[SOLVED] wireless audio

[tarazed]

Not sure if this is the correct place to open this thread.

I am looking to buy Altec Lansing inMotion wireless speakers to do
away with all the usual cabling. The speaker set comes with a USB
dongle but I have been unable to find out how to drive it directly.
For instance to play a track using mplayer or whatever and have the
output directed to the USB device. The recommended way is to use the
mpd daemon and maybe an interface like gmpc; not the way I wish to
go. I already have a simple system for playing music, with my own directory
structure and m3u playlists. All I need is a redirect.

aplay --list-devices would tell me what the USB device is called.

Where to put that information?

Len

[tarazed]

Replying to myself I see that the GNOME system tools that under Sound the output device can be selected. So I guess I shall have to wait to see if the USB dongle turns up in the list and hope that it is simple as that.

[doktor5000]

Does it mention how the sound is transferred, maybe via bluetooth or 2.4 GHz wireless?

[tarazed]

It provides Bluetooth connectivity but I assume that the USB dongle transmits in the 2.4 GHz band. Altec Lansing claim a 100 metre range but one reviewer reckoned that was a bit of an exaggeration in real world settings.

[tarazed]

Nope, I was wrong there. Paid more attention to the reviews and see that the USB dongle is actually a Bluetooth transmitter. The technology is all Bluetooth which I think means that the speakers can be paired with cellphones and the like. Unfortunately, my X51 does not have Bluetooth so I guess that is the end of that, unless the dongle provides all that is needed. I am totally ignorant of how these things work.

[doktor5000]

Yep, a dongle (if you don't want to go for the maximum range, a cheap bluetooth dongle for approx. 10$) should do the job, provided with audio via pulseaudio.
For more information on the audio via bluetooth topic maybe have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_ ... .28A2DP.29
But the dongle probably needs to support A2DP profile, but i'm not sure on that. I'll ask somebody more knowledgeable in this area to comment here ...

[tarazed]

Thanks for the link. I have gone ahead and ordered the speakers and if the dongle does not work shall look for another which supports whichever profile(s) your experts specify and hope that DRM does not get in the way.

[tarazed]

Altec Lansing speakers received today and charged up. Pairing worked fine using the supplied Bluetooth transmitter. The dongle is supplied with analogue audio via the snd_usb_audio driver. There was a bit of trouble to start with; the usb sound device appeared in the hardware list but not the device list. I chose analogue sound and the usb dongle and hoped that the sound would be routed OK. heard nothing until after a reboot. The new device then appeared in the device list and I was able to select it. After that the speakers burst into life. Pairing is automatic after the first time.

Len