I’m looking to upgrade my home HiFi system for work with HA. I currently have a fairly old amplifier and I’m using LMS which is controlled through HA. But I’m currently unable to switch the amp or control any of its functions within HA. I Understand that some of the Denon and Onkyo receivers work with HA. But I’m only really interested in music, so wondering if any of the Stereo receivers such as the Marantz NR1200 will work with HA??
I only need basic control of the amp, such as power on, volume and changing inputs. I was thinking of using an IR blaster for my current amp, but this seems like a lot of work and won’t allow me to set volume and switch to a spefic input.
Any advice from people with audio setups in HA would be very much appreciated.
The Marantz one could work, but seems that no one tested and reported it as supported in the Denon integration.
I have good experience myself with the Yamaha RN-602 D Stereo Receiver, you can control lots of things with the integration already (volume, source, power) and even more through the API.
For me, controlling my old kenwood krf-x9090d via ir is no problem. Via esphome ive setup a remote receiver and read the codes. Normally, that works, but not for me. I had to use an arduino with the same receiver and an example called irreceivedumpv2 from the irreceiver lib. That decoded my ir commands properly. Then simply create a template switch for every function, with the turn_on action to execute the command like incease the volume and the turn_off action to do nothing, for the persistent ones like power set it to optimistic: true and for inputs set them also to optimistic and switch all other input switches off.
Ok, you dont get the ability to set the volume directly to a specific value, but im working on a feedback with a dB sensor right infront of one speaker to set a dB instead of a volume gain. That has the advantage, that i can set the dB to my amount and if the source is way loader like an annyoing ad or quiter like a video from another creator, the volume adjusts itself automatically to compensate for too loud or to quite content.
As the direct input thing: as long as you have a button the remote to switch directly to an input, you can send that command through esphome/home assistant.
Oh btw, i dont like the computers inside the amp. I only want to hear the sound of my pc or xbox, not compute pi to the 1000st digit. Their too expensive for me or i dont like the sound from them.
The difference: The dumb amp is cheaper and easier to repair. The arduino/esp32/esp8266 is a simulator for the original remote. And that can be replaced too. Or modded.
Don’t worry, I’m still using a 15 or so year old surround sound receiver which doesn’t have any smarts or even HDMI!!! I control it from HA via a Broadlink RM3 mini IR blaster, so it’s basically what you are talking about.
However… a network connected version of that same hifi receiver now costs peanuts so I wouldn’t bother with anything else if I was buying one today.
Yes, the amp can influence the sound. Everything in your signal chain can. Even the speaker cable.
For example, have a guitar amp: compare any 100W head with an other. It will sound different. Then compare 1 meter cable with 100m cable. Youll get less from the high frequencies.
You can build an amp out of different circuits: Class A, Class B, Class A/B, Class D and with tubes or transistors. Everything influences the sound. Even the quality of the caps used in filtering.
Good amps have a heap of filter circuitry to make sure the control electronics don’t create interference in the output sound.
My Onkyo receiver even has a button on the front which turns off all the display etc, to further reduce any interference for ‘Pure Sound’ mode.
Hifi-marketing has really found a good victim with you.
This has been debunked so many times, god there was a live test with many so called hifi experts where they exchanged cable in front of their eyes every few minutes ranging from 5€ per meter up to 10000€ per meter and they all wrote about the differences they could hear. Guess what, the speakers where actually attached through cheap standard speaker cables running from the bottom and the cables they exchanged were not used at all.
A good amp does what its name says, amplify, if it distorts your sound, it’s a bad amp. What mattera are the speakers.
But let’s not discuss this any further, I know enough HiFi experts from the past and I know the ycan’t be convinced that they spent hell a lot of money for nothing
Yeah, like physic is a lie
A resistor which every conductor is whith a capacitor, what basically consists of conductive surfaces nearly touching each other, like in a speaker cable, forms a so called low pass filter. It filters high frequencies. Its also called tone sucker. Reduce the resistence by changing the conductor or the cross-section of the conductor and it changes the cut-off frequency.
Trust me, i might not have a degree in electronics, but im on the way for that, im building and repairing audio equip, playing electric guitar and build my own gear for that too, because theres nothing in my price range with my requirements.
