Gents,
I have a client that asked about this and I was stumped. Instead of a garden variety headphone system, is there anything that will allow audio from a source to be directed to an app on a smartphone? This would allow earbuds to be used with the smartphone and act like a headphone system.

This would operate over wifi of course.

And not some part out of the skymall mag either. Only real deal CI approved units please. Cost is no object.

To bad the sonos app can't "play". One could use the 'line-in' feature if it did.

Koss has one, but I read about some kind of problem. Hopefully, they'll be able to resolve it quickly.

WiFi2HiFi [Link: itunes.apple.com]

I have a widows phone that allows me to pull hi rez flac from the cloud to my phone through an app....another app lets me pull from my server at home if I want...what type of smartphone are we working with here...and what kind of source...kinda makes a difference...

This would be setup like: analog audio from cable box>*magic part>network switch>wifi>app. This is on an iphone 5s

If I'm understanding you correctly, you want a system that you can use headphones, stream music, and control with an app.

Sonos.  Use a Play 3 or Play 5.  They have headphone jacks on the back.

Use wireless headphones connected to the Play unit.

Not exactly. The client's not interested in using traditional headphones. Simply put, client would like to be able to use the iphone to hear audio from a cable box. I'm not aware of anything that would stream from a source to an app on the phone.

This seems like a modern twist on the drive-in car speaker.

A slingbox streams from a cable box but forces you to have the picture too right?


 

Yep.  You could pull it off with the sling box, but he'd have video too.


Does he understand that the audio quality of his phone speaker sucks donkey balls?  Hence, the reason you can connect headphones.

I'm curious, why would someone want something like this?  Don't make no damn sense to me.  I'd love to hear this reasoning. 

Without them knowing the ins-and-outs of streaming, they imagine shoving in earbuds and flipping open an app that plays "sound from the TV".

I can see this being sorta beneficial for the hearing impaired that just want to open an app and plug in earbuds. And not messing with cumbersome headphones, especially if the equipment is located at the far end of the house.

It's like a 'reverse-sonos'

Wow, you got a weird request there.
I would show them these [Link: en-us.sennheiser.com]

Does it have to be wifi? I think it could be done simply via Bluetooth, but I don't know about wifi. I'll think on it.

Ok, now the part I'm leaving out. This is a full distributed system in an upstairs closet. I'm going to forget all the zone switching and such and just take audio straight from one of the cable boxes, 'his box'. This way, when he's watching his box, he can just fire up the would-be headphone app.

Bluetooth won't reach. Those small infrared headphones from above are line-of-sight I believe. And we're trying to avoid the traditional larger type headphones. It seems that to operate in this manner, it would almost have to be wifi. If 'it' does exist, I bet the audio sync would be trouble especially on cheap network gear.

O.o

Just because you think something can be done, doesnt make it a good idea....

There are all kinds of wireless transmit/Receive systems FAR superior to your iPhone over wifi.

why would someone want to limit themselves so severely when "Price is no object"?

Shure, Sennheiser, Galaxy and I'm sure many other make wireless Monitoring systems where the receiver pack isnt much bigger than a smartphone.

I couldn't agree more. We just didn't know if there was a creature like this out there. We make a habit of staying away from experiments. This sounds like something outta skymall.

Use this with w/e extra hardware you need.

[Link: shure.com]