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Topic: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music? (Read 7364 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Hi all

Is there any way how I can play audio from my laptop through the home theater system and control it on my laptop, i.e. using the home theater only as speakers? I have a Samsung home theater system that has bluetooth, but that does not seem to work with my laptop. When I connect to it using bluetooth, the playback is intermittent (both when playing local flac files, or even when just playing youtube videos)...

So, I am searching for an alternative and, perhaps, some gadget (or even a new home theater system) that would enable me to connect to it through wifi rather than bluetooth for better bitstream performance. I know that there are dongles like Chromecast audio that can do that, but Chromecast has its many limitations that make this option unusable for me.

Is there any device or even a home theater system itself that provides the wifi connectivity out of the box? What are my options?

Many thanks!

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #1 –
How big of a distance do you want to send the audio across?

Companies like Outlaw Audio make wireless audio devices that should give you what you seek: https://outlawaudio.com/products/OAW4.html

While it does require you to plug in a transmitter device to your laptop sound output, it's probably the most direct way.

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: KozmoNaut on
How big of a distance do you want to send the audio across?

Many thanks for your reply. It is within the same room, so I guess my laptop is not further than 3 metres from the the home theater system.

I have looked at the OAW4, but I am not quite sure I understand how it works. From the description provided on their website, it looks like it should be connected directly to a speaker of a home theater system, not to the PC. Also, they seem to be shipping only within the US and to Canada and Mexico...

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #3 –
The OAW4 (and similar devices) is basically a "wireless cable". You put a line-level signal (such as from your soundcard) into one box, the signal is transmitted wirelessly, and comes out as a line-level signal from the other box. You can plug this into any input on your receiver, and it will work just as if you were using a cable directly from your laptop.

It's probably meant for rear speakers and/or subwoofers, to avoid pulling cables across a room. But it'll work just fine for transmitting audio in general.

There are many different versions of the same basic idea, to send audio wirelessly. The OAW4 was just an example, there are many similar devices to be found on Ebay, DealExtreme, Amazon and various other places :-)

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #5 –
Take (any) raspberry pi B model and add a higiberry-digi card and install Moode. With that combination you can play music lossless via ethernet using uPNP. (I use Foobar2000 with uPNP plugin).

I also use it and it works perfectly in combination with my dac and amp, but a receiver is fine also. Instead of a hifiberry-digi a dac is also possible. It's cheap also and future proof.

PS. The OAW4 is an analog-digital-analog device. Not my preference personally. Can also be more noisy. With the Raspberry you don't need hardware at the PC side.

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Ivkosky on
Is there any way how I can play audio from my laptop through the home theater system and control it on my laptop, i.e. using the home theater only as speakers? I have a Samsung home theater system that has bluetooth, but that does not seem to work with my laptop. When I connect to it using bluetooth, the playback is intermittent (both when playing local flac files, or even when just playing youtube videos)...

So, I am searching for an alternative and, perhaps, some gadget (or even a new home theater system) that would enable me to connect to it through wifi rather than bluetooth for better bitstream performance. I know that there are dongles like Chromecast audio that can do that, but Chromecast has its many limitations that make this option unusable for me.

Is there any device or even a home theater system itself that provides the wifi connectivity out of the box? What are my options?


WiFi connectivity from WiFi  to HDMI input of AV system

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Fairy on
Take (any) raspberry pi B model and add a higiberry-digi card and install Moode. With that combination you can play music lossless via ethernet using uPNP. (I use Foobar2000 with uPNP plugin).
Properly working gapless playback?

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #8 –
In my case, I have a Yamaha AVR that supports AirPlay and can thus stream over my network from Apple stuff (iphone, itunes, etc.) or by running SW on my laptop called Airfoil which can reroute Windows audio (or some individual applications) to AirPlay. There is a ~2200ms delay though, so things like streaming YouTube videos are a problem.

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #9 –
I just use a Logitech blue tooth receiver I bought on the web.  Works fine but maybe some "golden ears" won't like the sound.  It sounds just fine to me. 
Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Ed Seedhouse on
Works fine but maybe some "golden ears" won't like the sound.
Some of them may even be able to distinguish a difference in a proper test.  I certainly won't bet that all self-proclaimed (or not) "golden ears" will be able to do so, however. ;)

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Ivkosky on
Is there any device or even a home theater system itself that provides the wifi connectivity out of the box?

Most of them do.
It is called UPnP/DLNA
Any Win PC is  DLNA enabled (MS calls it media sharing).
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: How to wirelessly connect my laptop to the home theater system to play music?

Reply #12 –
What Samsung HT system do you have? My Samsung soundbar supports BT, DLNA and online music services out of the box.