For the past 5 years in North Carolina and texas, my main dwelling (office + bedroom) has been one big room, within which my music system, made up of various canabalized components from retired family equipment, has served me quite well.
I just moved to a new place, and I have an office, bedroom, living room and kitchen. I’m looking for a solution where I can get decent quality music in all the rooms. I’m willing to plunk down some cash for a solid solution that will last me a long time (my current system, which sounds great and has more features than I need, has 10 year old speakers and a 25 year old amp).
I think I will still have my current system set up at my desk in my office as it has always been. When I’m in my kitchen and want to rock out while cooking, I think I can handle playing music from one of the other rooms. So the only requirement is having speakers in my bedroom and in my living room.
A first posibility that comes to mind is just buying 2 extra sets of speakers (how much are decent speakers for small rooms? $250? $800? I have no idea) and some sort of switching mechanism, and running everything off of my current amp. This appeals to me because the only redundant components are the speakers, but it’s perhaps a little absurd to be running speaker wire accross my apartment, and of course I wouldn’t be able to control the music anywhere but my office.
Something I’m tempted to do is just get an iPod Hi-Fi and call it a day. I can carry it from room to room. However I’m a little turned off by the almost nonexistant stereo separation, and very turned off by the lack of RCA inputs, which dramatically reduces its usefullness as a flexible audio component in the long term.
What I would really like is some sort of wireless solution, so that I can run everything from the music stored on my computer in my office, but still be able to control track selection, volume, etc from each room.
Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations for me? I’m willing to plunk down the cash for gear that will last a long time. Let’s say my max is… $2500, but I’d rather spend $500 :-).
The solution I use is a very simple one: I run a pair of shielded cables from the “tape out” terminals of my main amplifier in the den throughout the house. In every room I can hook up an amp to that which gives me local volume control at least.
And you may not need full HiFi quality in every room… In my walk-in closet I simply have a pair of computer speakers hooked up to this “bus”. In the living room I have a decent amplifier with real speakers of course…
I am still planning on extending the “bus” to the garden shed…