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Ipod throughout the house


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I'm not using an iPod dock, but I do send sound around the house.

Since you're using an iPod, I assume you're also using iTunes. With iTunes you can pipe music over wifi to any AppleTV or Airport Express (AirMac). And with the Remote application for the iPhone/iTouch you can control the music wherever you are.

For example: My computer is in the kitchen, but it is feeding iTunes music to my AppleTV in the living room. I can wander around the place and change the songs/albums/playlists/etc... from my iPhone.

If you don't have an AppleTV, the same thing can be done with the Airport Express. If you're not familiar with it, the Airport Express is a small $99 box that plugs into the wall and has a jack for audio out. It also has USB so you can share printers and disks remotely and it will bridge to your existing wireless network to extend its range, if you have some dead spots in your house.

I know it's not exactly what you were looking for, but depending on what kind of kit you already have in the home this might work for you, and $99 isn't bad for a wireless audio distribution thingy with a ton of other features.

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I'm not using an iPod dock, but I do send sound around the house.

Since you're using an iPod, I assume you're also using iTunes. With iTunes you can pipe music over wifi to any AppleTV or Airport Express (AirMac). And with the Remote application for the iPhone/iTouch you can control the music wherever you are.

For example: My computer is in the kitchen, but it is feeding iTunes music to my AppleTV in the living room. I can wander around the place and change the songs/albums/playlists/etc... from my iPhone.

If you don't have an AppleTV, the same thing can be done with the Airport Express. If you're not familiar with it, the Airport Express is a small $99 box that plugs into the wall and has a jack for audio out. It also has USB so you can share printers and disks remotely and it will bridge to your existing wireless network to extend its range, if you have some dead spots in your house.

I know it's not exactly what you were looking for, but depending on what kind of kit you already have in the home this might work for you, and $99 isn't bad for a wireless audio distribution thingy with a ton of other features.

You just blew my mind. I'm gonna have to read that post a couple dozen more times. But thank you! We currently just have a couple portable stereos around the house that the itouch docks into. We also have an RCA > 1/8 male on the surround in the den that we use when in that room.

Ideally, I'd want a control panel that has a speaker selector on it. So if I want to hear the music in the dining room, kitchen, solarium, and the other solarium I can just mash the corresponding buttons.

flipper

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Here's how it looks in iTunes:

gallery_1_65_57257.jpg

"Hoopa Player" is the name of my AppleTV. It could just as easily be "Living Room TV" but that's boring. Airport Expresses will show up the same way. As you can see, you can make it play on multiple outputs at once with the "Multiple Speakers..." option.

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I smell what your cookin' with. My stereo receiver only has 2 sets of speaker outputs. Right now I'm using "A" for the surround and "B" for the speakers outside.

I'm sure there's a way to do this... thanks for your input.

flipper

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I'm not using an iPod dock, but I do send sound around the house.

Since you're using an iPod, I assume you're also using iTunes. With iTunes you can pipe music over wifi to any AppleTV or Airport Express (AirMac). And with the Remote application for the iPhone/iTouch you can control the music wherever you are.

For example: My computer is in the kitchen, but it is feeding iTunes music to my AppleTV in the living room. I can wander around the place and change the songs/albums/playlists/etc... from my iPhone.

If you don't have an AppleTV, the same thing can be done with the Airport Express. If you're not familiar with it, the Airport Express is a small $99 box that plugs into the wall and has a jack for audio out. It also has USB so you can share printers and disks remotely and it will bridge to your existing wireless network to extend its range, if you have some dead spots in your house.

I know it's not exactly what you were looking for, but depending on what kind of kit you already have in the home this might work for you, and $99 isn't bad for a wireless audio distribution thingy with a ton of other features.

I have a somewhat similar setup. My Mac Pro holds my iTunes library and is Ethernet connected to a Time Capsule. I have an Apple TV in the living room accessing iTunes wirelessly for music, movies, etc. Being able to change a song anywhere in the house using the iPhone Remote application is a sweet bonus. I spent hours awhile back painstakingly programming a Philips Pronto universal remote, so I can really appreciate the simplicity that Apple provides.

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I use Airtunes as well to stream from my iMac to the receiver in the den (the AX there is also the house WAP, incidentally). I also have a pair of ceiling speakers in another room wired into the 'B' output on that stereo and since the house is rather small you can pretty much hear the music anywhere.

Theoretically you could do the same thing and plug an amp and a pair of speakers into an AX in every room and now that there is an iPhone remote app you can control it wherever you are in the house. Used to be it could only be controlled by the computer running iTunes, which would be a small problem if your computer is a desktop all the way across the house.

There is an application called Sonos that basically had the same idea first (read more here), but it never really took off because a lot of people buy most of their digital music from the iTunes store and Apple would not license the DRM to Sonos, thus limiting Sonos's potential market. Sonos offered to really really pay up back in 2006 and 2007 and Apple kept refusing, pretty much signifying (but not admitting) that they had a similar product in the works, which turned out to be true.

The other thing you could do is get a multiroom amp and plug that into one single AX (or your computer) but that would be a really difficult and expensive (though potentially cleaner) solution.

I think a big point of Airtunes and Apple TV is that Apple really wants to keep the iPod classified as a portable device and as a gateway to all of the rest of their cool technology rather than offering (or licensing) products that use the iPod as the primary entertainment interface for the home. In fact, that's how I switched - my wife bought me an iPod for Christmas 4 years ago and I'm now on my 3rd mac computer since then.

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If money and wiring are no object, you can connect your ipod to one of the following:

http://www.nuvotechnologies.com/concerto.htm

http://www.russound.com/caa.htm

or if you really want to get fancy connect it to:

http://www.crestron.com/features/adagio/

and then you can have touchscreens that control not only the audio, but also program to control the lighting, thermostats, security, sprinklers, etc...Of course I'm sure there are less expensive options but these are definitely a cool way to go.

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