Biggest hurdle would be timing, if you want it sound right.. Every speaker should be in sync as much as possible
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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@one_knight_scripting Don't forget about latency and keeping speakers in sync with each other and the TV. It's surprisingly hard, even on a flat, local, wired network.
I haven't tried this in a few years, but my last attempt made me appreciate the simplcity and reliability of a speaker cable. 😅 I'm eager to hear experiences from you and from others, because it would absolutely be cool!
Well... From the very small amount that I've gathered from balenaSound, timing is mostly handled. If the software I want to write for it becomes a thing, then the Server PI will have a microphone to detect how much latency there is and adapt. That is a step way down the line though.
Snapcast might fit the bill, not sure about the 5.1 bit.
Does multi room sync
If you don't want to worry about latency/etc - you should consider doing it with lasers 😈.
Straight up, that is awesome. I absolutely love it.
I don't know how he comes up with his ideas, but they are all pretty phenomenal and novel. Great channel to subscribe to for some creative fuel every once in a while!
Balena sound was the first thing to come to mind. I'm not sure if it's still being worked on but it seems to do the trick.
This is a cool idea! This sounds a lot like what DANTE and AES67 or AVB are used for in pro audio (mixing console sends multichannel and outputs can subscribe to one or more channels), maybe they have some ideas on timing sync which I think would be the hardest part as others have said, it is crazy how small of a jitter your brain can hear.
Pi's built in audio is terrible. Even if it works you will want a better audio interface. The PI only has digital inputs (I think there is a mic input), so you need something to get audio in. If you can get the digital audio that is best, but often that is behind encryption and so you end up with analog inputs. (I'm not sure what the options here are, worth looking deeper).
Once you have the audio in, there are a number of Jack (which port audio supports) to network low latency products that will work. Configuration will be hard but that is something you only do once. (configuration is hard because almost everyone who uses this wants a different complex setup and so there is no way to make it easy in a way that would help anyone else)
Look at https://www.picoreplayer.org/ using some sort of dac for the raspberry pi. Something like https://www.hifiberry.com/ or https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/iqaudio-is-now-raspberry-pi/ . Easy to install, works pretty flawless and with LMS server can be used as a single full home audio or play zones independently. Not sure if it can do the single speaker type syncing but you can set one left and the other right and sync them to play a single audio source. The only thing I have not done is take an input from a device like a tv as stream source.But with a pi that has bluetooth you can use bluetooth as an input and stream to all other pcp devices in your network. I use raspberry pi 4 1Gig memory with an external poe injector which simplifies powering them and gives consistent network. But 12v input from a power outlet and wifi works well enough in some spots too. It is essentially as close as you can get to plug and play squeezelite as I have found
Interesting. One other option is to use OrangePi for the server. OrangePi has ARC over HDMI and that would count as an input.
I did choose the WiSa surround sound system linked. I'll cannibalize it later to make better speakers. I like it because it is audio at 24 bit/96kHz. It also just uses the HDMI ARC.
Radio signal(I'm a comm/nav aircraft mechanic, I had to know):
- 5 GHz spectrum
- Fixed latency of 2.6 ms