Hardware Media Player

[modellingman]

I have a Western Digital NAS Drive. It comes with some media server software (Twonky Media). The NAS connects to my router and other locations in the house connect to the router either via wifi or homeplugs. The media server provides access to the media (photos, videos, music) stored on the NAS drive and I can play these media on my Android devices (using appropriate apps), on my "smart" TV (using its in-built software) and, of course, on my laptop.

However, if I wanted to play my stored music on something other than the TV , Android devices and PC. I'm not quite sure what hardware options I have.

I'm not particularly looking for high end hifi equipment but something that would allow me to scroll through the stored music by artist/album and then feed that on for playing through an amp and speakers is what I have in mind. Perhaps something akin to a Brennan JB7 but using the media server across the LAN instead of an internal hard drive as its source of music files.

Any thoughts, ideas, experience? Or do I just stick with taking the headphone output from my phone and feeding it into my Sony amp?

[Itsallaguess]

I have a Western Digital NAS Drive. It comes with some media server software (Twonky Media). The NAS connects to my router and other locations in the house connect to the router either via wifi or homeplugs. The media server provides access to the media (photos, videos, music) stored on the NAS drive and I can play these media on my Android devices (using appropriate apps), on my "smart" TV (using its in-built software) and, of course, on my laptop.

However, if I wanted to play my stored music on something other than the TV , Android devices and PC. I'm not quite sure what hardware options I have.

I'm not particularly looking for high end hifi equipment but something that would allow me to scroll through the stored music by artist/album and then feed that on for playing through an amp and speakers is what I have in mind. Perhaps something akin to a Brennan JB7 but using the media server across the LAN instead of an internal hard drive as its source of music files.

Any thoughts, ideas, experience? Or do I just stick with taking the headphone output from my phone and feeding it into my Sony amp?

It sounds like you might benefit from a Bluetooth Audio Adaptor.

You can plug these into your amp, often either using phono leads (recommended) or a stereo 3.5mm cable, and then connect to them via your Android devices. Then, on the Android devices or phone, just use either a file-manager to navigate the NAS and play normally through your Android media-player, but as you'd be connected to the receiver via blue-tooth, it'll come out of your amp and speakers.

Here's an example with some pictures on the left hand side, showing the set-up -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluetooth-Stre ... B01CZVCYU0

That one seems to get good user-reviews, and comes with an external power source (some are rechargeable battery only...), so it might be a good choice, but you'll have to read some of the user-reviews to check.

Probably worth a shot for £22 delivered, but there may be better alternatives available, so do some research perhaps..

I should add that I've got a couple of these set up round the house, and they work well, but not this particular unit. My boxes are a little old now, and I can't find links for the particular models I've got, but they were similarly priced and give good output.

Remember this is using bluetooth technology, so it'll never be as good as wired audio, but it's surprisingly good and the great flexibility and options it gives you is well worth such a small outlay, in my opinion.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[formoverfunction]

I use a Raspberry Pi for this. It's connected to my HiFi system and has an attatched recovered HD from an old laptop.

There are plenty of "jukebox" OS's for the Pi. Some with phone interfaces.

I prefer Raspian and then I use the command line from my laptop. That works for me as I also use the Pi as VPN gateway and to collect RSS.

I have a large music collection, over 22,000 tracks, which are in the "cloud" as far as my laptop is concerened.

When I'm working, mainly on my laptop, I like to have music on as well as Bloomberg on the TV.

Using the PI like this means I can control it from the command line and just have browsers etc running on my laptop. I find streaming from iTunes doesn't work well for me with several browers open, mail clients, etc. Sometimes I just dont have a stong enough downloads speeds. It also gets tiring having lots of apps running on one device/screen!

It also means I pretty mobile as I can take to Pi & HD with me and use it in hotels, my weekend place and with friends. I just plug a travel speaker into it. I can of course also just use that HD as back up device for my 2nd back-ups.