Site Links
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
In this Discussion
Connecting Speakers with Bluetooth
I'm sorry if this a rather basic question(s), but we have an old Yamaha RX596 receiver which still sounds great and is built like a brick ****house, but due to its age, it doesn't have bluetooth capability.
If I want to run another pair of speakers in another room, I would have to run wires through the ceiling or under the carpet. I've just built a pair of Craig's excellent 830656 and DA25 Peerless two ways and would like to use them in our study. Our main speakers - Curt Campbell's Slapshot MTMs also run off the Yamaha.
Then I thought about bluetooth. I've read several articles about this and thoroughly confused myself, as I'm not the most tech-savvy person.
So, please bear with me as I ask:
• what do I attach to the speakers' binding posts instead of the wires?
• do the speakers need to have an internal amplifier, or does the output from the amplifier just travel through the air rather than the wires?
• what would I need to attach to the receiver's speaker output terminals - they're spring loaded, you poke the end of the speaker wires into them;
• would it be possible to have a bluetooth sub as well - not a deal breaker as the speakers have quite acceptable bass as they are;
• or am I trying to do the impossible and need to fork out for a bluetooth capable receiver and speakers with built in amplifiers?
Thank you for any suggestions, etc!
Oh, and a Happy and above all, safe Christmas to all
Geoff
Comments
Hi Geoff,
I'm not up on all the latest BT specs and standards, but basic bluetooth technology works at line level, not speaker level output. That said, there are tons of little digital amps with BT built in. You could buy a BT transmitter to send the signal from the Yamaha - you can use a tape monitor output. Then pick up something cheap like this for the other room -
For $100 more, this newer receiver with BT probably has better fidelity and more power -
Thanks Tom
So the little amp goes in the study and I connect the speakers to it as normal, and I connect the bluetooth magic box to a tape out jack on the back of the receiver, is that correct?
A new receiver would be nice but the modern Yamahas don't seem to have the construction quality of the old ones - but I expect the old one it will cark it one of these days.
Geoff
What will be your source for those speakers?
I mean, having a BT amp you can just pair your phone and play Spotify or whatever.
But if you want to play from a CD player or whatnot, you'll need a BT transmitter.
So the hookup will depend on what you want to play from.
I have iTunes and 160GB of music on my iPhone, so can I play that through the bluetooth amplifier? If so, I'd like to do that but I'd also like to play whatever music I'm playing on the main system in the study so we can listen to the same thing when we're in different rooms.
These are very basic questions - we've only just purchased a 'smart TV!
Thank you
Geoff
Yes - iPhone to BT amp will work just fine. For the same music on both systems - If it's an older iPhone (like a 6S) that has a headphone jack, you can cable right into your Yamaha and then send that audio to the BT amp using a BT transmitter. If you have a newer phone, you'll need the $10 Apple adapter. If you want to be totally wireless, you'll need an separate BT receiving box to plug into your Yamaha. You would just be daisy chaining everything together wirelessly.
The probable problem with other room is that bt might not reach properly. The max distance is usually measured with line of sight.
So walls will degrade signal a lot.
Good point, I don't know anything about the range of the signal or what effect walls would have
Thank you
Geoff
Thanks Tom
Geoff
Hi Geoff
Just to understand better what you want to do. Are you trying to setup multi-room audio where the same music plays in different locations/room at the same time?
Or are you just trying to setup a second room for listening to music? Maybe music is playing in both rooms at the same time but they don't need to be the same music or synchronized. In this case is much easier, just get a send amp or receiver and it may or may not have bluetooth.
If you want to do away with physically plugging in your phone to the amp, then bluetooth can help, but it is not required. Also just plain plugging in your phone to the amp would sound the same if not better than bluetooth. If you use an external dac or an amp with dac built-in, it will leave bluetooth looking very blue, meaning bluetooth will be inferior. Bluetooth standards are improving, but it's not yet there.
For true high fidelity streaming, you need wifi and it is way more complicated than bluetooth, though airplay can be easier, though I am not sure how hifi anything apple is.
Bluetooth is a short range low power communication protocol, it will get the music data digitally over the air, but doesn't have enough power to drive speakers. You would need a bluetooth receiver to get the bluetooth signal and covert to analog and then an amplifier to boost the signal enough to drive the speakers.
Hope this clarifies it a bit for you. If you can state what it is you want to achieve, it will be easier to suggest how to achieve it and what products to use.
BTW new iphones which do not have audio out jack, uses bluetooth to connect with the airpods. The tiny airpods have battery, bluetooth receiver, dac, amplifier and drivers to deliver the music wirelessly from the phone to your ears. That is the simplified version, in reality it's a lot complex... As seen here: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551
Thanks ani_101, I'm trying to have the same music in different rooms: I have a spare receiver so setting up another system for listening to different music is easy. Distance between the rooms is about 40 feet or so and there are two walls wholly or partially in the way of the signal.
I could of course just run speaker wires, but that's unsightly on the floors and going through the ceiling would be a pain due to years of accumulated dust and poor accessibility, etc.
Geoff
Since you have an iPhone, you might also want to look into Apple's AirPlay. It uses your wifi to transmit the data (music), so you won't have to worry about distance so much. It also uses a lossless compression and supposedly sounds better than BT. If you have an older Apple Airport wifi box, you can use the audio output on the back. The Gen 2 Apple TV box has an optical output to feed into a DAC. It came in handy for me when I had my PA system. I picked up an older generation Airport, bolted it into the side-stage mixrack so could wirelessly transmit break music right from my MacBook Pro out at the mix position. Pretty slick at the time!
Thanks Tom, I'll check that out
Geoff