Any tips on making a vintage receiver integrated with Apple ecosystem ?

[SnowCrocodile]

I have got my hands on a somewhat "vintage" (early-mid 90s) Sony receiver (STR-DTR665) and speakers. The sound quality is surprisingly good (as I understand this was not a high end model).

I want to incorporate it into my Apple-enabled ecosystem. Right now, all I can do is to plug my iPhone into it using a combination of Aux-to-RCA and Lightning-to-Aux adapters that I happened to have, and control the playback remotely via AppleWatch. I do have a bluettooth-to-RCA adapter on the way, which - if it works as intented - will allow me to stream Apple Music to it without having to physically hook up the phone.

Ideally though I'd like to use it as an output for my TV. But for that, I'd need a way to control it with an Apple TV Remote. Even if just the basics like turn it on / off and adjust the volume. (I have a stereo pair of HomePod Minis, but they are not all I hoped they'd be...) I don't want to have to use two different remotes to watch the TV. Any ideas ?

 

[goodthymes]

For remote I would try to find a Harmony 650/700 to control both the Apple TV and your Sony receiver. If the BT adapter doesn't work out, I would look for an Airport Express 2nd gen for Airplay, it's WIFI instead of BT and has a really good DAC.

 

[Juicy Box]

The Siri Remote can "learn" to control your receiver's volume and maybe power as well over IR. I have been doing this on my ATVs for a while now.

You can also use any IR remote, such as one that might be used on your receiver, by doing the IR Remote Learning feature on the Apple TV. A lot of people don't know about this, but it has actually been around since the original 2007 Apple TV. This has an added bonus of being able to "learn" playback buttons, such as play, pause, FF, RW, skip forward, skip back, etc., although the playback buttons don't work on every app on tvOS.

 

[Kola91]

The Siri Remote can "learn" to control your receiver's volume and maybe power as well over IR. I have been doing this on my ATVs for a while now.

You can also use any IR remote, such as one that might be used on your receiver, by doing the IR Remote Learning feature on the Apple TV. A lot of people don't know about this, but it has actually been around since the original 2007 Apple TV. This has an added bonus of being able to "learn" playback buttons, such as play, pause, FF, RW, skip forward, skip back, etc., although the playback buttons don't work on every app on tvOS.

I'm doing exactly that and mapped the volume buttons to the volume controls of my receiver, as well as the mute button to the "power on" signal - yes, right, I can only either power my receiver on or off with the mute button workaround, since my receiver has separate buttons for both things.

On the receiver itself (its a NAD C316BEE) I have a single button that toggles the power, but not on the remote. Is there any solution to that? I'd like to do everything with the apple remote, but it wont let me with an older receiver. Maybe there is an IR signal that can toggle the power states, but I didn't find it yet...

I also tried finding a suitable IR signal with my switchbot hub mini, but no luck so far. Another solution would be to set up an automation, but it doesn't the trigger settings I need...