Help with WiFi Mp3 players

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I am hoping someone here can help me. Mr LL has been complaining for sometime about the sound quality of his mp3's as played through laptop speakers. So a few days ago I found a WiFi player that will link into your home network and play music files from netwroked computers. So, I have a few questions I am hoping someone here can answer, and help me get the xmas present he wants [mainly in the hope some nice Nikon glass will be in my xmas stocking in return :lol: ]

Firstly, can anyone recommend a good make, one that can be added to my existing wifi network at home, and will play music files [mainly mp3's] from any of the computers on the network.

Secondly, do these gizmos come with some kind of built in speakers - the one I looked at was somewhat vague on this issue - we are not bothered about clever surround sound, just really want something that sounds a bit better than the buzzboxes on a laptop. As we dont currently have even a straightforward music system, this would be quite important in budget terms, as if additional speakers are needed, I need to include that in the cost.

Finally, any links to more info or sellers - I am sure the one I looked at was on amazon, with a link from somewhere else, but of course, I have since deleted my cache/history/etc and cant find it! :bang:


I am really not looking for a sooper dooper unit, we listen to music occasionally, but it would be nice if he was able to play his laptop based music files a bit louder and without the 'tinnyness' once in a while.

Any help with this would be really appreciated - please remember I am a dumb woman, so please keep explainations very simple :lol: ;)

YvonneXX
 
Does it need to be wifi? the only thing is wifi would be a killer on batteries. I was in PCWorld a couple of years ago while music was playing, it turned out to be an mp3 player plugged directly into a set of powered Creative speakers and it sounded great.
 
Hi LL

Let me see if I can offer some advice here for you, and although it might not be exactly what you're after, it will certainly offer some alternatives to consider.

I am not aware of any wifi MP3 players, but I am sure there are several out there, but what you may not be aware of is the fact that if you have a wifi at home, and you have a network set up to which all PC's/Laptops/Macs in your home can connect to... (here's the good bit) - if you use iTunes as the music library / software / mp3 player on those networked machines... the library of music on each machine will be available over the network...!! :)

Not sure my grammar is so good in that previous para and hope I explained it well enough.

So, any music you have on Laptop#1 in iTunes (which is free by the way - and excellent) is playable on PC#2 and Laptop#3 as long as they are connected on the home network.

So, if you have a sound system (which is the other thing I need to talk about) connected to a main PC/Laptop - then all music on any machine(as long as they are turned on of course!!) can be played on that PC.

So that's the first thing to consider i.e. what application are you using on the machines to play and organise your music. Secondly, you might consider purchasing a nice surround sound PC based set of speakers. There are a few options here;

1 - if the main PC is a PC and not a laptop; you may wish to have a look at a new Sound Card such as a Soundblaster sound card. This goes into the PC as an expansion card and provides superb Stereo/Quad sound from it.
2 - if the main PC is a laptop; you may wish to purchase a USB/Firewire soundcard - same as above but conencts to the laptop via USB/Firewire

Either of these sound cards would give you superb (and I mean superb) sound out of whichever machine they were connected to, and if you then used iTunes to play the music on this machine you would have access to and could play all music libraries on each machine on the network.

One final thing to consider, and this does also work on non Mac systems, is Mac TV - which when connected to your network actually makes all media available on networked machines available through your TV - be that media podcasts, music, movies etc. This is what I am going to be using soon!!

So, there you go, hope that helps...:) good luck.
 
Thanks John, most of what you say makes perfect sense, but perhaps I should explain our set up at home a little more, so you can see what I am aiming at.

The obvious solution on the surface would of course be a set a decent pc speakers. There is of course a BUT [lordy isnt there always], we only run laptops at home. What I liked about this beastie I read about, was that it can stay still whilst his lordship can choose to play king of the castle on the chair, recline gracefully on the sofa, or indeed, be sat in the dining room at the table 'doing his paperwork' [as he likes to phrase it] There was also a facility that we probably wouldnt use immediately, but sounded like a useful feature, it can actually be set to talk to your router and play stuff direct from the internet [no, I didnt read this bit too closely, so I am not quite sure how this works, but I presume you have to be subscribed to some kind of music streaming site or similar :shrug: EDIT: duurrhhh, waking up slowly...internet radio of course!]

I shall have another hunt on amazon, see if I can find it or anything similar now I have had the benefit of a few hours sleep. :lol:
 
:bonk: you can hit me if you want - found it!!

Maufacturers link

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Digital+Media+Adapters/Digital+Media+Player/SoundBridge+HomeMusic+Documents/Technical+Specifications/TS+UK.htm


They are doing this unit on Amazon for £40 atm, but I will need a audio system to plug it into, or powered speakers.

So, next technical question, please, what is a 'Stereo 3.5mm to 2x RCA cable', or more specifically, what sort of connector socket should I be looking for on a hifi unit or speakers to go with it? :thinking:
 
I thought about getting one of those type of players but couldn't see us wanting to mess about with it finding stuff.

Instead I bought a relatively cheap small stereo (philips) which has an ipod dock and a usb port. You can drop an ipod in the dock and play and control it from the remote. The other great thing is I can fill a usb 2Gb dongle thing with mp3s and it will play from it for hours and hours. Seems like all small hifi units are going this way.

I'm sure your Q is answered by the time I've typed this but 3.5mm is the plug on normal small headphones and RCA is another name for phono - the plugs for the back of a stereo.
 
An RCA connector is what we in the UK would call a Phono Plug, so on the back of a hifi you would llook for wee round colour coded (red and white) sockets.
 
:clap: :thumbs: much appreciated guys, I knew I could rely on people here for this kind of help.

Robert, thats another option I shall consider too, hadnt seen one with a USB slot. Either way, its a chance to get a new stereo sytem, or even just modern speakers and be able to utilise cimputer based music.

Thanks again everyone, appreciated. :thumbs:
 
While you are deciding what to do don't forget you can just plug the laptop audio out (headphone socket) to the aux input of a stereo for good sound right now.
 
Yep the pinacle will do exactly what you want and there are others out there some can get quite expensive - depending on the quality you want (I am sure one of the PC magazine this month will have a number of comparison reviews)

Have you considered an 80GB iPod (£160) and a Bose Sound Dock (£199).

The Bose is a tiny unit (30cm wide, 17cm tall and about 13cm deep) that you plug the ipod in to and sounds v impressive (I'm using one as I type). You definately won't be dissapointed :)

Remeber that with an iPod you can also take all your music with you, use it in the car, office etc. and if you can find an old type (5 or 5.5gen rather than the current 6th gen [classic]) you can get a little connector that plugs in to the bottom and you can off load your photos from your camera to the iPod for safe storage (a present for the both of you ;)).
 
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