I had a problem. All of my digital music lived upstairs on my computer. My wife's computer had music she's purchased from iTunes, plus any CDs she's ripped; and her computer was reading the songs off my computer, too. So, we can play songs from our computers, which is nice since we spend a lot of time in front of them. But, our stereo is downstairs. It serves as speakers to the TV in the living room, and there are speakers in kitchen and on the porch. And, the stereo can't talk to either of the computers, so our digital music collection is essentially off-limits to the stereo unless we burn a CD, or bring my iPod and dock downstairs. That is not ideal.
I searched all over for a simple and effective way to stream music from a computer to a stereo. There are a number of products which claim to do this: everything from FM-transmitter things (no thanks); to dedicated 'music library appliances' that act as file servers, with RCA jacks for stereo output, and little LED-screen interfaces on them them that allow you to choose songs - none of them can handle iTunes music, though. And, they all take control of your music, organize it, manage it, etc. This would probably infuriate iTunes. So, I was stuck.
Until last week... I bought a "Network Attached Storage" device - that's a big external hard drive (or array of hard drives) with an ethernet jack on it. So I can plug it into my router, and all the computers in the house can see it. Ah ha: a plan takes shape. So, first I put all my music and my wife's music onto this server. Then I pointed our individual copies of iTunes to the server. Now she can see the music that used to live on my computer even when my computer is off. Yay. As a bonus, because this server is a "RAID 5" server, even if one of the hard drives in the server dies, I don't lose any data - I just swap out the dead drive, and the server fixes everything - somehow. Another yay. And, now I can take my WiFi laptop, install iTunes on it, point iTunes at that server and it can play music from anywhere within 100 feet of my router. Specifically, it can run iTunes, pulling music off the NAS server, while sitting right next to the stereo downstairs with a cable connecting the audio-out jack to the Aux channel of my stereo.
Problem solved.
The only drawbacks so far are that iTunes doesn't automatically update itself when new files appear in its 'music folder', so we have to update each copy of iTunes individually, when anything new gets added to the server. And now I've pretty much dedicated my laptop to being a music server, and moved it away from where I work. If only these things were cheaper.
The bell has sounded. The torches are lit in the windows. You need to get a Mac. Airport Express Station, $129. Does all that, as long as your computers are WiFi-equipped. Selecting music from the library can be accomplished with a bluetooth compatible cell phone. Or a laptop in the kitchen.
I know nothing else about computers. If you need further counsel, ask Dad. He’s got all kinds of wacky ideas.
i’m actually considering a Mac Mini for the music ‘controller’. it’s small, cheap and cute. i can’t really replace all the other computers with Macs, though, since my business is PC-based.
i know i looked at the AirPort stuff, but I don’t remember why I decided it wouldn’t work for me… i think, at the time, i was looking for a simple box that would just take an audio input and transmit it wirelessly to a receiver with an audio output, but that used something better than FM and that didn’t use the same frequencies and technology as cordless phones.
All I got is some $20 wireless headphones for my stereo. Works fine and I ain’t bothered cluttering up ‘puter with tunes. Can’t hear the phone with ’em on, either, and that’s a blessing.