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Comment by clairity | Hacker News Reader

a couple of years ago, i finally upgraded to a proper home theater system, with everything connected through a yamaha receiver, and i am pleasantly surprised at how well CEC works (given the many complaints i saw online).

since i'd vowed never to pay into the cable cartel, i watch most things via my apple tv. i just have to hit one button on the apple tv remote and the apple tv, receiver and tv come on automatically, and will switch to the right hdmi input (and tv input) if not already set. even if the apple tv is not being used, i can still use the volume buttons on it (easier, since it's radio and not infrared like the receiver remote). it's great!

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Wait, what? I thought the volume buttons on the Apple TV remote were infrared... (while every other button works via Bluetooth)

Try covering the little black area at the front of the remote and you’ll see what I mean. At least in my case the volume buttons stop working.

Depends on your TV. The IR is a fallback but it can also do volume over CEC:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/263008/how-to...

yah, the volume buttons still work through the apple tv to the receiver via radio (for me).

The remote can be configured for either CEC or IR, see also: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205225#siriappletv. The only problem happens when not playing from the AppleTV and you use the volume buttons. It’ll switch inputs on the TV/receiver to the AppleTV. So it’s no longer an universal volume control, which can confuse family members as they have to remember which input the whole setup is in.

Got pretty much the same setup. Works very well.

Isn't this just switching out the Sonos ecosystem for the Apple ecosystem?

Replace AppleTV with a Kodi player and you have the same setup without the Apple ecosystem.

Yeah but then you lose all the Apple TV content and the apps...

Or just sideload Kodi and have the best of everything

Or install MrMC if you've got an appstore capable apple tv and forget about sideloading too.

If I am understanding the poster correctly, Apple TV is just the input. The speaker system itself is agnostic to what the input is. There is no ecosystem for the audio, as they're all 'dumb' speakers connected to a receiver.

Yes, except (presumably) they are using Airplay to the AppleTV for music (which locks out non-Apple products).

The Sonos equivalent is something like the Sonos beam connected to the TV via CEC. AppleTV v2 is now obsolete and I think was sold until 2015, so that's pretty much the same as the Sonos policy.

But it's a fair point - for simple setups this can work fine.

Recent Yamahas are integrated into googles ecosystem too. To me the point is that the speakers are separable from whatever client you want to use. If it’s 5 years from now and you need new support for driving the speakers, you replace that component. You don’t have to throw the speakers away to stay current.

My Onkyo has Spotify streaming support built into the amp. It's dreadful though - just about unusable because the UX and setup is so bad.

Is the Yamaha experience better?

(Also, the Yamaha MusicCast speakers are exactly the same as Sonos in that they are software dependant, and pre-2015 ones don't get the update to AirPlay2[1]. Not clear if you are talking about this or the amps though)

[1] https://au.yamaha.com/en/news_events/2019/musiccast-update.h...

musiccast speakers are reputed to work well, but they're a little pricey. currently, only the apple tv has an internet connection (via ethernet cable into a router, not wifi). i may eventually extend speaker wire into the kitchen to have two independent audio zones off the receiver.

and to confirm the other responders, i have a set of "dumb" polk speakers connected to the receiver. for audio, i'll often just stream to the receiver over bluetooth from my mbp, iphone or ipad (so yes, i'm apple-dependent, but not in the way you meant =)

airplay works well to stream video via apple tv to the receiver (and then to the tv screen).

Ack yeah this landscape is too complicated, i was speaking about the amps. I picked up a 2019 model Yamaha receiver and it works really well for AirPlay, I’ve only used it a little bit for Spotify Connect and it seemed to work fine but I just didn’t use it enough to recommend up or down. The receiver doesn’t have to be in an “on” state, if it’s off then AirPlay/Spotify will turn on components and start playing. It’s been really low-fussiness, which I was kinda surprised by.

Apple Airport Express is obsolete as well but Apple actually bothered to update them to AirPlay 2. I even tried to buy one used so I could have an AirPlay setup for the entire apartment without Sonos or other proprietary speakers.

While non-Apple products are locked-out (or, require the user to flip inputs on the receiver), at least user isn't forced to spend hundreds (or thousands) on speakers that eventually become obsolete. An Apple TV is relatively inexpensive (in the overall scheme of home theater).

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