A2D2 Stream is a smart little box that plugs into any analogue audio source and lets you stream it to smart speakers, headphones, multi-room audio systems, Bluetooth, Airplay, Sonos, Alexa speakers, radio apps (like TuneIn)… whatever.
This means that if you have records and an old record deck, old cassettes and a player, even a minidisc system or boombox that’s been sat in your loft for the last 20 years, you can plug it into this little device and access all your priceless analogue music just like you access all your digital music today.
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A2D2 (there is no A2D1, they’ve clearly gone for the Star Wars rhyme here) is of course an analogue-to-digital audio interface, and it has its own app to allow you to manage the speakers that are available on your network.
While it doesn’t have a built-in phono preamp (so you’ll need a record deck with a line output if you want to use it for vinyl, or a separate pre-amp), it does appear to be a pretty well-thought-out solution to a problem you maybe didn’t know you had.
Analogue or digital? You choose
One thing we like is that it has a “thru” feature, so you can still have your analogue speakers connected to a record deck at your hi-fi, for instance, while streaming the music to other rooms when you want to (without messing with cables to do so). We also like that it has an Ethernet port for faster/more reliable network connectivity.
We’re intrigued enough to have spoken to the manufacturers to get a review sample, and so we should be reviewing this item on Digital DJ Tips soon. Maybe it’s time to dust off that old vinyl under your bed…
Find out more: A2D2 website