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I just plug the Soundsticks with iSub into my iBook and the whole living room is full of music. Isn't this easier ??
Well, I tried lugging the G4 tower down to the living room every time my wife wanted to listen to our MP3's, but the thing is a bit heavy to move regularly! ;-)
With the Audiotron (or any other such device), the computer no longer has to be located anywhere near the stereo system. All you need is an ethernet connection, and you've got music whereever you want it. You could even hook up a couple of them to pipe different tunes to different areas of the house.
My ideal version of this product would have an internal Airport card, so you wouldn't even have to string wires (or live in a pre-wired house). Just plug it in and it talks to your existing Airport base station, and off you go! Someday soon, I would guess..
-rob.
OK.. I listen to MP3s on my G4, and I have really nice speakers (Monsoon MM-702s) just so I dont have to go into the living room to get my favorite CDs.. but when I'm in my living room where my stereo is, I listen to the real CDs! Why would you want to listen to MP3s of CDs you already have, presumably where your stereo is? The real CDs sound much better!
This is neat in a geeky kind of way, but doesn't make much sense to me.
We're not necessarily audiophiles here, and the MP3's (ripped at 192khz) all sound fine to my very untrained ear. The major benefit to this system is having every song that I've ever bought available at the touch of three or four buttons. That beats getting up, digging through the stack of CD's for a few minutes, not finding what I was looking for, and then finally remembering the CD I wanted is at work!
Now our music is always available, regardless of the location of the master CD. And we never have to change the disc in the CD player again! It's also nice for background music at parties; pick a genre and go. No futzing about with stacks of discs, just hours (or days, if you throw good parties!) of music.
This high level of convenience makes up for a slight loss in sound quality for us -- others may have different conclusions!
-rob.
Just add and Ethernet to Wireless adapter to it, it's not ideal,
yet it will do the job!
---
PM G4 DP 800 / 256Mb / 80Gb+40Gb /SuperDrive / SCSI: AGFA SnapScan 1236s / Jaz 1Gb / Zip 100Mb
- The only AAP Smurf ;P
That looks pretty neat, however I think the price tag is a little high. My iSub and Sound Sticks are good enough for now.
That's a VFD, btw. It's only 50 bucks less, has rca out and no optical port, and is missing a remote control.
Though it IS cool looking. A nice little simple module.
An iPod & mini-jack to RCA phono lead ;)
I figure it'll have a 80gb hard drive, built-in airport card, remote control, and external LCD display unit .. and cost $49.99 :-).
-rob.
Everything this machine does can be done with your computer. I use my wife's iMac to output to our tuner via a red and white RCA cable and set my tuner on 'video/aux.' What about a remote? I use the Keyspan IrDA. iTunes supports shoutcast and can access all the songs on my hard drive (which this thing needs anyway). If I were to get a component player, it better have its own harddrive. I can't justify $300 for something that just looks like a stereo component but still needs my Mac to get around.
An RCA cable and the KeySpan remote would certainly work just fine, albeit with some limitations. First, the computer and the stereo need to be relatively close together, if not actually in the same room. In our case, though, I'd need a 50' RCA cable, which isn't really practical. Second, there's no remote display, so you can't easily do things like select by artist or album, or build new custom playlists on the fly. Third, your Mac needs to be running iTunes (or some other MP3 player) all the time (at least, I think that's a true statement based on reading the product spec for the remote). This makes it somewhat harder to do something CPU intensive (like Quake3!) while the MP3's are playing downstairs, as iTunes will be competing for CPU time.
With the Rio and the Audiotron, there is no foreground application required. And with the Audiotron, there's nothing at all running on my Mac other than Samba, which runs all the time anyway. The Rio's script would be running on the Mac, which is one more reason why I chose the Audiotron - to help minimize the work my Mac is doing. But both these solutions are notably less CPU intensive than iTunes or another MP3 player.
Everyone will, of course, have to decide if this is something they'd like to do. If it is, as the comments to the story have shown, there are a number of ways to use your computer as a remote MP3 player, for anywhere from $0 to $400 (iPod ;-).
-rob.
there is another simple solution. instead of spending an obserd(sp?) amount of money and just get a pretty component that doesn't really do anything, get an older Powermac G3; make it your component. the computer would be a dedicated MP3 player / server / ect. you can control it via the keyspan remote i think it is, via VNC, on the TV or even hook it up to a computer monitor. think of it, when you have your music on, put the visualizer on the TV for a acid trip of sorts. you can even use it to burn movies or TV shows to VideoCD's. i haven't tried this yet, but will be trying it with the World Cup this summer ;)
-Dude
It all depends on what you want to do; your solution is definitely yet another alternative to consider!
In our case, we didn't want a full-size computer and display (too noisy and too bulky), nor did we want to use the TV to project the computer's screen. We basically were looking to replace a CD player. We wanted no fan noise, minimal power usage, and small space consumption. I also wanted to minimize the workload on the parent Mac (since I'd likely be using it while the MP3's were playing) and a decent user interface. Based on all those criteria, the Audiotron met our needs. But clearly, there's a solution out there for just about every option!
-rob.
RCA jacks into my amp aux out of the cube audio module and you hae a $6 solution.
i suppose it is true that there are many different needs, but the objection that iTunes takes up too much CPU is silly. I have iTunes running all the time with many other apps going simultaneously with no noticable slowdowns. (if you're playing quake 3 then you don't need to be playing music--and if you just want a dedicated mp3 player for another room entirely, get an iPod, at least you can take it with you. or pick up some old powerbook and run soundjam in os 9). why the complicated solutions for serving via samba??
So how do you change songs? Is there a remote or do you have to go to where the Mac is? Honestly, how is this better that a CD player? I use a DVD player to play music CDs, since my TV is hooked up to my component system anyway ;-)
I use my Mac while my wife listens to music. Hence, iTunes is not always running when she wants to listen to music. And yes, I might be playing Quake3. So the complex Samba solution lets me keep using the Mac for what I want to do while she gets to listen to what she wants to listen to. With iTunes as part of the mix, that's no longer true. I don't run iTunes while I compile code, play Quake3, or render DVDs, for example.
Yes, it has a remote control. It also has a display, so you can see what you're doing while you select by artist, album, genre, or track. You can build custom playlists. You can play randomly. In short, it IS a CD player. But it's a CD player with (in our case) a 2,300 song CD inserted into it. All our music is a few keypad presses away.
So for us, this is a perfect device..
-rob.
Another old-tech approach to this would be taking a 7500 or 7600 (sells for less than $50 on eBay), adding a cheap IDE PCI card (~$50) and a big ATA harddrive (prices keep dropping). Use stardard SCSI drive as system, put OS 9.1 and iTunes on, and fill your ATA drive with MP3s. You can use the composite RCA video ports to hook this to your TV for monitoring use and the RCA audio ports to hook the machine up to your stereo.
OK, this is a non OSX solution (you could put yellow dog linux or use Other World Computing's XpOSfacto and put OSX on) and you need a third party steaming app like iHam on iRye, but as outlined above it's cheap and easy.
I actually like the receiver idea, and I don't really want another hard drive, and I think an LCD w/ a remote control is good as well. For $169 the Sonic Blue/Rio version of this starts to look pretty attractive.
BUT, why would I want to run another Ethernet cable? Why aren't these being made WI-FI capable? Or am I missing something?
When Apple introduced the iPod, I was thinking they were going to introduce an Airport receiver that connects to a stereo, either digital or RCA, would play from iTunes, had a display and remote. I think this is the future, perhaps there is a speed issue holding up development. 802.11a.. gigawire.. digital hub spreads another wing??? I'm not trying to start a rumor mill here, just commenting.
I've been running iTunes on an OS X orphaned PowerBook 2400c
with an Orinoco Gold card as a wireless MP3 player plugged into
our whole house Linn streo system since I got my Tibook 2 years
ago. FWIW the full MP3 collection is sitting on a Snap! server
available to any Mac (OS X and OS9) on our wireless LAN. I
control the 2400c via Timbuktu (but you could easily use VNC for
free). This system runs 24/7 serving random play MP3s :)
-- asxless in iLand
Pick Up Your Toys Mac Os X
I wonder how much bandwidth this device requires, I imagine it would give a 10BaseT Ethernet hub a good workout. I understand the appeal of having a 30.000 song library available without changing a CD. But with the ridiculously low price of hard drives these days, why not throw in a 40GB 5400RPM drive to act as a buffer and let your poor network and PC do more important work. You could still have the device rely on the PC's library via the network.
My two cents anyway..
Cheers
The comment on the OS X / Audiotron page:
'One other note of (some) importance. iTunes does not properly store v2.3 Comment tags. It stores them as a tag value of 'COM ' rather than 'COMM'. This causes some software to break, including the Perl MP3 Tag library, MP3::Tags. Other software may also fail because of this. The Audiotron seems not to care.'
Robg, Does this affect iPod useage? Have you seen any problems from this?
If someone wants to loan me an iPod, I'd be glad to test it out :-). I converted all the tags and iTunes itself seems fine - I still have artists and genres and all that. But I don't have an iPod to test it with. My portable MP3 player (a basic Rio unit) still gets the song and title info just fine when uploading new stuff to it.
-rob.
I am interested in trying the AudioTron, but in the interim, I have the Kima KS-110 system (http://www.kimawireless.com/). By attaching the transmitter to the miniplug on my Mac and the receiver to my stereo via RCA jacks, I can play music from my Mac through my stereo. The Kima system uses the 900MHz range like cordless phones and has pretty decent range. It's also much cheaper.
Tivo - Home Media OptionSure, it's more expensive than an audiotron or stringing RCA cables through your house.. but you get a Tivo too!! Home Media Option is Rendevous aware, so you just plug it in and go.
Have an older PC sitting in a corner somewhere? Why not check out the following sites: http://www.myhtpc.net .. http://www.mythtv.org .. http://freevo.sourceforge.net.
All of these put rather nice looking (and skinnable/customizable) GUIs on things like playing your MP3 collection through your home theater (or just your stereo) plus there's all sorts of expansion options into playing mpeg/avi video, playing DVD's, streaming internet radio and PVR-type functions when coupled with a supported TV tuner card. The HTPC scene seems to be growing fast right now, and with some simple adjustments in OS X you will be able to share your Mac's MP3's.
For more info on the whole thing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=11
Maybe it's time to put the strengths of the Mac OS to good use and come up with a Mac-based HTPC application?
I actually like the receiver idea, and I don't really want another hard drive, and I think an LCD w/ a remote control is good as well. For $169 the Sonic Blue/Rio version of this starts to look pretty attractive.
BUT, why would I want to run another Ethernet cable? Why aren't these being made WI-FI capable? Or am I missing something?
When Apple introduced the iPod, I was thinking they were going to introduce an Airport receiver that connects to a stereo, either digital or RCA, would play from iTunes, had a display and remote. I think this is the future, perhaps there is a speed issue holding up development. 802.11a.. gigawire.. digital hub spreads another wing??? I'm not trying to start a rumor mill here, just commenting.
I've been running iTunes on an OS X orphaned PowerBook 2400c
with an Orinoco Gold card as a wireless MP3 player plugged into
our whole house Linn streo system since I got my Tibook 2 years
ago. FWIW the full MP3 collection is sitting on a Snap! server
available to any Mac (OS X and OS9) on our wireless LAN. I
control the 2400c via Timbuktu (but you could easily use VNC for
free). This system runs 24/7 serving random play MP3s :)
-- asxless in iLand
Pick Up Your Toys Mac Os X
I wonder how much bandwidth this device requires, I imagine it would give a 10BaseT Ethernet hub a good workout. I understand the appeal of having a 30.000 song library available without changing a CD. But with the ridiculously low price of hard drives these days, why not throw in a 40GB 5400RPM drive to act as a buffer and let your poor network and PC do more important work. You could still have the device rely on the PC's library via the network.
My two cents anyway..
Cheers
The comment on the OS X / Audiotron page:
'One other note of (some) importance. iTunes does not properly store v2.3 Comment tags. It stores them as a tag value of 'COM ' rather than 'COMM'. This causes some software to break, including the Perl MP3 Tag library, MP3::Tags. Other software may also fail because of this. The Audiotron seems not to care.'
Robg, Does this affect iPod useage? Have you seen any problems from this?
If someone wants to loan me an iPod, I'd be glad to test it out :-). I converted all the tags and iTunes itself seems fine - I still have artists and genres and all that. But I don't have an iPod to test it with. My portable MP3 player (a basic Rio unit) still gets the song and title info just fine when uploading new stuff to it.
-rob.
I am interested in trying the AudioTron, but in the interim, I have the Kima KS-110 system (http://www.kimawireless.com/). By attaching the transmitter to the miniplug on my Mac and the receiver to my stereo via RCA jacks, I can play music from my Mac through my stereo. The Kima system uses the 900MHz range like cordless phones and has pretty decent range. It's also much cheaper.
Tivo - Home Media OptionSure, it's more expensive than an audiotron or stringing RCA cables through your house.. but you get a Tivo too!! Home Media Option is Rendevous aware, so you just plug it in and go.
Have an older PC sitting in a corner somewhere? Why not check out the following sites: http://www.myhtpc.net .. http://www.mythtv.org .. http://freevo.sourceforge.net.
All of these put rather nice looking (and skinnable/customizable) GUIs on things like playing your MP3 collection through your home theater (or just your stereo) plus there's all sorts of expansion options into playing mpeg/avi video, playing DVD's, streaming internet radio and PVR-type functions when coupled with a supported TV tuner card. The HTPC scene seems to be growing fast right now, and with some simple adjustments in OS X you will be able to share your Mac's MP3's.
For more info on the whole thing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=11
Maybe it's time to put the strengths of the Mac OS to good use and come up with a Mac-based HTPC application?
ALl these external MP3 servers or remote controllers ALL lack one key item.. VIDEO OUT. Now correct me if i'm wrong but even the ones with displays have small unusuable interfaces. What someone needs to do is have the unit interface with say, iTunes, or some PC counterpart, take the data, and render it for the screen.. making your collection usuable. I have my system set up via TOS Digital link to my theater system and control things thru the KeySpan DMR. But it's pretty lame not knowing whats playing or being able to select the data (in my case all my theater equip is in a closet - so a display in the device would be useless anyway).
The new Tivo Series 2 Home Media Option (works with X) looks like it might have solved the problem.. however.. requires getting TIVO service.. (which we have) but it does not work with the Tivo Series 2 Direct TV sat receiver.. looks like DirectTV doesnt want to carry it..
so back to my original statement.. make these external serving interfaces add a GUI and have video out.. most home audio sys have adio and video tied in and most have some sort of GUI.. why not these too?
Pick Up Your Toys Mac Os Download
have done a lot of invertigation into these types of devices I found a couple of clear potential winners, depending on the primary purpose, Video-On-Demand, or Audio-On-Demand.
GameShark Media Player aka QCast and SliMP3.
GSMP overs the best VOD media coverage (Divx, Xvid, MPeg4, etc. available) and at $50 US (plus the price of a PS2 + network adapter) will do a very reasonable job playing back MP3's.
www.broadq.com
The out and out champ for audio has got to be the SliMP3.
www.slimp3.com
Pick Up Your Toys Mac Os 11
there are some devices out there which can play a stream. they connect to the itunes stream via an ethernet cable or airport and just stream the music from itunes. this way, you manage the music with itunes like you did before but you can listen to it seamless in other rooms. to control it from other rooms you can use one of the different remote tools, i'd prefer the sonyericsson-clicker and the t610.
of course the easiest and cheapest solution is a long audio cable and the sonyericsson-clicker.. :)
Notes (guciodevs) mac os. have done a lot of invertigation into these types of devices I found a couple of clear potential winners, depending on the primary purpose, Video-On-Demand, or Audio-On-Demand.
GameShark Media Player aka QCast and SliMP3.
GSMP overs the best VOD media coverage (Divx, Xvid, MPeg4, etc. available) and at $50 US (plus the price of a PS2 + network adapter) will do a very reasonable job playing back MP3's.
www.broadq.com
The out and out champ for audio has got to be the SliMP3.
www.slimp3.com
