Wireless streamers

Wireless music isn’t a particularly new invention – just ask Mr Marconi – but it’s only recently that the combination of digital music and home networking technology has enabled us to broadcast our own music collections wirelessly from room to room.

Streaming is basically a way of listening to music that’s stored on a PC elsewhere in your home, usually over a wireless network.

It’s a great way of enjoying a centralised music library away from the desktop, and it’s even possible to stream other types of files, such as photos and videos, more of which later.

The three main elements required to start streaming are a wireless music player, a wireless connection to your PC and the digital music itself. You may have already digitised your music collection if you use a portable digital music player like an iPod. If not, it’s a pretty simple process that involves ripping your CDs using free software such as Windows Media Player or iTunes. Music downloaded from the web can often be streamed too.

Without wires
We won’t go into too much detail about the networking aspect here, but suffice to say a wireless router of some kind is necessary. Even the most basic Wifi router should be up to the job – you just need to make sure that the router you use and the streaming device you choose work using compatible wireless standards. There are three main Wifi standards (in ascending order of transfer speed): 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n or ‘b’, ‘g’ and ‘n’ for short.

Don’t worry too much about what these mean – the important thing is to match a ‘g’ streaming device to a ‘g’ router and so on, though bear in mind that most newer Wifi equipment is compatible with slower standards. An ‘n’ router like the Netgear DG834N (£94 from Dabs http://tinyurl.com/2whuml) can also stream to ‘g’ and ‘b’ streaming players, for example.

Keep it simple
When it comes to the music streaming devices themselves, you’ll find products from computer technology manufacturers like Apple, Netgear and Pinnacle alongside those from more established home entertainment brands such as Sony and Philips.

Apple’s Airport Express (£65 from the Apple store), for example, enables you to listen to music from an iTunes library on a hi-fi. It’s a pretty basic setup that doesn’t come with a remote control or a screen for browsing through songs. Instead you need to go to your computer whenever you want to put on a new album.

A good example of the most common sort of wireless player is Pinnacle’s Soundbridge Homemusic.

It costs about £100 (though you can find it online for less – about £85 on Amazon) and supports a variety of different digital music formats, including MP3 and WAV as well as featuring the ability to stream a vast range of online radio stations directly from the internet, even when your PC is switched off. It features built-in Wifi (with ‘b’ and ‘g’ compatibility) and it’s easy to browse your music collection using the remote control and LCD screen.

Although it doesn’t have any speakers itself, you can plug it into your hi-fi, amplifier or TV set using a standard stereo phono (red and white) connection or plug in a set of headphones. It’s also possible to plug devices like the Soundbridge directly into a set of speakers, as long as they are self-powered and feature an Auxilliary (Aux) line-in socket, as with the Creative Gigaworks T20 (£61 from Amazon).