Multi-room android music streaming

chriswg

Standard Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Age
44
I'm hoping you clever chaps can help me. I want to set up a 3 zone music streaming system on a budget. I currently have:

Office - PC, wireless router and ReadyNAS Duo containing all the music in FLAC format.

Zone 1 - Lounge - PS3 connected to Denon 1910 Amp (no direct streaming to the amp).

Zone 2 - Kitchen - PC with connected speakers.

Zone 3 - Bedroom - Bose Soundwave with audio in AUX at the rear.

I would like to be able to control everything via my Galaxy S3 or Android Tablet and have the ability to choose 1, 2 or all 3 zones playing the same thing at the same time.

I know in an ideal world I would buy 3 Sonos Connects and make a nice system but that will cost me £750+ but I want to take advantage of the PS3 and kitchen PC to save money. Would a simple app like iMediashare allow me to stream music from the NAS to the android device then output it to my choice of device (if I had something like an airport express plugged into the Bose?). I don't mind spending around £200 on hardware if that makes a nice simple solution.

Also, I'd rather stay away from iTunes as I don't want to have to convert all those files to Apple Lossless.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
 
will you want the same track on in 2 zones simultaneously like sonos can do or will it only be played in 1 room at a time. apps like imediashare will use upnp/dlna so you might be able to pick your media and then select a player to send it to. I think you would be better looking in to airplay or squeezebox, I've not used airplay to know how it works and it seems more apple centred anyway. Squeezebox you can install a player on your pc, phone and tablet and use them to receive the media and plug in to your bose to get you started in the last zones. Unfortunately logitech have stopped producing the official squeezebox hardware but there's a load of ways to get it working without them, the current favoured one is using raspberry pi's and software like squeezeplug, that should add up to under £50 for each additional zone you need hardware for. On android if you get hold of squeezebox player that will be your receiving app, then theres either the free Logitech squeezebox app or squeezebox controller for a couple of quid that's a lot better. You might need to set up a device with logitech media server, again a pi or an android device should be able to do that with a little bit of research.

I got lucky and got some logitech stuff cheap but I'm really happy with how it's working, mainly because i've managed to rig up the entire house cheaper than a single sonos system cost and i'm happy enough with the sound.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk HD
 
There is a thing called Pi Music Box for the Raspberry Pi you might want to take a look at but I don't know if it can do all you want.

DLNA systems can play music to all clients on the network but it is very rarely supported, Sony sound systems have a party mode feature that does this but I've never seen it anywhere else. Most DLNA controllers on Android and iOS (I've tried quite a few) are all one device playback only.

A PS3 is not a DLNA digital media renderer (required for control) only a DLNA digital media player so it cannot be used at all in any way.
 
You can try DLNA, the one issue could be that PS3 is a DMP (player) not DMR, and cannot be controlled by DMC app on your S3.

I built my installation based on DLNA, just using XBox360, which is DMR, instead of PS3. And connected old iPhone with DMR app to AUX audio in, getting wireless audio system.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom