Personal
Living in stereo
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27 Apr 2003
I gave up on trying to find decent speakers for my computer. So I bought a bookshelf stereo system and ran the output from my sound card into the input on the stereo. MP3s now sound great, but the system is limited to my office. The next step is to get a wireless transmitter and receiver so I can broadcast music from the computer to my home’s main stereo system. I’ve had some luck hooking up my 802.11-powered laptop the the stereo and using it to play MP3s from another machine on the network, but that’s not a very elegant solution.
It seems to me that there’s basically three ways to wirelessly connect a computer’s MP3 library to your stereo system. You could use a component or computer connected by 802.11. That component should allow you to control what is being played from the stereo system. Either the component will contain the player and simply read the MP3 files from the source computer or the component will be able to control the computer-based player remotely.
You could also do the same with a proprietary wireless system That seems to be what the X10 media systems seem to do. If you use a proprietary wireless system, you have the same control options as you would with an 802.11 system.
The third option would be to hook a low-powered FM transmitter to the computer and then tune your stereo to the broadcast frequency. That’s how some aftermarket CD changers for cars work. It’s probably the easiest method to set up and maintain, but doesn’t offer much in the way of control. To skip songs or change playlists, you would have to go to the source computer.