Home center set up with Android TV box

[NestorLeone]

Hi! I've been following the blog & forums occasionally but never really posted anything, till today.

I have a very low budget so can't invest in hi-fi equipment very often. Also I had little time to dedicate to my music in the past few years so.... it was just to keep up with my old habit of music listening.

The reason I am writing here today is cause i want to simplify my home media center solution. So far I have an old AMD 2000 running win 8 with jRiver (mainly form music) and Plex (mainly for movies). The soundboard and the video card are inboard so performance on their side is...... not critical but cheap.

I have two 2tb Usb drives which i will be moving from the CPU to a NAS. This should give me the same ability I have today to update the files in them (movies and music), by accessing them from anywhere in my network.

My main idea is to replace the old CPU for a simpler box, so after doing some research I found out about the new sound blaster E5, which I'm planning on acquiring, and also found the old google tv Sony NSZ GS8, which is now discontinued but has a fantastic & cool remote and I can also control it from my smartphone.

The new scheme is very simple:

Music and movies in the NAS

Android TV box with Plex/Kodi/Neutron media player

Yamaha amp to speakers

HDMI connection to TV

The Sony box seemed great from the specs, but it's discontinued and I read that the OS is the old google Tv (old android 3.2) and not the new Android Tv OS that's built on Android 4.x. with very few apps from the play store. But on Ebay I found several Android boxes with the OS version 4.x and USB ports.

One thing I though of was to plug the E5 into the USB port of the android box (to use it as a DAC) and that to the Yamaha amp for audio, and the HDMI to the TV for video. but I don't know if the SB E5 will work that way. I have several 24/192 audio files which I don't think the DAC in the android box would handle nicely and without modifications...... Any other hi fi DAC would suffice, so the real question is, if the Android box will handle that.

Another thing to note is that the Android TV boxes have standard remotes - nothing fancy as the Sony - and I want to be able to play music without turning on my TV set. Today I use Gizmo to access jriver on the CPU and that's it.

After all said, I reach out to see if anyone has had similar situation and has resolved it or found out something I'm missing. Or of anybody has any other ideas on how to approach a simple solution for a low budget hi fi home media center.

 

Thank you all in advance, and let's see what can we come up with!

 

Bye!

[NestorLeone]

I got word from Creative, regarding the USB input to the E5, and this is what they said:

 

"With regards to your enquiry, we only officially claim that it will work with most Android smartphones . Android devices' firmwares must implement AOA2 protocol. Smart mobile devices running Android 4.1 or higher is required for USB Host uncompressed Audio Streaming to Sound Blaster E5. However please do take note that USB host audio on Android only supports up to 16-bit @ 44.1KHz. 24-bit/192KHz playback is limited to USB connection on PC/Mac.

 

Based on the specifications on your Android TV Box, it only have USB inputs. Most likely it will not support the Sound Blaster E5 USB Host functionality. You will have to clarify with Sony whether AOA2 protocol is supported on their products."

 

So I suppose that the Android box + E5 .... is out of the question.

 

Anybody has any experience with some of this? What do you guys recommend?

[rmel66]

Any current quad core box should suffice. My preference is for Amlogic boxes. My set up has music files served by Minimserver (two instances) and Foobar2000, both as UPNP. On my box (MXQ S85) I have Foobar Android app installed. What a revelation! Foobar Android integrates seamlessly with Foobar2000 UPNP server and has provision for creating playlists, a feature that is absent from all other UPNP compatible apps I have tried. Additionally, Foobar Android comes with a limited set of DSP effects including resampler (necessary if serving hi-res files) and plays DSD files served from Foobar2000. In terms of output from the android box I use the SPDIF optical output to a SPDIF to rca DAC (approx. $10 on EBAY) feeding into a RCA receiver.

 

Rmel66.

[17629v2]

"However please do take note that USB host audio on Android only supports up to 16-bit @ 44.1KHz. 24-bit/192KHz playback is limited to USB connection on PC/Mac."

 

Maybe go with an Audioquest Dragonfly and use USB Audio Player Pro. It will be less money and you won't be limited to 16/44.

[NestorLeone]

I got an nVidia Shield Android TV, which has no problem with 24/192 playback. Thing is.... audio software to use. Kodi just sends out 48khz max. Poweramp and Neutron are not fully compatible with the tv box format.

[17629v2]

I got an nVidia Shield Android TV, which has no problem with 24/192 playback. Thing is.... audio software to use. Kodi just sends out 48khz max. Poweramp and Neutron are not fully compatible with the tv box format.

 

What about Poweramp And Neutron isn't compatible?

[NestorLeone]

Nope. The nvidia uses nPlayer to output hires audio. Neutron and Kodi don't use that. They output audio via AudioTrack.

 

Poweramp is not very much user friendly with the Android Tv interface.

[17629v2]

Nope. The nvidia uses nPlayer to output hires audio. Neutron and Kodi don't use that. They output audio via AudioTrack.

 

Poweramp is not very much user friendly with the Android Tv interface.

 

How can I tell if a player uses nPlayer? I have the 2 players you use, but a bunch more as well. I can check them for you.

[NestorLeone]

I got that information from the nvidia Shield official forum!