Hello, I am wondering if anybody has found a good solution for a stereo amplifier that can be controlled with HA, and ideally with AirPlay integrated. All I need is a pair of powered ~50-100W outputs.
I have a big multichannel multi zone Onkyo Amp for my main floor, and it works great - I am very happy with the HA integration and ability to control every function of the amp with HA.
Upstairs, I’d like to add stereo audio (with passive speakers) to one room, and it’s not convenient to run wires all the way to the Onkyo, so I was thinking of just adding a simple stereo amp for that room. However, the only options I’ve seen so far are either cheap boxes with manual knob controls, or full receivers that are basically equivalent to my existing Onkyo and are overkill.
I’ll check that out, thanks. I might have just answered my own question- after posting this is kept searching and stumbled upon this which looks promising. Does anybody here have any experience using this with HA? I’m not interested in using their proprietary app.
I wish I’d known about this before shelling out for a Yamaha WXA-50 for my workshop. The Yamaha also works very well with Home Assistant but is 1.5x the price.
Also beware both the Acrylic and Yamaha amps are only Airplay 1. Not a big deal but for me it means I can’t group my Yamaha RX-V685 amps with the WXA-50 using Airplay, however…
If you get the Acrylic amp Linkplay does support multi-room playing.
Thanks for flagging no Airplay 2. I usually use Spotify Connect so I think I’d be fine with Airplay 1 for the occasional times I’d need airplay. Yes, I saw that the LinkPlay integration is now part of HA core, so that sounds like it should work seamlessly!
Btw, the Powernode has AirPlay 2 and BluOS has HA integration too. Yes, it is not that cheap, but even here the global rule counts: You get, what you pay for
True, though in this case it’s not slightly more expensive, it’s ~6x more expensive. My use case is for some basic speakers in an accessory room, so I think I’ll try the Arylic first, it seems to have a lot of good reviews and very good HA integration
That little acrylic amp is absolutely alright for some basic speakers. I had a bluesound powernode amp and replaced it with the wiim amp (also linkplay/acrylic, same platform) out of curiosity when it was released because of the reviews. For me it’s better in almost all areas while costing less than half.
But beware, the official linkplay integration is quite new. I think grouping speakers isn’t possible with the official integration yet, for example.
Does it have sleep/standby mode? Any noise/coil whine? How is power consuption?
I see it has USB port but only for external usb devices unfortunately.
How did you integrate it to HA? What HA integration is used? What control options available?
Does it work with HA out of the box or you need to setup it with the app first?
Yes it seems to sleep very well. I haven’t noticed any noise, but maybe I’m not that discerning? All the reviews I read seemed to think that it performed pretty well in terms of audio quality and I don’t disagree
Now that I think about it, it’s been working so well just via airplay and Spotify connect, I realize I haven’t yet integrated it with HA. But I am pretty sure that it can be integrated with HA, just haven’t gotten there yet
Hmm I don’t know about instantly, but within a second or two I think? But that’s more the airplay connection time I think. If it was already connected to a source I think it would start faster
This is all useful to read but I feel that it misses the main point about having an amp that has a good HA integration: it should only amplify well! HA can stream music via Music Assistant and it now has excellent voice control over Voice PE.
So all we need is an amp with a proper integration, connectors for passive speakers and maaaaaybe a volume knob. This should not cost £400 and include a number of unnecessary options.
I am having a hard time finding any to be honest. Help would be much appreciated.
