Send digital audio from one PC to another

[RixzZ]

Hello.

 

I have a setup with one Intel Nuc where I have Linux and a desktop computer with Windows 10. I'm currently using wireless headphones (SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless) connected to the Windows machine (over a USB coming from their receptor). I get a enough audio quality this way with some kind of 5.1 emulation from the Windows computer.

 

Now, the Nuc doesn't have a proper audio output, just the HDMI connection that I could maybe split and pass the audio to other place, but I don't know how I could input that digital audio signal to my Windows machine to mix it with the audio coming from it, so both PCs could output audio to my wireless headphones.

Right now I'm using a USB to Jack adapter on the Nuc and running a cable to the Windows PC line-in, but the audio is just awful. Is low volume, cracks everytime a loud sound plays and have a decent amount of white noise.

 

I've been looking for a while for some way to transfer the digital signal directly (5.1) from the Nuc, but no idea how to receive it and be able to mix it on Windows.

 

I also used for a while VBAN on Linux to send the audio over network to the Windows machine where I received the signal with VBAN Receptor, but latency and CPU usage on the emitter side made it unsustainable.

 

Any idea on a way to archive this? Thanks!

[The Flying Sloth]

I don't know about surround but in studios we use Listento by audiomovers to live stream studio audio from one PC to another... Source connect is another popular option. 

 

Other than that I'm not too sure how to go about that except maybe setting up a DANTE network between the machines but that would be quite expensive.

 

VBAN seems to be the usual solution to this issue...

 

If you do find a solution please let me know though because this is very interesting to me.

[RixzZ]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I really looked into this from every way I could think of: ways to transfer the signal over the network with low latency (I didn't know about those two alternative you suggested), ways to transfer it with a cable:

• Toslink? I would need a SPDIF IN interface, which seems to be something a consumer sound card doesn't usually have (and some are limited to 2.0 on the interface).
• USB? I didn't find a way to send or receive a signal over USB directly.
• USB to Toslink to USB? Maybe the most promising one, but I would require an external sound card on both machines with SPDIF-IN and OUT support.

Network options seems to be where most alternatives are available. I find hard to understand why every standard way of outputting audio from a computers seems to force you to convert the signal to analog, but that's what I'm coming to realize.

 

Asking here is one of the last options I could think of, so I hope someone can come in clutch with some idea. Anyway if I find anything else I'll make sure I update this.

 

 

 

[anothertom]

Look at Icecast or Soundit both free options with varying levels of configuration/functionality. I use soundit, and for the most part works perfectly well, but it does crash occasionally, but only on the receiving device. You could also try pulseaudio.

 

A one off purchase of Dante via and DVS would be cheaper even in the short term than either of the other options suggested, but wouldn't work over wifi so would need to be on a hard wired network. The other suggestions (source connect and Listento) are subscriptions, not particularly cheap, and are aimed at specific uses very different to what you're trying to do.

 

Icecast i know has linux builds, not sure about soundit (their website has been down for a few days), Pulse only offers linux support. I don't think either source connect or listento have linux support and dante doesn't have linux versions.

[The Flying Sloth]

5 hours ago, RixzZ said:

 

• Toslink? I would need a SPDIF IN interface, which seems to be something a consumer sound card doesn't usually have (and some are limited to 2.0 on the interface).

I mean, technically you could buy two UMC1820 interfaces and connect the ADAT out on one to the ADAT in on the other sending 8 audio channels over a single fibre cable....

 

8 minutes ago, anothertom said:

Icecast i know has linux builds, not sure about soundit (their website has been down for a few days), Pulse only offers linux support. I don't think either source connect or listento have linux support and dante doesn't have linux versions.

Looks like there's a way to bodge Dante to linux from my cursory searches and it does at least have support for AES67/AVB which could technically work. At this point we're getting into studio or large scale installation grade audio networking though which isn't exactly my forté.

 

In layman's terms, OP, I think there are options but they're proper industrial/enterprise grade stuff so I'm not sure I would be too much help...

[anothertom]

47 minutes ago, The Flying Sloth said:

Looks like there's a way to bodge Dante to linux from my cursory searches and it does at least have support for AES67/AVB which could technically work. At this point we're getting into studio or large scale installation grade audio networking though which isn't exactly my forté.

From some googling it might be technically possible, but you'd probably go through a few software layers before hitting the network.

 

@RixzZ have a look at this post using pulseaudio, slightly out of date, but should get you there.

[RixzZ]

2 hours ago, anothertom said:

@RixzZ have a look at this post using pulseaudio, slightly out of date, but should get you there.

Good find, thanks! I already tried something with pulseaudio a while ago, but the Windows part was the difficult one (although there are a few compiled binaries for Windows...). I'll try the way specified on the post.

 

3 hours ago, The Flying Sloth said:

I mean, technically you could buy two UMC1820 interfaces and connect the ADAT out on one to the ADAT in on the other sending 8 audio channels over a single fibre cable....

Yeah... that's the thing. Is 'a bit' overkill for my intended usage and not a cheap one either. I thought that I couldn't be that difficult, but seems I was dead wrong. Thanks for the ideas!

[The Flying Sloth]

2 hours ago, RixzZ said:

Yeah... that's the thing. Is 'a bit' overkill for my intended usage and not a cheap one either. I thought that I couldn't be that difficult, but seems I was dead wrong. Thanks for the ideas!

I mean, AES/AVB is always an option but that's a little outside my skillset.
Hope the PulseAudio thing works out otherwise I might go have a chat to some of the tech guys I know that do enterprise audio stuff and see if they know of any cheap solutions.

[anothertom]

3 hours ago, RixzZ said:

Good find, thanks! I already tried something with pulseaudio a while ago, but the Windows part was the difficult one (although there are a few compiled binaries for Windows...). I'll try the way specified on the post.

From my point of view, the only thing that's making this complicated is the involvement of linux as the source. I don't use linux and don't really have a device I can reasonably have as a test environment, so i don't really know if what I'm finding is of any use, otherwise I'd have tried some of the tools to see if they work.

[RixzZ]

40 minutes ago, anothertom said:

From my point of view, the only thing that's making this complicated is the involvement of linux as the source.

Yeah.... you are right on that. I saw a few good options considering only Windows on both sides.

 

What I mean is that in my setup, pulseaudio on Linux is not a problem. It just works. Anyway, I'm trying that solution right now, and is not looking too well 

[RixzZ]

Well, it works quite well. It has some delay but nothing to serious. The audio quality is way better that the crappy USB to Jack adapter that I had until now.

 

The main problem is that Spotify goes mad when using the audio interface provided by pulseaudio with the network configuration. It can play songs, but the UI becomes unresponsive and ends up freezing (without crashing) 

 

I'll have to see if I can fix that. Thanks @anothertom 

 

 

[Ahoy Hoy]

You were saying that the NUC has a HDMI output. If you search HDMI to HDMI and digital audio. You will find devices which separate the audio from the video signal. Normally around 10 to 20 quid.


Example photo of one I found on amazon.
 

[RixzZ]

9 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

If you search HDMI to HDMI and digital audio. You will find devices which separate the audio from the video signal.

I have one of those currently that I use to split the audio of a PS4. I could do as you say and split the audio from the Nuc, but I need a way to input that digital audio signal on my main computer where the USB headphones are connected.

 

Maybe something like this could work to receive the signal...

[RustyDoobie]

On 11/19/2020 at 7:33 PM, RixzZ said:

Hello.

 

I have a setup with one Intel Nuc where I have Linux and a desktop computer with Windows 10. I'm currently using wireless headphones (SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless) connected to the Windows machine (over a USB coming from their receptor). I get a enough audio quality this way with some kind of 5.1 emulation from the Windows computer.

 

Now, the Nuc doesn't have a proper audio output, just the HDMI connection that I could maybe split and pass the audio to other place, but I don't know how I could input that digital audio signal to my Windows machine to mix it with the audio coming from it, so both PCs could output audio to my wireless headphones.

Right now I'm using a USB to Jack adapter on the Nuc and running a cable to the Windows PC line-in, but the audio is just awful. Is low volume, cracks everytime a loud sound plays and have a decent amount of white noise.

 

I've been looking for a while for some way to transfer the digital signal directly (5.1) from the Nuc, but no idea how to receive it and be able to mix it on Windows.

 

I also used for a while VBAN on Linux to send the audio over network to the Windows machine where I received the signal with VBAN Receptor, but latency and CPU usage on the emitter side made it unsustainable.

 

Any idea on a way to archive this? Thanks!

I have figured out a way to send audio digitally from PC to PC without expensive equipment, or expensive software.  Let me know if you still need a solution or would like to hear mine.

[RustyDoobie]

Just now, RustyDoobie said:

I have figured out a way to send audio digitally from PC to PC without expensive equipment, or expensive software.  Let me know if you still need a solution or would like to hear mine.

Via HDMI ----> USB 3.0

[RixzZ]

On 11/13/2021 at 5:29 PM, RustyDoobie said:

I have figured out a way to send audio digitally from PC to PC without expensive equipment, or expensive software.  Let me know if you still need a solution or would like to hear mine.

I didn't find anything else since then. I'm using VBAN with a new emitter for Linux that someone wrote in Python and doesn't use a lot of CPU (which was the main problem back then for using a network based solution).

 

I'd like to see your solution