Wireless Speakers

[Mick F]

Hi again.
Been out for a ride, instead of fixing electronic stuff.

Valves.
Yes, I did most of my apprenticeship studying valves and my first job at sea was valve equipment. Hundreds of them, gunnery and missile direction radars and displays.

Some of my later apprenticeship was on transistor and IC theory, and my second and third ships were a mixture of valve technology, transistor and circuit boards. Again, weapon systems, and later comms equipment. Fourth and fifth ships I was in management.

I enjoyed the valves far better than the printed circuit stuff. Hands-on and "mechanical" !!!

[daveg]

Cor blimey! Made me head hurt just reading this thread.

I did this years ago with some string and two cans.

[Mick F]

Yes Dave, string and cans!

The good thing about these speakers, is that I can put on Radio4 Extra via the broadband, and be able to listen in the kitchen. Yes, I know I could have bought a digital radio, but this unit will play anything our computers are listening to. Also, the sound quality is great.

[daveg]

Yes Dave, string and cans!

The good thing about these speakers, is that I can put on Radio4 Extra via the broadband, and be able to listen in the kitchen. Yes, I know I could have bought a digital radio, but this unit will play anything our computers are listening to. Also, the sound quality is great.

Have to admit this got me thinking about broadband radio as it saves on having umpteen radios scattered about the house, some digital and some not. Plus I guess you can play anything that's on the computer hardrive too.

Does it use a lot of broadband though? We tend to have radio on most of the day, 24 hours isn't unusual. At the moment I can have 10 thingy's of broadband on what I currently pay.

[al_yrpal]

After the dicussions here and our kitchen dab/cd going on the blink just got this and an iPod Nano off EBay. It has an aux in socket to which you can plug your smartphone with Tunein radio on it to get internet radio. http://www.sony.co.uk/product/hmi-ipod- ... mt-bx77dbi . Radio takes hardly any Mbs

Those speakers are neat. But, it means leaving a pc running continuously I think?

Al

[Mick F]

Yes, the computer is on permanently, it goes to sleep when it's not doing anything. Perhaps I shut it down every few days. Radio over the internet is almost zero mega-thingies so you don't have to worry about bandwidth allowances.

This is ours - 24" screen. It does music, iPlayer, DVDs, YouTube, radio, photographs, home movies. 1Tb of hard drive. Wireless keyboard and mouse too. It used to do telly - when we had a license and an aerial!

We also have a MacBook each, and an elderly iBook.

[al_yrpal]

Is the internet radio through iTunes? Must try it with our P C which has iTunes for the iPods and see how the sleep feature copes?

Al

[Mick F]

No, just on your internet browser. Radio 4 for instance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

Just click on "Listen" at the top right, and a new window opens and lo and behold, Radio 4 on your computer. Just take a jack lead out of the headset socket and plug it into your sound system. You can listen on the computer of course, but it's a bit tinny.

[kwackers]

Not wishing to sound 'old fashioned', why not just have a 'sound system' with a built in tuner? (If nothing else it would avoid all the compression artefacts.)

Seems like a lot of effort just to listen to the radio, in computer terms we'd say the solution had been 'fully solved' a few decades ago.
Lots of tuners these days can connect to your wi-fi and play back internet radio as a matter of course as well.

[Mick F]

Yep.
Lots of ways of skinning a cat.

We're not in the best position to receive digital radio here, so on-line radio is the best way of getting a good service. We can get digi-radio, but not too good in reception.

Our JVC sound system is about 15years old. It has a CD player, a tape player (we no longer have any tapes!) and an analogue radio. Really good quality bit of kit. Trouble is, it has only two speakers.

When we bought it, Mrs Mick F was horrified at the price, but I convinced her it was worth it. I asked if the shop had anything with a A, B and A+B switch so we can have two switchable pairs of speakers. The "little boy" shop assistant had no idea what I was asking for! I had to explain, and even then he looked blank. Consequently, we only have two speakers, and they are in the living room.

I've long wanted to listen when in the kitchen, in the shed or outside on the decking but I could only use a portable radio or CD player. I could buy an auxiliary amp of course to drive as many speakers as I want, but that means laying cables throughout.

Now, I can carry my new fully portable speaker just about anywhere - even in the bathroom.

Excellent bit of kit, and worth the £77.
Highly recommended.