One speaker system, multiple inputs

Question

I have a speaker system in my living room which gets audio from aux-input (it doesn't have bluetooth) and I have multiple devices that wants to use it: my computer, laptop, phone...

I thought about connecting a raspberry to the system and stream audio to it through wifi, before I'm even starting to work on it: is that possible? I want it to perform like bluetooth speaker (by that I mean that the audio delay is very low, and the computer identifies it as a speaker and can be connected to phone easily and without 3rd party apps)

If it's not possible using wifi bluetooth works fine too, but I want a way to manage with source is currently in use. Any suggestions?

EDIT: If using DLNA won't be great for devices like mobiles, how about adding bluetooth module to the raspberry pi and use A2DP in order to connect to the speaker without any wires? can you suggest me a bluetooth usb stick that supports that kind of purpose?

Answer 1

Well, since it doesn't have WiFi and Computers/Android- and iPhones don't come with an MPD-Client included it's not possible without third party apps.

You need either an app that streams the audiooutput to a file which you then play from the pi with e.g. Kodi.

Or you could use the mentions MPD (Music Player Deamon), for which the apps aren't currently developed further, sadly. Which is due to spotify and others.

But take a look at http://www.pimusicbox.com/ which I wanted to test for the same situation and to connect multiple speakers in multiple rooms.

tl;dr No it's not possible without 3rd party apps, but the delay may be very low when not using wifi.

Answer 2

I thought about connecting a raspberry to the system and stream audio to it through wifi, before I'm even starting to work on it: is that possible?

For the most part yes, although there are the complications included in alsternerd's answer. Pursuant to that, I believe pretty much any media device with wifi should have a DLNA server available, and the pi can act as a client (or a server, but in this context it would be the client).

You should investigate the possibilities for streaming audio from the devices and applications you intent to use first. Mobile operating systems do not necessarily have a universal "audio out" stream, meaning it is per application, and those applications may have restrictions such that they will not work with the DNLA server or other third party streaming software (i.e., your only choice with such OS/application combinations may be the headphone jack or bluetooth).

In any case, if this is your primary purpose for buying a pi, I would recommend against it. The sound system associated with the 3.5mm jack is not high quality, has a noticeably lower than average max volume (meaning you will probably induce more signal-to-noise by having to crank your amp up higher) and is prone to interference from the board itself. [See comments below for more about this though.]

I think the HDMI jack may work better for sound although I can't give a personal opinion about it.