HTPC to AVR (not close to each other)....

[ousooner2]

Hey guys, recently moved from my college apartment into a new house. In my apartment I just ran an optical from my PC (built PC) to my AVR about 12-15' away and streamed all my content from there. I have all my audio on my PC and it's in FLAC/WAV (lossless) formats. Now that my AVR is in the living room and not anywhere near the study where my PC is, how could I go about this to get the best sound quality?

Thanks guys!

 

[agarwalro]

For best sound quality, move the PC to the living room .

Get a Slingbox HD.

 

[ousooner2]

For best sound quality, move the PC to the living room .

Get a Slingbox HD.

Thanks for the reply lol. I have no clue what a Slingbox HD is, but I'll check it out.

One thought I had was to run the optical through the wall and up into the attic, then down into the living room behind the AVR. Ideally I wish there was a better way to do that, but I dunno.

I just came across something called "AirPlay" on Denon's AVR's....not quite sure if that's what I'm looking for or not. Says you can play from Itunes wirelessly.

 

[bikemig]

Airplay works very well for streaming music. If you have that functionality built into your AV receiver, then you're good to go assuming that you use iTunes as your front end for your music. You simply select the wireless device you are using in the lower right hand corner of iTunes.

You have your music ripped in flac/wav and so you'll want to convert it to apple lossless to play (keep a back up in flac/wav).

The only other problem is that you need to use iTunes as your front end. It's a pretty good front end so that's not a big problem. Your AV receiver may be able to handle music streaming services such Pandora natively. If not, this software should do the trick: Rogue Amoeba | Airfoil for Windows: Wireless Audio Around Your House.

In any case, airplay is free so you should try it before investing in a streaming device.

 

[ousooner2]

I don't think my Yammy 663 handles wireless anything, so might need to upgrade for those purposes.

Bummer.

 

[bikemig]

It's pretty easy to add wireless functionality. Either an apple TV or apple express (both of which run $100) will do the trick. There are other streaming devices you can get if you don't want to play in Apple's proprietary garden.

 

[ousooner2]

So looking at this AirPlay feature on these newer AVR's....it looks like they still need to be connected by an ethernet cable from the PC/router to the AVR correct? If that's the case then I might as well just keep my current and run an optical from my PC. I thought it was all wireless.

 

[agarwalro]

So looking at this AirPlay feature on these newer AVR's....it looks like they still need to be connected by an ethernet cable from the PC/router to the AVR correct? If that's the case then I might as well just keep my current and run an optical from my PC. I thought it was all wireless.

It is not necessarily via cable. Some receivers have a accessory attachment to make them wireless, like Onkyo TX-NR414. While others still now have WiFi capabilities built into them, like Yamaha RX-V573.