[mythtv-users] OT: Stream Music around the house

[J. Joseph Benavidez]

On Monday 16 July 2007, Damian wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> Sorry this is off topic, but you lot are the best people I can think of 
> to ask.
> 
> What would you do (or what are you doing) to stream music around a house 
> into rooms that don't have PC's?
> 
> My girlfriend really wants to have music in whichever room she's in, not 
> just blast it from one room in the hope that she can hear it while she's 
> doing other things. I can easily put some speakers in a couple of the 
> main rooms, but what are my options for what to plug them into? I've 
> wondered about outputting a radio signal from the main music computer 
> that could be picked up by a low cost unit placed with the speakers in 
> each room but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Ideally, she'd be able to 
> have some level of control over the sound and even which music files are 
> playing, but maybe that's asking a bit much without another computer 
> present.
> 
> As ever, cost is an issue. If the best solutions are expensive, I guess 
> I could just wire metres of stereo cable around the house. That may even 
> be the best option come to think of it. I have a wired network between 
> all my machines because I'm over paranoid of WiFi health risks. 
> Especially with a new baby on the way.
> 
> Looking forward to hear what you come up with!
> 
> Cheers
> Damian
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I can personally vouch for the squeezeboxes... I've got 4 in the house (and the garage). But keep in mind that each one will need to hook into an amp and speakers (or a boombox with aux in). (Additional expenses if you don't have that equipment lying around. I happened to have collected/bought enough of this stuff over the years, so it wasn't too much of a problem to add a new "head" to the system.)

Or, how about this... To have music outside the house, I didn't want to drill through our brick walls to connect outdoor speakers. Instead, I just opted for a couple wireless speakers. There's no reason why you couldn't just use them inside. (I'll actually sometimes use one of 'em if I want some tunes while I'm in the shower ;) They run on the 900Mhz band (not the 2.4Ghz of wifi). Not terrible looking, and they have convenient handle to carry around with you. The nice thing is that if you use rechargeable batteries, the power cord will charge them when you have the speaker plugged in.
http://www.smarthome.com/8235.html

Pretty convenient if fidelity is not the highest thing on your list.

Also, relevent to the baby, I haven't noticed that the speakers interfere with our wireless baby monitor (which I believe also runs on the 900Mhz band). Come to think of it, our 900Mhz cordless phones haven't been a problem either.

HTH.

j.joseph