My CD player AND my DVD player just died in the last week or two.
I would like to see about the least expensive decent quality way to combine the following:
CD player - which I used to use to play my mixes in a âhome stereoâ environment, as well as commercial audio CDs, of course.
DVD player
âUSB Stick Playerâ - so I could just plug the stick in and play my .wav or .mp3 mixes.
Wireless from my mixer output (audio or S/PDIF), to the home stereo amplifier (the one the DVD and CD player is plugged into).
I donât want to network my c. 2005 XP DAW. It told me one night that it will stand by me, unless I start doing stuff like that to it.
Itâs been suggested I buy a Play Station 3, as it can play CDs and DVDs, USB Sticks, and it can take a wireless signal. I guess I will need some wireless transmitter to go from my mixer, 30 feet or so to the home amplifier. Does that sound like a good idea? Is âcritical listeningâ over wireless OK to do? Any other ideas?
My 4 year old LG Blu Ray player does DVD, CD, USB, and home networking media client. You should be able to pick up the latest version for $50-70. Not sure how youâd go from a mixer to a media server though. Many routers allow a USB drive to be plugged in and act as a media server so you wouldnât need to network the PC. Just plug the drive into the daw then back into the router.
My LG Blu-ray is plugged into my router and acts exactly the same as surfer describes. It also has âappsâ that provide other video services like Hulu, Netflix, etc. It accesses my computer and NAS drive and sees other computers on our home network playing music or video files and devices (USB included) connected to them. This unit is around two years old and was about $120.00. Iâm sure there has been some nice improvements since then and prices are lower.
One thing though, this is hard wired to my routerâŚitâs faster
Thanks, guys. The LG Blu Ray line looks like it could have something good at the right price. The product comparison table seems a little confusing to me, but I think these are stocked in town so I can just go check them out.
I was looking at something wireless to connect my mixer to the LG, like this:
No, I would need to get the audio or S/PDIF signal in to the transmitter somehow. I am hoping that is a possibility, but I actually donât know if that is the case ⌠do you happen to know?
youâll need two of them, transmit and receive, and a cable that goes from your mixer out to a 3.5mm stereo male jack. Then from the bluetooth receiver to whatever your home theater expects.
Not knowing a lot about Bluetooth, I took a look at the FAQs there. Apparently: tempo changes, skipping and other glitches are common enough in BT technology to merit that being on the list. âEspecially near metal objects or EM-generating objects âŚâ.
Makes me wonder if BT wireless technology isnât the way to go to get reliable audio from a mixer/DAW environment.
Iâm OK with just burning a CD-RW, or putting a .wav on a USB stick if thatâs what it takes to avoid signal degradation. Looks like that will save $150 or so anyway for a transmitter/receiver.
Someone else recommended a lo-power FM transmitter from the DAW to the home stereo amplifier, maybe Iâll look into that, but as something I have never even thought about once in my life, Iâm a little concerned the learning curve will be steep enought that it will not be worth the time/effort of simply burning a disk and walking 30 feet to the CD player âŚ
I think that will be OK, as I live in TX, so there is lots of empty space down at the bottom of the dial where public radio stations can usually be found in other locals.
My main concern is whether the FM-transmitted signal that gets to the receiver 25 feet away will be close enough to the signal leaving my DAW to be able to make mixing decisions. Itâs a home stereo set up, as one of the âlisten on as many systems as possibleâ stops, but just because the room and speakers are different than a studio doesnât mean I want to work on a signal that has been âtransformedâ somehow by being transmitted/received via an FM signal.
Has anyone even HEARD of someone mixing off an FM signal?
I believe those transmitters are mainly for use in a car, so you can play songs from your phone/mp3 player on a car that has just a radio/cd player.
In other words, I doubt the signal will be very strong at 25 feet.
Just to report back: I received the home FM transmitter today. So far it seems to work just fine, 89.5 FM is now âAlexis Radioâ. Iâve played some of my stuff and some commercial stuff, and it sounds fine. Havenât yet A/Bâd it with a CD run through the same home amplifier, but so far, so good.
Also went out to the garage and tuned the car radio to the same station, sounds fine there too. I also played the same song through an .mp3 there, and it sounded pretty close if not identical for the few moments I A/Bâd it.
Experiments I made with wireless proved definitely not good for critical listening, it seems the bandwidth is too narrow, so you need to compress a lot. Itâs good for MP3s and streaming CDâs (w/compression) but not for mixing or mastering.
Test your system with a good Audio Test CD. I use Alan Parsonsâ Sound Check 2 audio test and demo CD for these tests. This will quickly tell you where you stand.
Thanks, BriHar. After what sounds like very detailed experimenting you did, what wireless technology do you think is appropriate for critical listening?
But really, I was thinking the value of this approach is ultimately not to reproduce the best studio listening environment, but rather to provide another test environment for mixes, alongside things like car, NS-10âs, Auratones, iPod earbuds, etc. For example, Iâm using the FM transmitted mix to listen through my home âconsumerâ speakers, which of course would have horrible specs from an engineering point of view (not flat, frequency-dependent time smearing, etc.).
With that in mind, I wonder whether imperfections in signal transmission to those speakers are any more important than the fact that Auratones have no bass response?
