simplicity

Hi Cebolla, all, Just coming back as promised to say how I got on, which was pretty well actually. Samsung do not state that S3 or S4 mini phones have Apt-X, but CSR, which owns the standard, has a list of enabled devices which does include them. There is no clarity from forums etc. My guess is that Samsung probably installs the Apt-X codec in their current devices, but perhaps for marketing purposes only features it on top of the range models. On that flimsy basis I gambled £60 on the Crystal Audio BlueDac AptX bluetooth receiver mentioned above. Plugged it in, paired it to my phone (by touching the two using the NFC functionality) and music played from my phone player through the speakers immediately. My wife's S3 mini and my brother's Nexus worked the same way. The sound quality is similar to my laptop wired to the mini USB of the Dynaudio transmitter, and I can't hear any audio artifiacts, so I think the bluetooth connection must be using Apt-X rather than SBC, and while I can't be authoritative, the sound quality is good enough that it sort of doesn't really matter how it gets there. The signal drops if I put the phone in my pocket or hide it - as you would expect given bluetooth range. There is no interference from the Dynaudio transmittter wireless field unless I put one box on top of the other. I get the other internet stuff by wireless, or if that's blanked by being too close to the dynaudio wireless the phone switches to mobile signal, so youtube, internet radio etc are all fine. So I now use my phone, bluetooth receiver (about 2"x2.5"), Dynaudio transmitter (about 3"x5") and speakers to play pretty whatever I want at a sound quality comparable to playing wired from my laptop through the speaker transmitter mini-usb input, which in terms of cost/simplicity/sound quality mix seems a pretty good solution for someone like me who doesn't want to get into networking too much, and it allows other people to play their music through my speakers quite easily too, which is nice too. Thanks for your help Cebolla. Hope the thread may be of use to others.

I don't know the Foobar2000, but I'l download it and take a look.... and I'll be back to let you know how I get on... eventually...

Excellent, thanks yet again. I think that if AptX is native on my phone then I buy the bluetooth receiver and see if it works. If not then I go to an Apple shop and find out more about exactly how the Airport Express solution will work for me, and whether my phone can easily be rooted. I'll revert once I've moved forward. Oh, but what was the free and simply way of doing something similar with my PC that you talked about? Free and simple are both good! Eloise: I'm trying to find a mostly off-the-shelf solution if I can because I only get about half way in understanding most of this.

Hi Cebolla, and many thanks again for your help. I tried responding last night but by the time I'd finished my post I'd been logged out and lost the lot! At which point I went to bed. Anyway, I did actually start with PC>router/modem>power line adapter>airport express>XEo transmitter via SPDIF connection, all controlled by airplay on phone and PC. But, Apple don't support FLAC, I don't have other apple devices and trans coding all my CDs would be a hassle. And I'm not sure if my phone's rooted. However I think I might have another solution, one that might work for other simple people too, and wondered what you (or anyone else...?) thought of this: I think my Samsung S4 mini (and most new Samsung phones) are AptX enabled, and that AptX allows lossless (or fairly lossless?) transmission over Bluetooth 4. I found something calles a "Crystal Acoustics Blu-DAC-UK Bluetooth Receiver", which says it is AptX enabled and has a SPDIF output (which should, presumubaly, bypass its internal DAC) and plugs into the SPDIF input of my Dynaudio transmitter. It was reviewed positively on Droidhorizon. That seems to get round the wireless interference, is simple/modular/economic(£60), maintains a high-quality digital path and keeps the phone in my pocket. The question is how lossy the AptX encoding/decoding process would be, and that's important, but I think AptX is supposed to be set up for audio, so maybe tolerable? Similarly I don't know much about Bluetooth, but am presuming I can play audio from different internet sources available on the phone as well as FLACs via Bluetooth. What do you (all) think?

In the past I've plugged the PC USB into the xeo 3 transmitter and it works well, but it's kept in the study on a different floor, and it's not on all the time, so you tend not to do it. Also the interference from the Dynaudio transmitter wireless means that I can't connect wirelessly to the web around it, so I can't get internet radio and other web sources (I could if I put in a power line adapter, but that's another extra thing). This presumably also prevents me using the phone to control as a UPnP control point. By contrast my phone is always on, in my pocket, with all my music, so at the moment I'll be sitting with the family or friends, and think... music...plug it in to the 3.5m jack...tap, tap...play - music files, or something off youtube that the kids like when we're talking to them about songs we like. But as you can imagine the sound quality from the phone DAC through the the analogue side of the Xeo amps negates the money I spent on them in the first place. That's why I think if I could just get the right app I could do it all in one - and there seem to be lots of UPnP and DNLA apps around, free and paid, but I don't know what I'm looking for. I could just buy a cheap tablet/PC, keep it on, and plugged in permanently, hook up a power line adapter and use it wired to the wall and to the Xeo transmitter - no great hardship, but it's more kit and more software, and I just think I should be able to do it simpler. Am I ranting?

Sorry, trying to be a bit clearer... In addition to files stored on my phone I'd like to stream youtube, internet radio and other digital material from the phone And, I think from what Cebolla wrote in a previous (excellent) post, that the correct names for functionality of the apps/devices I need are: 1) A media server, if the various player apps on the phone don't perform this function 2) A hi-fi stream/network player/renderer to encode the files into the PC sound card standard and send it to the Xeo 3 input.

Hello all, Reading these forums I've become more and more focused on achieving a short simple (and cheap!) path from source to speaker. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has taken the route described below, and since I'm struggling I was hoping that someone who has gone the same way might be able to help: > I rip to FLAC using Db poweramp on my PC, or download a similar quality source. >> I sync files to my Samsung S4 mini (I have a 64GB min SD card) >>> I want to stream them to my Xeo 3s - which accept a digital stream via mini USB or SPDIF input. However the S4 mini doesn't appear to support USB OTG/isn't able to directly stream the files. Do you know of any app or device that will encode and stream my FLAC files from the phone mini USB to mini USB/SPDIF of the Xeo 3 transmitter so that the signal stays digital and lossless all the way to the Dynaudio speaker DACs please? I've read the primers, but can't get to grips with the language - guess I've reached my techonolgical limits - so simple solutions preferred, if possible! Any help would be greatly appreciated...