Wireless audio


Ok, this is more out of curiousity than anything else... I'm more puzzling
it out than intending to do it. Apologies if I'm a little fuzzy on the
details, our network is down (I'm writing this to pass the time until it's
back up)


Stuff like the Squeezebox allows you to choose and play the music from
upstairs on the downstairs stereo.

Stuff like the Airport Express allows playing of music, but you have to use
some other method to choose it.

Stuff like the Sonos Digital Music System has a large remote that lets you
browse your music and play it in any room. But it's expensive and requires
bulky units in each room.

I don't know whether any of them honour iTunes metadata such as play count
and rating, or Smart Playlists.

Is there any way to either combine elements of these or use alternatives to
give a system that:

- Takes music running on iTunes on an upstairs Mac and plays it wirelessly
in other rooms.
- Has a handheld device to browse the music library - ideally this would
have 'zones' so you could have different music in each room, but that's
just fancy-dan stuff.
- Respects iTunes playlists (including Smart Playlists, running live),
ratings and play counts
- Has small, inexpensive 'ports' to plug speakers into in each room,
ideally with some kind of on/off switch for the audio.

So I'm thinking that probably the iTunes playlist thing is a sticking
point. Maybe the best way to do this would be to get an Airport Express in
every room that wants audio, and a dedicated bluetooth PDA running Salling
Clicker as a remote.

iTunes allows you to pump audio to every room simultaneously now, doesn't
it? And how would I hook up Airport Express's digital out to a speaker - I
need an amp in between, don't I? But smaller speaker systems that just use
a headphone socket will plug right in and work, yes?

And Salling Clicker is basically an iTunes remote, right? It actually picks
up info from iTunes (like playlists) and sends commands (like play, pause,
rate this song)? Is it nice and easy in a "Granny could pick it up and use
it" way, or is it a bit fiddly? Can you set it up so you can tell iTunes to
play a radio station (and is Radio 4 available through iTunes?). Can you
Fast User Switch using Salling Clicker, to access different music
libraries? Can you move stuff into playlists?

Do you need 802.11g to reliably stream audio? Does it saturate the network?
Does the presence of an 802.11b client (Girlfriend's iBook) knock an entire
network down to 802.11b speeds? If so, is there a workaround (eg running
two networks)?

Or would it just be simpler, easier, and less faff (in use, not setup - I'd
enjoy the setup) to just get an iPod dock in every room?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Audio problem software related
    ... when listening to iTunes video files. ... handle audio files differently than WMP10? ... I can play an audio CD with no problems. ... reinstalling them one at a time, if you have them as separate ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Audio problem software related
    ... I removed iTunes and WMP10. ... I can play MP3s in WMP9. ... I can play audio CDs. ... can I fix it without reinstalling windows? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Controlling play during import into iTunes from command line interface
    ... I can call iTunes directly from ... All the audio files end up ... play of one audio track being imported. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • Re: Basic CD player for OS X 10.4 ?
    ... I've found out, with no help from this group, that I can play a single ... Force-Quit iTunes ... boring, boring, boring, boring. ... full audio library and player for a home entertainment system. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: Copying iTunes Library from Mac to PC
    ... I heavily use the playlists and play counts though, ... I see that the files are in a fairly deep directory (folder) ... As you already discovered, iTunes will walk into subdirectories, so you ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
Loading