Streaming from the digital out of a CD player

[JaMmy]

I have an old Sony CD player that accepts 400 discs jukebox box style that I’m irrationally fond of. It has an optical digital out that goes to a DAC and amp. I know I could rip the CDs to a hard disk and set up a NAS but I never have and doubt I have the patience or stamina to do it. I listen to music in three different rooms using a couple of Rpi’s running Moode and a WiiM pro plus.
My technical newbie question is: is there a way of casting or streaming from the CD digital out to the Pi’s or WiiM?
If that isnt feasible, would a long ( say 25metre) digital optical cable work?
Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Redacted]

There is likely a software way to do this, but first, I'm not sure of your topology or intent:

What is the music source for the two RPis? (might be relevant should you need to change s/w). I assume you stream with the Wiim.

What is the DAC and amp you mention? A map of how it all fits together would help.

Do you expect two RPis to be playing the same music at same time? I'm not sure what the RPis are doing - if running Moode, it sounds like doubling up on the Wiim...

The Wiim Pro Plus has optical in, but for 25m of optical fibre, I'm guessing you'd need proper glass-based fibre not the cheap toslink plastic type. You can buy optical repeaters too, if needed as Toslink uses a weak laser.

Does the CD have co-ax out? If so, that will likely be OK with 25m of cable of the correct characteristic impedance (cheap to test).

 

[JaMmy]

Thanks for this. I only have an optical out (It's a Sony CDP CX450). I use one Rpi as sender from a room where I also have the CD player, turntable and amp (Yamaha DSP Z-II with dac), a Mac mini, an old macbook running linux mint and a Samsung Smart TV and the other Rpi is a receiver going into a cheap chinese DAC board and amp. in a bedroom. The third room, a large living room, has the Wiim. I usually use an old iphone to send Spotify, BBC sounds or other radio to the Wiim, or send files from the music libraries on the Mac mini or macbook. The Wiim goes to DIY amplifiers and electronic crossovers I build from Rob Elliott designs. I'm an inexpert tinkerer and have a few Rpis and bits and pieces lieing around.
I only ever have music playing in one room at a time. Basically the room with the macs and CD player has the best sound (I have a pair of Focal floorstanders I got in a bargain sale) but the living room has the best view. It has a pair of Beauhorns with Lowther drivers that measure quite badly but look great and cannot be moved as they are also very important plant stands .My query is about whether, if I learned more about the mechanics of digital audio and its transmission, I coud make the system I have more flexible. I have very little coding knoweldge, and fear I am now too old a git to skill up ,uch on that front .

 

[LTig]

Digital audio via SPDIF over longer lengths (more than 5 to 10 meter) either requires specific and expensive optical cables or 75 Ohm coax cable. A simple RG59 or TV satellite cabel suffices. I tested 16 m RG59 successfully.

If a device has no coax I/O one can buy cheap adapters - I have two for both directions, they were about € 10 each including a small external power supply. Search for Coax Optical Converter.

 

[Redacted]

Sketch the whole thing on paper and take a photo and post - I'm getting word-blind trying follow what everything does and how it's connected.
"If you want to get to London, I wouldn't be starting from here" is my first thought!

Not helpful for you, but every CD I have ever owned has been ripped to my NAS running a media server. I was forced to rip all the CDs I had not bothered to rip, in time for going off travelling. It was tedious, but I started with most loved, in case I ran out of time. A PC or whatever with a CD player on it - disk in, click button on fre:ac, disk auto-ejects. Lots of elapsed time, but not much effort. Batch process the files after a session, in MP3Tag etc etc. I have never looked back and would never have done it any other way - I have perfect tags, cover art, and can play the same music on any capable device in the house. For only 400 CDs, these can be stored as FLACs in what? a trivial 150GB of storage, so any PC or Mac can handle that, and just use a simple media server like this: https://www.universalmediaserver.com - simple enough that a budgie could work it.

 

[staticV3]

Two options:

1. Plug the Optical output into a Raspberry Pi via a HiFime UR23 or Pi hat with Optical input and use Darkice/Icecast or a UPnP server to turn the Optical stream into a local HTTP/Internet Radio stream.

Then you can open that stream in your WiiM and Moode devices.

2. Replace all of your Raspberries with WiiM devices and use WiiM's native Multi-room functionality to cast one WiiM Pro's Optical input to one or multiple WiiM endpoints.

The latter method will synchronize playback perfectly, whereas the former may give you some desync when playing back the stream on multiple devices.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

You might be surprised how quick a job it is to rip 400 CDs. If you’re working at your computer, just keep ripping them one at once in the background as you work.