Evening gents. This is a sort of conundrum I am facing. I have recently discovered Pandora internet radio and lets just say I think we have our answer to the question of "next generation" music delivery. Let me be clear here. I do not download or rip music from the web. First up, I don't think you can from Pandora anyway, I don't care to so need no instruction about it, and I am REALLY enjoying the fact that I have a Celtic music "channel" now instead of fiddling with broadcast NPR on Sundays trying to find The Thistle and Shamrock. As far as I can tell, this is completely legit internet radio service so no worries there. However, sitting in front of a pc for hours just to listen to radio is a pain. So I am trying to fish around the net to find a reasonable way to use my wireless router to stream the sound from my PC to my stereo in the living room.
Now I may have posted about one non solution last year. I found the Linksys WMB54G wireless music bridge on closeout at Best Buy for $29. Hooryay! It had wireless/wired connectivity, both types of digital audio out as well as regular old L-R analog composite outputs. Can't miss I thought. A cheap, easy way to get the sound from the pc to the stereo. Nothing could be further from the truth! That thing was a *** from the get go. I spent HOURS poring over the net trying to find setup and connection solutions. FAT CHANCE. Even the more experienced guys on the forums that deal with this stuff chucked the thing in disgust. I concur. It would have been perfect IF it would have worked. I managed to get it connected once via ethernet cable but NEVER wireless. So I started looking again today and found a few things like Squeezebox at $400 and another brand which is supposed to be very good but starts at a thousand dollars! No way I can spend that much. Does anyone have a workable solution that is not hundreds of dollars? I even looked at another Linksys product, the Media Center Extender(s) 2100/2200 and their reviews are generally not good either. This is too good of a thing to limit to the office. Help me out. I know if you guys can go 3000 posts strong on Linux you can figure something out for me!
Regards, Todd
Now I may have posted about one non solution last year. I found the Linksys WMB54G wireless music bridge on closeout at Best Buy for $29. Hooryay! It had wireless/wired connectivity, both types of digital audio out as well as regular old L-R analog composite outputs. Can't miss I thought. A cheap, easy way to get the sound from the pc to the stereo. Nothing could be further from the truth! That thing was a *** from the get go. I spent HOURS poring over the net trying to find setup and connection solutions. FAT CHANCE. Even the more experienced guys on the forums that deal with this stuff chucked the thing in disgust. I concur. It would have been perfect IF it would have worked. I managed to get it connected once via ethernet cable but NEVER wireless. So I started looking again today and found a few things like Squeezebox at $400 and another brand which is supposed to be very good but starts at a thousand dollars! No way I can spend that much. Does anyone have a workable solution that is not hundreds of dollars? I even looked at another Linksys product, the Media Center Extender(s) 2100/2200 and their reviews are generally not good either. This is too good of a thing to limit to the office. Help me out. I know if you guys can go 3000 posts strong on Linux you can figure something out for me!
Regards, Todd