I had a little fun making a streamer with stuff I had around to stream music while I work at home without using a second computer and not taking my VPN connection while I’m working. For those looking to a music streamer like Chromecast Audio but want something more up to date and a digital out for their DAC of choice, I got a working configuration right now. I found an HDMI audio extractor for about $20 something off of Amazon and connected the Chromecast to it and the HDMI itself sent to a any source to connect (I don’t know if there is a HDMI termination needed or some other handshake). The digital audio is sent my Airist R-2R and it sounds great!
So while new Chromecast Audio has been disconnected, I found an audio extractor + regular Chromecast connected to a display made a great headless streamer from my phone to my DAC. Just thought I would share for people who are struggling for streaming options but like the simplicity of using chrome browsers and cell phones. The experiences has been more pleasant and I think sounds better than using my Sonos Port to do something similar which a much easier interface to use.
Question to make this solution better. Does anyone know what it would take to make some type of HDMI terminator so a monitor/TV doesn’t need to be connected to the HDMI extractor to avoid connecting to a display entirely?