Advice on Episode Lynk

[pdapice]

Just found the episode Lynk which is what i have been looking for for a while now. I have VSSL amps currently which do the same thing but they have some limitations and are also very buggy when it comes to C4 integration.

I am hoping the Lynk will be the answer

I saw another thread where a few of the people on here have them currently and they are working well, but that was 5 or 6 months ago so I am interested in hearing the longer term usage stories from you guys.

is everything working smoothly? any glitches or bugs that still need to be worked out?
how is the C4 integration? i haven't been able to find any screen shots or videos of it.

any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[msgreenf]

Which service is specifically? Are you looking for the lynk to provide?  There have been a few updates and it works well. 

[pdapice]

11 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Which service is specifically? Are you looking for the lynk to provide?  There have been a few updates and it works well. 

Chromecast is the one that I want, it's really the only thing that C4 isn't doing natively. It's a bit pricey to just do that one thing, but if it's rock solid and integrates well then it will be worth it.

one of the things that VSSL could never do properly is to add rooms to an existing chromecast stream. So if i cast a song to one room and then try and join another room to the currently playing stream, it was a no go. Is the Lynk capable of this?

[msgreenf]

Yes this works perfectly on the lynk 

[pdapice]

45 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

Yes this works perfectly on the lynk 

awesome, thanks!

any other cool / useful things that i can do with this? I was thinking of putting it through a matrix but i don't think it really lends itself well to that. Seems like the best use would be zone inputs on my amp

[msgreenf]

20 minutes ago, pdapice said:

awesome, thanks!

any other cool / useful things that i can do with this? I was thinking of putting it through a matrix but i don't think it really lends itself well to that. Seems like the best use would be zone inputs on my amp

I have it in my audio matrix. And I have one room set as the default room to power on. Just like you could do with the Spotify driver. There isn't anything else that isn't existing somewhere else in the system. For me. Like you, this was about audiocast. The only quirk of casting is that it can't cast the audio from a video source. It has to be audio only.

[pdapice]

27 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

I have it in my audio matrix. And I have one room set as the default room to power on. Just like you could do with the Spotify driver. There isn't anything else that isn't existing somewhere else in the system. For me. Like you, this was about audiocast. The only quirk of casting is that it can't cast the audio from a video source. It has to be audio only.

oh, i forgot about that limitation with the audio only. I had purchased a few cheap android TV boxes that support chromecast with both audio and video. maybe i will try those first - but i am not sure the drivers for them are as robust. might have to check and see what chowmain has

[fleon]

Actually, the Lynx mostly works, but not perfectly.

For Chromecast - yes, the audio chomecast does play audio, and seems to do that correctly.  However, there is a bug - C4 does not recognize the Lynk correctly as a session. Here's the example:

 

Let's say you have the Lynk playing in your Kitchen.  And You have a button in your Living Room programmed like this:

If the room Kitchen is in a session

     Add rooms Living to Kitchen session

 

You would expect that music would start playing in the Living Room.  That's how it works with all other audio devices.  This does NOT work on the Lynk.  The Lynk is simply not recognized as a session and will not start playing.  You can manually add the room and it will work.   However, it's a pretty big bug.

 

For me, it's a big deal, and it's why I continue to use just a standard Chromecast Audio from Google.    It works correctly.

 

 

Also, if you have distributed audio outside of your matrix amp, that obviously won't play.  I do have a Lynk plugged into a MOIP audio transmitter to fix that problem, however.  That's obviously not a problem with the Lynk itself.  However, one does wonder why they didn't integrate all this with RYFF, instead?

 

[pdapice]

10 minutes ago, fleon said:

Actually, the Lynx mostly works, but not perfectly.

For Chromecast - yes, the audio chomecast does play audio, and seems to do that correctly.  However, there is a bug - C4 does not recognize the Lynk correctly as a session. Here's the example:

 

Let's say you have the Lynk playing in your Kitchen.  And You have a button in your Living Room programmed like this:

If the room Kitchen is in a session

     Add rooms Living to Kitchen session

 

You would expect that music would start playing in the Living Room.  That's how it works with all other audio devices.  This does NOT work on the Lynk.  The Lynk is simply not recognized as a session and will not start playing.  You can manually add the room and it will work.   However, it's a pretty big bug.

 

For me, it's a big deal, and it's why I continue to use just a standard Chromecast Audio from Google.    It works correctly.

 

 

Also, if you have distributed audio outside of your matrix amp, that obviously won't play.  I do have a Lynk plugged into a MOIP audio transmitter to fix that problem, however.  That's obviously not a problem with the Lynk itself.  However, one does wonder why they didn't integrate all this with RYFF, instead?

 

Interesting, one of my locations that i would use this in actually has a kitchen/living room setup just like that. I think that i programmed it as digital media starts or something along those lines so i am not sure if that would carry over.
does the CCA driver have album art and metadata? are you using the default driver for the CCA or a third party?

[fleon]

You know, I have no idea - I've never checked.  I don't think so?  I have my whole rack ripped up right now, but when I get back home and finish putting it together, I'll check?  Will be after the weekend.

 

I'd probably just use a Chromecast Audio  if you can find one.  It's $20 vs. the $350 or whatever the Lynk is now.  The Lynk has marginal advantage if you are putting it through a matrix with volume control.  The addition of Airplay is nice, I guess, but Chromecast seems fine for that, and the ability to play Spotify Connect already exists in the EA controllers.   I don't think you'll get any real benefit with your setup, it sounds like.