I realized tonight that the way I listen to music at home has really changed: the MP3 player (eg iPod) is not only for listening while you go away from your home, but is actually the way you move music around your home. Here’s the layout:
- At my desk, I play digital music from my home server (an Infrant 1TB NAS) through my laptop/dock and powered speakers and subwoofer.
- In my bedroom, I play digital music by plugging my iPod into powered speakers and woofer.
- In the dining room, another set of powered speakers and woofer.
- In the kitchen, the radio has an AUX input that takes stereo mini, so the iPod can go into there, too.
- My kids go between their bedrooms (each one has an iHome clock/radio/speakers), so they can guest-DJ for each other. Sometimes they’ll bring their iPod into the kitchen to play some music while we cook.
This is not a high-tech or expensive solution, but it works just fine. I looked at Sonos, and also considered writing my own server/player software, wireless thin clients on tablets, yah yah. Turns out a ripoff $10 mini cable from Radio Shack pretty much does the trick if you’re willing to listen to what’s on your iPod as a subset of your full library. And generally I am. It probably helps that I’ve mellowed with age and no longer demand superb fidelity from my stereo components, or even the quality of my rips (VBR at a high rate is okay, since I’m not ready to go all-FLAC yet).
I’ve still got a real stereo amp, receiver, and CD player…tucked in a corner and unused. I’d love to get rid of all those CDs, but I’m not willing to pay (yet) to have someone convert them to FLAC for me, or re-file them into just sleeves that take up less room, or store them somewhere else for 10 years until something else changes and there’s no need for them ever again.
I’m tempted to wish for a 10x increase in storage space in the player so I could keep more music on it, but then the argument for switching to FLAC may get more compelling. Well, on my fundamental scale of progress things improve as devices get smaller and simpler. Since the iPod is a sliver of a full classic stereo plus CDs and there’s no loudness button on it, that’s progress.
Robert Gusick | 04-Mar-08 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
I have a similar system at home, with the addition of a few Apple Airport Express units ($70 – $80 used on eBay) that run what Apple calls “Air Tunes”. I then use any instance of iTunes in my house (also running my music collection that is stored on a ReadyNAS) to control what plays through my stereo (including internet radio).
danielseltzer | 06-Mar-08 at 8:29 am | Permalink
Ah, very interesting. I love the idea of the device, but not the iTunes dependency. Looks like folks are opening them up for other apps:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/windows/
And here’s a remote audio plugin for MediaMonkey, my current preferred audio app:
http://emilles.dyndns.org/software/out_apx.html
The problem with these is you don’t have the controller with you in the room with the music. The nice thing about an iPod or other player is you can just skip a song right there.