Bathroom Chip Amp Setup - Nobsound Bluetooth

[KingBubba]

For the past 6 months or so I have been perusing the tiny amps available these days. I have read a good number of AK threads about these little chip amps. I have always been fascinated by miniature items.

My plan is to install an amp and speakers in the bathroom. I love to take a shower and listen to music. In my previous house, I had such a setup, but it will be harder to do a hardwire setup in this house. I had a couple of Nobsound amps in mind, but today I started to look at and consider a chip amp with Bluetooth input. The problem here is I have no idea how this would work.

Would it be possible for someone here enlighten me on how the Bluetooth input works. I have a laptop in the bedroom which would be the source, but I don't know how this connection would be made. Do I need a specific program to send out the signal? Any directions would be welcome. Many thanks.

 

[Lavane]

I haven't tried my laptop yet, but it must be like using a smartphone. The lappy or phone looks for the bluetooth, finds it and prompts you to connect. I have a cheap little bluetooth receiver I connect to various amps from time to time and stream from my smart phone. As long as your laptop has blue tooth you should be good if the chip amp has bluetooth also. Distance and closed doors are a factor with blue tooth though.

 

[KingBubba]

What I don't get is the means of transmission from the source to the receiving device. I get that it is an RF signal, but it does not explain how I get a music file in my computer to play itself on another device.

 

[willyrover]

The bluetooth device (headphones, speaker, amplifier, etc.) will have a button that you press to initiate "pairing mode".

If your laptop has built-in bluetooth, it should "discover" the device that you have put into pairing mode and allow you to connect to it.

Then you would select the bluetooth device as your "sound output device" for the laptop and play your music on the laptop as you normally would.

I paired a pair of bluetooth ear buds with my MacBook Pro and it's just a matter of selecting them as output device.

 

[bigx5murf]

I used one of these in my garage. You just pair the device you want to use as a source to it. I usually use my smartphone. You can use a laptop, if your laptop has bluetooth, not all of them do.

 

[KingBubba]

I have a Thinkpad that has Bluetooth, which I have never used. I think the only way I am going to figure this out for sure is to buy a Bluetooth amp and try it. I have found a Nobsound Bluetooth mini-amp for less than $21; so what do I have to lose?

 

[KingBubba]

I ended up buying this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131695455909

And I also bought a lvpin mini amp, but not bluetooth. It was a cheap as lunch. I'll give my opinion when they arrive from China. I was considering putting the lvpin in the Suburban with a pair of DCM CX-07s in the wayback. I have to find out if there is an output on the Alpine.

 

[KingBubba]

The Amps have arrived and are surprisingly clean sounding and powerful. The Livpin has an L2020 chip, I believe it is a 20 watt output, not the 50 amps that they said it was. It drove the CX-07 quite nicely. I brought out the bluetooth amp and it took me a few tries to get it recognized by the Thinkpad. Once recognized, it functioned well. It is a thirty watt amp. I tried walking away with the Thinkpad and It has a range of around 15 feet, which should work for the bathroom setup when I get that setup.

The setup will have to wait, as a glass of water was spilled way left on the counter I was using. I cleaned up around the glass, not realizing that a great amount of water had drained right, under another project I was working on. The water ran under the computer and sat there for hours, without me noticing it. The Thinkpad was soaked inside and even after every rescue attempt I made there was no hope. The Thinkpad is dead. This thread will have to be continued when I get a replacement computer. Boy, am I pissed.

 

[orsen]

i have a little BT speaker for the bathroom
i was using my phone to feed it
i decided i want to hear my flac from the pc
my pc is too old to have onboard BT
i bought one of these for the pc .. it works great .. i can take the speaker outside and still connect

https://www.amazon.ca/Avantree-Blue...-1-spons&keywords=bluetooth+transmitter&psc=1

next for me is the chip amp with BT and remote, mounted to a set of paradigm titans .... like a portable boom box

 

[orsen]

i added musicbee to the desktop and set it use the BT transmitter
i just drop folders on the icon ... it plays everything ... and i dont have to bother the settings for jriver to my main rig

actually i can have jriver to the main rig
musicbee to BT
VLC to tv and avr all going at once. all playing different media. thats a little noisy but it does work

the idea is she can watch tv from the pc\avr\tv and i can have music in the bath from the same pc and she is'nt interrupted by my music

 

[KingBubba]

After months of delay I finally have my setup put together. I had it setup on the island in the kitchen. The bluetooth connection was fine until the water accident. I have 2 other Thinkpads to use, but neither will connect up like the other did. I am having to use the aux in on the amp. The sound is loud, full and has sufficient bass due to the corner position of the DCM CX-07s. Finally, after moving into this new home, I can take a shower with nice loud music. I still have some touchups to do, but, for now, I am satisfied.