For years, I’ve been searching for a way to implement a whole-house audio solution that’s simple and easy to use. If you’re like me, you’re still old school when it comes to home audio. You have one or two surround-sound systems that you invested in over the years—complete with CD changer and perhaps even a cassette deck for those old mix tapes you made for your wife back when you were dating. In my case, I’ve invested quite a lot in my systems over time. I have a high-end Denon receiver in my living room, and my better-than-average CD player speaks to my reluctance to let go of physical media as the center point for my listening enjoyment.
I have other separate systems throughout the house, too. I have an old system in the garage—you know, for when I’m out there washing cars or doing some woodworking. The kids have portable stereo systems in their bedrooms. I have a boombox downstairs somewhere. I can hook up all these systems individually to my iPod or the kids’ MP3 players, but wouldn’t it be cool to streamline that connectivity so that all the music in our collection—either stored on the computer or streamed/saved online—could be played in any room at any time?
That’s the ultimate goal of whole-home audio, of course. And, interestingly, the market is almost completely there.
(Read the rest of this article at Residential AV Presents: Connected Home.)
