Stream iTunes to AV receiver

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Stream iTunes to AV receiver

Hi. I have music library on my desktop in my room and I would like to wirelessly stream it to my AV receiver in my living room, using my iPad Air 2 as a some sort of remote controller. The receiver is not connected to any wireless devices (no AirPlay, AirPort, Bluetooth, etc) except Chromecast, and speakers are just regular wired ones, nothing fancy. Also the TV is not any kind of smart TV.

At first, I was thinking of getting Bluetooth adaptor (like Logitech one) and connect it to the receiver, and stream iTunes to my iPad and then iPad will output the sound to the receiver via Bluetooth, but I have some 5.1 channel audio in library which I'd like to stream as well which is not supported by most adaptors.

i'm an Apple newbie and I don't know if AirPort would be the answer or not. In fact, I'm not even sure if 5.1 lossless audio can be streamed without losing too much quality or not.

Any tips, suggestions, or options would be very appreciated.

Thanks!

iTunes-OTHER, Windows 10

Posted on Nov 23, 2015 5:04 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 24, 2015 8:34 AM in response to double_H

Streaming wirelessly from iTunes on a computer to an AV Receiver can be done using an Apple AirPort Express, not the AirPort Extreme. The AirPort Express has an audio out connector which can connect to one of the AV Receivers inputs. This connector supports both an analogue stereo mini jack connection and a digital mini TOS-Link optical connection but not at the same time. (It auto detects the type of cable.) The digital optical connection can in theory do 5.1 surround sound. See http://www.apple.com/uk/airport-express/specs/

iTunes would stream to the AirPort Express using Apple's AirPlay protocol.

However the above is I believe only controllable via iTunes on the computer and not via iPad, it is however possible to stream also from the iPad to the AirPort Express in exactly the same way this however requires all the music files be stored on the iPad.

If you want to have the computer be the server but the iPad be the remote control and the AV Receiver the playback device then this requires a different approach. The most commonly referred to one is to buy a Sonos system, in this case the Sonos Connect is probably the most appropriate model. See http://www.sonos.com/en-gb/shop/connect

The Sonos Connect would connect to the same home WiFi network as your computer and connect to your AV Receiver via either analogue RCA connectors or digital optical connection. You would run the Sonos app on the iPad and configure it to use your computer as a file server, you would then use the same app to select a music track to play from your computer and it will be directly sent from your computer to the Sonos device. (The music does not have to go from your computer to the iPad and then to the Sonos.)

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