Tried searching here and Reddit but couldn’t find any discussion I could understand about my specific desired use case. I’ve been using Plex to play my music through my Roku TVs, which is fine for background listening but of course doesn’t result in very good audio quality. Is it possible to buy a pair of some sort of wi-fi speakers (possibly even battery powered?) and have Plex send the left stereo channel to one speaker and the right stereo channel to the other speaker directly from the QNAP NAS on my internal network that all my Plex content lives on? Or do you have to send it to a receiver/amp of some kind and connect the speakers to the receiver/amp like you used to do in the old days? Could I control/choose what music plays from my Plex web server/browser on my laptop/PC, or would I have to use some other device for that?
I’m looking for the simplest way to accomplish this with as few wires and devices as possible, but hopefully also avoiding any of the older style casting methods that my research so far seems to indicate may have become obsolete or may no longer be actively supported by Plex and/or their original manufacturer(s).
Any suggestions/explanations would be greatly appreciated.
Nope, Plex has no way to send audio to WiFi speakers. If the device you use has this ability, the device itself would control this. i.e. Fire TV devices can send audio to Echo devices as speakers. This is controlled by the Fire TV and may or may not work. Plex has no control over it.
Thanks for the info. It sounds like I would need to have some sort of receiver/amp/device that Plex could send the music to, which would then send it to the speakers, since Plex can’t send the music directly to the speakers.
So, is there a particular, good choice for such a receiver/amp/device that Plex can send music to (hopefully, one that would then be able to wirelessly send the music to the speakers, so I wouldn’t have to wire the speakers directly to the receiver/amp/device)? And how would I tell Plex which music to send to the receiver/amp/device - would I use the web browser on a PC to reach the Plex server on my NAS, or would the receiver/amp/device have to have its own Plex client like the Roku TVs do, or what?
Interesting, but the other thread doesn’t clarify a central question for my desired use case. Specifically, it refers to a “Sonos device”, but does that mean a single Sonos speaker, or is there a Sonos amp/receiver that is the “device” and which then sends the right channel to one Sonos speaker and the left channel to a second Sonos speaker? Does Plex work with all Sonos devices/speakers or are only some Sonos devices/speakers supported for Plex (and if the latter, is there a list of Plex-supported Sonos devices/speakers somewhere)?
Also, having looked at the Sonos web site, besides the sticker shock I’m concerned that I don’t see any indication that Sonos speakers can be set up in a traditional stereo (separate left/right channel speaker set) configuration - all their pairs/sets of speakers appear designed/intended for one speaker per room. Is there actually a way to use Sonos speakers for such a traditional stereo setup, or is the only option to use one of their “Port” devices attached to a traditional stereo receiver/amp/speaker system?
Thanks for the info. After a little more digging I found an easier/cheaper way to accomplish what I needed to do. I bought a pair of Bluetooth speakers that were designed to be used as a stereo pair, and used it with my Bluetooth-enabled laptop that accesses my Plexed music using the Plex web server/client. That worked great, but it also turned out that the Roku TV in the room I wanted to set this up in has an audio out jack that I can connect to these same speakers and thus use the Plex player on the Roku TV to access/play my Plexed music (which is what I was doing before when playing through the TV speakers, and eliminates the need for using the separate laptop).
Not exactly as elegant a solution as what I was originally hoping for, but fortunately good enough for my current arrangements.
Thanks for steering me toward the direction I needed to go.
