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Thread: The music died

  1. #1
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    The music died

    For many years now we have played music in the house with our iPods on a Bose Sound Dock. It was great. But then last Christmas the Bose stopped working. The iPods work fine but are very old and use Apple's old 30 pin connector. So as sad as it is, I'm ready to put them both out to pasture as the batteries obviously have very little life left in them.

    So what is the preferred method for music in the house in the 21st century?
    We both have iPhones. A friend says he streams music from his phone or tablet via Bluetooth.

    Looking for advice in getting music back into the home. I so miss music while we are fixing dinner!
    is Bluetooth realible? I don't want streaming gaps or skips.

  2. #2
    Sonos is my favorite.

  3. #3
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    Well that certainly looks interesting. Just spent a few minutes on their web site. Which one do you have?

  4. #4
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    I subscribe to Tidal and cable the laptop to the stereo. Very good sound quality and not tied to specific hardware, so if it goes down I'll just hook up another device.

  5. #5
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    Bluetooth isn't the answer, at least as it currently stands. The bandwidth is too low to transfer true high fidelity music. A new standard, 4.0, is coming out and that may change things - but not for current hardware.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Art Mann View Post
    Bluetooth isn't the answer, at least as it currently stands. The bandwidth is too low to transfer true high fidelity music. A new standard, 4.0, is coming out and that may change things - but not for current hardware.
    When? Ten character requirement.

  7. #7
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    I also have one of the old iPods. We had to have the disk drive replaced a year or so back. Had the battery changed at the same time. There have been various iHome designs to work with iPods as a dock/player/charger. We got ours at Lowes.

    For the shop I have an FM transmitter that plugs into the iPod and then plays out of an FM radio. It is handy when there is a power failure to have some music. There are only a few enjoyable radio stations we can pick up where we live.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  8. #8
    Bluetooth may not be the answer for true high fidelity, but I bluetooth from my iphone to my car and it's good enough for my ears.

    Dave, Sonos operates on WIFI - not bluetooth. I have a couple Play 3's, and Play 1's. I love the 1's because they are so mobile. I have one Play 5 which is nice because it has a line-in, so you can stream Youtube or a cd from a laptop if you wish. More and more Amazon Prime and streaming services are just fine for me, though.

    What's great about SONOS is that you can play different things on each speaker, or you can group them. You can also control them each from your phone or ipad.

    I suppose what REALLY makes it good, though is that the service is relatively reliable. Besides having to update the controller every few months, it doesn't seem to drop signals or lose itself, like a lot of other stuff on my wifi network.

  9. #9
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    We too had our Pods and Bose docks die. Sad days. For background music we now use an Amazon Echo. Surprising sound quality in a small package. Voice controls work great and any questions are easily answered without touching a pad or keyboard.

  10. #10
    I see the Ihome docks in thrift stores all the time for less than $5. Bought one to put on small TV in kitchen which sounded like a Japanese six transistor radio. Used connector cord from ebay ($0.99 shipped when I bought it). I have a Scosche FM transmitter that I bought at Walmart for about $14 (automotive section) that I use with laptop, Walkman, and receiver that is connected to outside antenna to rebroadcast throughout the property. Receiver on outside antenna gets a station that others can't. Car doesn't have a CD player, so I use Walkman and transmitter to listen to CD's. The NMH batteries from HF are great in these devices.

  11. #11
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    I second the Sonos. They are expensive but just work. And when you have multiple ones around the house you can do some interesting things. I have ours setup with the home automation stuff ( SmartThings ) and have alerts come through the Sonos. I'm still waiting on the Echo and Sonos integration.

    In the shop I have an Echo Dot connected to a cheap sound bar.

  12. #12
    Yeah, when SONOS integrates with Echo or Google Home, you'd be able to voice control it and get it to play youtube!

  13. #13
    Just like many a woodworking thread, the answer may be dependent on how serious you are about music. For me my audio system is the second most important system in my shop behind dust control. I integrate Sonos with a home automation system called Control4 and stream Rhapsody/Napster, TuneIn internet radio and my own inventory of music on a network drive. I have four ceiling mounted speakers in the shop. All control is through the iPhone app, individual volume control by room. All wi-fi driven.
    If this is too fanatical for you, you could start with the basic Sonos with some Bose speakers and know that you can grow with it should you ever catch my illness.

  14. #14
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    Sounds like I need to investigate the Sonos. Would the middle one at 300 bucks deliver sound equal to the Bose Sound Dock? Would the iPhone app display my music library from my Mac so I can choose songs from the app?

    I'll have to dig into this deeper this weekend.

  15. #15
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    How about Chromecast audio? I have the video version of it to stream Youtube and Netflix to my TV from my tablet and it works well. No first hand experience with the audio only version. It's only $35 at Bestbuy plus your stereo receiver or powered speaker.

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