Adding Wi-Fi to a 10 year old system

[admin_exported]

Hi.

After 10 years of faithful service, my old Hi-Fi is in need of an upgrade. The set up is as follows:

Sherwood amp
Cambridge CD player
Sherwood turntable
Gale speakers

It was a very basic, cheap system at the time but it's survived plenty of parties, emigrations and house moves. I added an equally cheap DVD player to it about 5 years ago and the whole lot is set up in my living room downstairs. The CD player is close to death and the DVD player was never much anyway, but the rest is actually still going strong (although I'm willing to ditch the lot if necessary). The TV is just a bog standard CRT. What I also have is a Mac desktop, Mac laptop, a good sized external hard drive and a wireless network, all of which is situated in an upstairs study. What I don't have is a clue about what I need to get the whole lot working together!

I'd really like to be able to access CDs and music and/ or movies from both upstairs and downstairs. The extent of my knowledge is that clever people have invented wireless speakers and receivers. Actually, knowing how clueless I am, they probably invented them several years ago.

Can anyone suggest where a poor neophyte like myself should go from here? Sound quality does not have to be in any way superb. I'm hearing impaired and don't hear any high frequencies from the mid-range up, so what sounds great to you on a top of the range pair of speakers will probably sound pretty much the same on a cheap pair to me. Basically, as long as I can turn the bass down and the treble up, I'm happy. And my partner, though fully hearing, isn't overly bothered about sound quality either.

Any advice would be massively appreciated.

L.

 

[Juzzie Wuzzie]

Apple Airport Express (for WiFi) coupled with a cheap-to-mid priced all in one box such?

 

[Anonymous]

Several options - but mostly it's down to your requirements. I went through this process a couple of years ago - I assume not much has changed but don't take my word as gospel!

Apple Airport Express is a good start - especially as you have a Mac. Should be easy to set up but provides no mechanism to control what's playing on it - you have to do that from your computer. Apple Airport (or TV) is the only choice if you want to listen to copy protected music from iTunes on a device other than your computer (unless you remove the DRM from them of course).

Apple TV - video version of above - and stores music on the device so you don't have to have your computer switched on.

There are many other devices - I have a Squeezebox. It is music only, and I am very pleased with it. It is also based on open source software so there is a good community of support, upgrades, enhancements and tweaks etc. It is not the cheapest, but it is very good sound quality (though by the way, the biggest factor in sound quality is the format your music is stored in).

Cheaper options are the Roku Soundbridge (again music oinly)- which I have seen for about £40.

All of these should plug into your existing amplifier as just a regular source.

Have a look around (ebay?) for other devices, there is quite a range now that do music and video.

Good luck!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies.

Both the Squeezebox and Apple TV options sound good. Does Apple TV only work with wide screen TVs?

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure about the Apple TV needing wide screen - I would guess not but you should be able to check on the Apple web site.

There is a new Squeezebox out at the end of the month which looks very tempting - www.slimdevices.com

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="psd"]
Not sure about the Apple TV needing wide screen - I would guess not but you should be able to check on the Apple web site.[/quote]

"Apple confirmed with us on Friday that you can use the Apple TV with a standard TV with component video connectors."

http://www.maclife.com/article/news_roundup_ipod_sales_milestone_microsoft_goes_drm_free_and_more