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Legacy Stereo Amplifier


aspdend

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aspdend

I am hoping someone who is more knowledgeable than me can help me with an idea I am trying to implement.

 

I have an old stereo amplifier and some nice floorstanding speakers that have been consigned to our old storage unit because the WAF is low and the house was too small. Now we have moved I have been allowed to resurrect them (if I refurbish the speakers that is). I want to install them in our conservatory so we can easily listen to music in there and in the garden. the problem I have is that the amplifier is an old analogue only unit (Kenwood KA3020SE) and all our media is on the UnRAID server.

 

What I want to do is use mediabrowser on phone or tablet (or the mediabrowser server or htpc) to stream music to the amplifier. Simple! My ideal budget to achieve this is as cheap as humanly possible.

 

My best idea is to use a Raspberry Pi with a WI-Fi dongle. Connect the RPi audio output to the amplifier auxiliary input with phono cables. The Rpi would be connected to my home network using the Wi-Fi. Could I then use the DLNA capabilities of Mediabrowser to achieve this, assuming I use Volumio for the RPi OS. This can be achieved for about £40 (and therefore can be my father's day present) and will have a good WAF (I hope).

 

Does anyone have any experience in this or any ideas or any suggestions or just mocking me for missing a really obvious alternative solution that is a similar price or cheaper?

 

 

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Dibbes

It's actually not a bad idea.

 

Before spending the money, you may want to test it in a virtual machine. As RPi is ARM based, I'd suggest installing the RPi OS in Qemu and then install something like MiniDLNA on the OS. Test if it connects to your MBS :)

 

I don't currently have the time, but I'd be very interested in the results.

 

EDIT: I found this to help you getting started: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rpiqemuwindows/

Edited by Dibbes
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ronvp

I believe that for just a fraction more, you should be able to do it with a ROKU.. and get a lot of other goodies..

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aspdend

It's actually not a bad idea.

 

Before spending the money, you may want to test it in a virtual machine. As RPi is ARM based, I'd suggest installing the RPi OS in Qemu and then install something like MiniDLNA on the OS. Test if it connects to your MBS :)

 

I don't currently have the time, but I'd be very interested in the results.

 

EDIT: I found this to help you getting started: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rpiqemuwindows/

Thanks for that - I have slightly changed tack since yesterday and will be using the RPi with a hardwired ethernet connection as I have figured out how I can easily run a cable to the location I want the amplifier. I am going to give it a try as it will be my father's day present and I want to give a Rpi a go. I think if it came down to it, I could use raspbmc as the OS and run the unit as an extender from Medibrowser. I will post up the results of my attempts/successes (I hope) in a few weeks when I have managed to buy the kit and give it a go!

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aspdend

I believe that for just a fraction more, you should be able to do it with a ROKU.. and get a lot of other goodies..

Thanks for the idea. I toyed with the thought of using a Roku but I purely want to use this for audio so getting a roku seems a bit of a waster and I also want to tinker with a RPi

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