Here is a new product i just read about in the New York Times. Sounds a lot like Sonos, but somewhat cheaper…

http://www.olive.us

Best FM Transmitter for portable players.

http://www.ccrane.com/radios/fm-transmitters/fm-transmitter.aspx

Too bad the Sonos does not accept digital input from either FireWire, optical or RCA/coax digital sources, and make it compatible with 24bit 96 kHz sampling while they’re at it.

I plugged a $30 FM transmitter into the line out jack on my sound card. I can broadcast to any radio on the property, so I can sit outside on the deck too. It’s original purpose was to broadcast the WEEI feed from MLB.com so I could sit on the deck with a portable radio and a beer and listen to the Red Sox. Bringing a laptop out there just totally ruined the mood for me! Of course, it’s not hi fidelty, and I do have to have a PC running, but it was only $30. I’ll do a proper system some day – but for now this works – I can broadcast my MP3’s to any radio on my property.

Bas: Would love a section on the Squeezebox and how it is better than the simple Apple Airport Express. I looked at it and it didn’t seem that exciting due to (1) lack of analog input, (2) lack of power amp. But maybe you can talk about how to put a good system together using the Squeezebox and powered speakers.

Thing about bitrates: there is a massive difference in codecs. I use 256Kb for MP3, nothing less. But Apple’s AAC at 128 – on an iPod with good headphones anyway – sounds just as good and will probably blow away those 160Kb MP3 files. MP3 at 128 on the other hand is absolutely dreadfull, even with the high quality Fraunhofer codec I used for most of my music.

If you want a paragraph or two on the Squeezebox, I’d be more than happy to do it.

I would be one of iTunes biggest customers if only they did away with the DRM and stepped up the bitrate a bit, just to be sure. Well, I would be for single tracks. I really don’t see the point in buying an album for

Another vote for the Squeezebox. Its protocol is a bit chatty, but the server is open-sourced and in Perl (there is at least one Sourceforge project to rewrite it in C), so you could run it on a Linux or Solarix/x86 box. I have PCs running Solaris with uptimes in the 600-day range, so having a central server in a cupboard is a solution.

The Squeezebox’s Ethernet to digital audio adapter functionality is starting to be integrated in receivers, in any case, such as Yamaha’s or Pioneer’s. The quality of the DACs and amplification can have a great impact on sound quality (as long as you are not using crappy formats like MP3. WMA or AAC).

You rightly dismiss Apple’s DRM, but Microsoft’s should be shunned as well, and any form of DRM is unacceptable anyways. Rip to FLAC or ALAC from CDs.

there’s a typo in the “How big a disk subsystem do you need…” paragraph: reads “Kps,” should be Kbps. Great article, I enjoyed it, even though my “whole house” is just one room, and hence won’t be needing one anytime soon.

You seem to have forgotten to mention the Squeezebox: http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html

Warm up the credit card and retrofit in some mention of IP Speakers:

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/products/hidden/ip/