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Comment by mankyd | Hacker News Reader

> Google Cast Ready speakers come with Cast technology built-in, so you don’t have to buy any additional equipment.

Except for, you know, the entirely new speaker(s).

I love this idea, but I want a simple, small dongle, like the chromecast, that outputs audio only rather than HDMI. I already have a speaker/amp in my living room that has a mini-stereo in. I simply want a way to connect a chromecast to it.

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I use this HDMI audio extractor to turn a Chromecast into what you describe: http://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digital-Premium-Extractor-Conve...

That is pretty slick. I've had a Squeezebox for years, but it's not too helpful for Youtube benders. For now, I've just got audio out from the TV to the stereo which works fine for casting. The audio's not hi-def but usually the quality of the source audio is the bottleneck in my experience, not the RCA audio connection.

Here's a slightly cheaper way to do the same thing: http://liliputing.com/2014/02/10-adapter-turns-chromecast-in...

I can confirm that that little device no longer works. The old models worked without the VGA portion needing to be plugged in, however the new models shipping from China don't work unless the VGA unit is plugged into something, which basically defeats the purpose.

I am now using this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DMZOUVK/ref=oh_aui_detai... which is working great.

When I first got my Chromecast, I was beyond frustrated that the music always cut out (even though watching videos was fine). One day, I was determined to get to the bottom of it, and realized that my roommate's Yamaha RX-V571 will reset the HDMI connection every two seconds if it can't handshake the video. He has an HDMI->VGA adaptor and a VGA projector plugged into the same receiver. So, whenever I want to listen to music in our living room, I have to turn his projector on for two seconds. It's beyond stupid, but at least it works.

That's odd, my slightly older Yamaha (RX-V367) works fine with the chromecast as an HDMI device with no tv hooked up. Wonder why the newer model doesn't like it.

can't reply deeper... this is for the Yamaha comment next to this: disable auto resolution. it usually fixes this.

> can't reply deeper

What's that all about, then?

When people start replying to each other too quickly, HN makes you take a bit of cooling off time.

I solved that issue via a dummy VGA plug, like this: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?200444-DV...! In fact, I simply plugged the three resistors straight into the pins of VGA port on the HDMI converter. Works like a charm. :)

I am doing the same thing without the HDMI audio extractor. The Chromecast is plugged directly into an HDMI port on the receiver. It works fine. Maybe whether the extractor is necessary depends on the receiver.

Same here. TV on, I get video, TV off and it's audio only.

Do you have to connect the HDMI out to anything for that to work?

No, no need to connect HDMI out to anything. I just connect the optical out to my receiver.

Thank you, that is very helpful.

this thing works great, I do the same thing. I wonder if these integrated speaker devices will support playing content that is not audo-only... like youtube videos. it's great to be able to get music from youtube videos. I hope they don't limit the stuff you can cast to audio-only with these new google-cast for audio devices.

I do this with a raspberry pi. I set up an AirPlay service on it, and added a tiny USB wifi dongle and put it in a nice white casing. Works great and cheaper than airport express that will do what you need also.

http://www.raywenderlich.com/44918/raspberry-pi-airplay-tuto...

Airplay doesn't do much good for my Android phone, unfortunately :/

There's numerous solutions for that. But I think if you want to stream the native audio output of your device you need to root it. Some options here: http://gizmodo.com/how-to-stream-anything-from-android-to-ai...

But the HDMI splitter is probably your best bet :)

The problem is that the quality of the audio out of the raspberry pi is terrible. I wonder if these HDMI audio extractors I see in the comments are any better. I have a raspberry pi connected to a projector that doesn't have audio out and I can't decide between a sound card for the pi (think wolfson), or a HDMI audio extractor in order to improve the quality.

Supposedly the audio out on the B+ and A+ is dramatically better. I haven't bought one of the new ones to make my own judgement yet though.

You can use a USB audio dongle though.

HiFiBerry is a very good option

Last time I tried this, the sound output was awful from the Pi itself and glitchy when using a USB DAC. Any problems with the audio in your experience?

I'm no audiophile. I'm happy streaming 320kbs spotify with my premium account to a $50 pair of logitech computer speakers. No complaints of audio quality from me. Nobody has ever said anything either.

Are you using a + model?

It looks like the problem that gave me crackles when using the audio output jack may have been fixed with a firmware update. Thanks, you gave me reason to check and I might be able to put my Pi back into service!

https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/128#issuecomment...

Maybe Chromecast v2 could have that, alongside HDMI 2.0? That, plus 802.11ac and 2x2 antennas would make it absolutely perfect. (And probably more expensive than $35, but possibly worth it)

Sounds exactly like what the Nexus Q was supposed to be (with updated specs).

That already exists. It's known as the Nexus Player, which is "Google Cast Ready", has HDMI 2.0, and 802.11ac 2x2.

http://www.google.com/nexus/player/

Good point, although I'd prefer to pay less to not have Android TV (I don't think the TV platforms make any sense compared to "Casting" content from mobile devices).

Whether it will work seamlessly may depend on the receiver, but I have a Chromecast plugged into an HDMI port on my Yamaha unit. (Note, there is nothing plugged into the HDMI out port on the receiver.) This setup works flawlessly for streaming audio throughout my house. Some people say they had to use an HDMI audio extractor to achieve this, but that was not necessary in my case.

Yeah, similar setup here - I've plugged mine into the first HDMI port on my Onkyo receiver (http://amzn.com/B0077V88V8), and everything works fine. Audio through the reciever, no TV on - plus I get the automatic input switching thing that Chromecast does (seems to just go to the first HDMI port on the receiver, not the actual one it was plugged into). Pretty nice.

Any Bluetooth audio adapter will do, and it will do for iOS devices, too. Unless you want a longer tether than Bluetooth allows there is no advantage to "casting."

Perhaps if one could cast to multiple Chomecasts...

That would be disturbing if you could hear more than one at a time, there will be variance in delay...

I suppose that depends on how it's done. Sonos manages to network multiple speakers and coordinate playback.

$4 BT audio dongles like this one

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5mm-USB-Bluetooth-Wireless-Stereo-...

will work fine, only problem is double compression of audio - it sounds like crap

I think you just described ROCKI! - http://www.myrocki.com/

They had a successful Kickstarter in 2013 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocki/rocki-wifi-music-...) and went through Techstars Boston in Fall 2014.

I use a bluetooth adapter connected to my receiver's inputs. My use case is pretty simple though: send audio from my phone (Spotify or audio book) to the receiver.

The Moto Stream works fine for me with Android and iPhone:

http://www.motorola.com/us/accessories-headphones-speakers/M...

You could try to build it yourself https://jeena.net/rp-airplay-radio

I wonder if they'll just make this as simple as a Chromecast being a "Google Cast Ready" speaker - aka, a stream output for audio.

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