I am looking advice on how to add some kind of wireless audio capability to an existing audio system for a family member. The existing receiver has TOSLINK, coax S/PDIF and regular RCA inputs and is in the living room of a 2 story house. I don’t remember exactly how many speakers the receiver has (somewhere between 5.1 and 7.1 channel setup), but I assume wireless will mostly be used for regular 2 channel audio. They would like to be able to play music/audio off of a laptop/tablet/phone remotely, usually off of Youtube or maybe device storage/podcast app.
I’ve been debating between getting some kind of Bluetooth dongle/box or Chromecast, possibly with a box to just split out audio from HDMI (no Apple devices). As I personally avoid wireless things as much as I can, I would like to hear some other opinions and experiences.
With Bluetooth, I assume I should look for something supporting at least version 5.0 and probably at least aptX HD? Is there much benefit on a newer version for audio? My main worry is audio drop out if they were playing it off the phone and accidentally took it away.
I have no experience with Chromecast - I understand it uses Wi-Fi (so higher range) and would technically probably be higher quality (probably not a big plus). My main concerns are that it seems less general than a Bluetooth solution (is it basically limited to supported apps and Chrome on the desktop?) and possible latency when playing a video off of a laptop and piping the audio through the system (is this even possible?).
Currently leaning towards a Bluetooth solution.
Honestly seems like you have a good grasp of the options.
Go bluetooth - search for something along the line of “bluetooth adapter stereo” and pick something that looks like it has the right set of connections and isn’t too complicated.
There’s a whole range on what level of complexity and/or features and likely some degree of quality and support available depending on how much you spend.
I did this for my parents’ old analog stereo setup and they use it to play music from their phones, very simple once they pair and it doesn’t require messing with apps so much. And for reference, I got one of the cheapest options available for like $20 (?) as a “see if this works and is a good solution” that could be upgraded or easily replaced without too much investment… also if it died quickly, no big deal… well it’s been like, 5 years and it still works so, eh, YMMV but for something simple, sometimes that’s the best.
I have a chromecast audio (the little puck ones that they don’t make anymore, but they can be found on ebay (“Google Chromecast Audio Media Streamer - RUX-J42”) for $60-ish and they’re pretty nice. Probably a good option if you like Android stuff and don’t want to try and use it for movies or connected to a laptop or something.
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