Help with small Apple home entertainment set-up

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I have an iPhone, and MacBook Pro, my fella has an iPad and we're about to get a mac mini to replace his ageing PC. (Yes alright, I'm a mac slave). I also have a spotify premium account.

I want to hook it all up but not sure what the best way of doing this is. I want a complete home audio system so I can send music to any room via the mac mini, iphone or ipad....

The mac mini will be connected to the main TV so I can stream from internet to TV and also browse on big screen. I've got two extra speakers attached to the tv (self powered).

I want to stream music from Spotify to living room/bedroom/bathroom/kitchen/study. Don't know what speakers I can do this with? Do I need to buy lots of airport express plugs and just plug them into any type of speakers?

The MacBook Pro has it's own screen upstairs in the study and will mostly live there.

The iPhone will be with me wherever I am.

The iPad will be around the house... I could get a couple of docks - I was thinking of getting one for the kitchen and attaching speakers so I can stream tv/music into the kitchen from the iPad/iPhone...

Someone please tell me a clever way of hooking all these up. I'm not an audiophile so not too bothered about getting the best ever quality, I'm more interested in getting average quality music around the house, without the need for multiple hifi's and docks.

Cheers!

 

[John Duncan]

Ooo I love jigsaws. Let me have a think about this one...

 

[Anonymous]

The Airport express requires amplification so the only way you could do it would be with active speakers like the ADM9.1s, genelecs Audio pro or the ilk.

I've never tried streaming with more than one AE, however the macmini approach is definitely a good one. Normally you'd have all your music on that and use the iphone/ipad as remote controls, but I've never tried it with more than one AE. You can also use a NAS running iTunes as a service, but haven't tried that yet.

Hopefully others with more knowledge will answer your questions shortly.

 

[Anonymous]

An Aex into some active speakers is a neat solution and there are a few choices the Adm 9.1 have built in Dac and Pre-amp but other actives may need you add these.

 

[BenLaw]

If fantastic SQ is not your main priority but you still want something decent, also consider a series of Arcam rCubes. These can form a network of either 6 or 8 rCubes, fit with your dock idea, have good SQ for the size and you can stream using a Kleer dongle from (any of) your computers, and dock your iPhone at any one time. This will also save space compared to a series of active speakers and (while not cheap) will not cost as much.

 

[Anonymous]

Cool - thanks for the ideas folks. I just got the mac mini plus two airport express so I'll set it all up and see where I get to.

I have about 3 sets of decent powered speakers so should be able to set up one in kitchen, bedroom and big ones in living room. Might look into getting a set of JBL wireless ones for the bathroom... hmmm... might get told off for spending too much money on gadgets again..... Nice little project for the weekend though. How cool to just walk around the house with my iphone/ipad and pop whatever music I want on in any room....

Here's to dancing in the kitchen.

Thanks guys!

 

[iMark]

You could also consider using an older micro system with an AUX input. We have one in the bedroom for which I could get an Airport Express.