. I control volumes of various rooms/zones through home assistant. Works really well for me.

core-questions 7y ago

You might like https://volumio.org/ https://volumio.org/

shawabawa3 7y ago

> "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice This is actually what "Chromecast Audio" was, sadly now discontinued I bought a bunch before they stopped selling and have them all over my house, attached to cheap dumb speakers They still work for now, hopefully they will for a while

Zigurd 7y ago
I use a mix of Chromecast Audio, Chromecast video, and Google Home devices of varying vintage. The Chromecasts are the audio source to a TV and a handful of stereos in different rooms, some with really old gear. The Google things can be grouped across types. They used to be unreliable, but before I could get annoyed enough to get Sonos gear, Google seems to have fixed the problems. I have whole house audio with relatively little at risk of being EOL'ed, and individually pretty cheap to upgrade if eventually needed. The key thing is: Audio is not a moving target. My Klipsch speakers are over 40 years old. They are connected to a McIntosh receiver I found literally on the scrap metal pile at the town dump. This seems to be a more resilient approach than either going 1970's analog with wiring in the walls, or buying a suite of proprietary speakers with audio distribution built in. The expensive bits have an indefinite lifespan. Sonos decided to combine that with microprocessors, NICs and software that, they discover, has to have the lifespan of a PBX or airplane control panel, not a mobile phone.

hanklazard 7y ago

Not exactly the setup you’re talking about but I use a series of raspberry pi’s each with these great little hifiberry amps and running Volumio software to achieve whole house audio. There’s a plug-in called snapcast that allows for a server that streams audio to all the clients, keeping everything in sync. I control volumes of various rooms/zones through home assistant. Works really well for me.