Comment by karlding
6 years ago
What's the current best alternative to a Chromecast Audio, now that they're discontinued and no longer as readily available?
My current living room setup is a Chromecast Audio connected to an AVR via the optical out connection, which powers my speakers, but I'm curious if there's any alternatives. The eBay sellers are really starting to price-gouge, and I'm not naive enough to believe that my Chromecast Audio will last forever.
I have replaced my Chromecast Audio with Raspberry Pi with a Snapcast client. On the Snapcast server side I run a DLNA renderer ("gmrender resurrect"). This allows me to cast audio synchronously to multiple speakers using the Android app Bubble UPNP. Basically, instead of clicking the cast button in an app, I select share, then Bubble UPNP. One advantage to this is that I can "cast" Youtube and get the audio, which Chromecast audio does not support.
Btw, Snapcast works great.
The latency of your suggestion is making me cringe. Mpd if you desire a sonos-like synchronized low-lag experience. Streaming direct to pulseaudio is also an option, but requires bandwidth (uncompressed audio)
What latency are you referring to? Latency between the source and the sound from the speaker? For me is this only a problem for the audio that goes with video. For pure music I don't mind. But in the video case I switch to pulseaudio directly but obviously lose the multispeaker setup.
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You can use a small computer and remote control it somehow.
Or use a Chromecast Ultra and connect to the hi-fi with a hdmi to audio (spdif, 3.5", ...) or hdmi to vga+audio (and don't bother connect the vga to anything)
I have a Google Home mini connected via Bluetooth to my amp, with 25 year old Gale speakers. That works for casting, and of course directly controlling by voice. I previously tried connecting an old Echo Dot via the wired connection, but the quality was a bit rubbish. I'm guessing a crappy DAC in the Echo or something. The sound via Bluetooth is great though.