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just redundant
Everything this machine does can be done with your computer. I use my wife's iMac to output to our tuner via a red and white RCA cable and set my tuner on "video/aux." What about a remote? I use the Keyspan IrDA. iTunes supports shoutcast and can access all the songs on my hard drive (which this thing needs anyway). If I were to get a component player, it better have its own harddrive. I can't justify $300 for something that just looks like a stereo component but still needs my Mac to get around.
Added features...
An RCA cable and the KeySpan remote would certainly work just fine, albeit with some limitations. First, the computer and the stereo need to be relatively close together, if not actually in the same room. In our case, though, I'd need a 50' RCA cable, which isn't really practical. Second, there's no remote display, so you can't easily do things like select by artist or album, or build new custom playlists on the fly. Third, your Mac needs to be running iTunes (or some other MP3 player) all the time (at least, I think that's a true statement based on reading the product spec for the remote). This makes it somewhat harder to do something CPU intensive (like Quake3!) while the MP3's are playing downstairs, as iTunes will be competing for CPU time.
re: just redundant
there is another simple solution. instead of spending an obserd(sp?) amount of money and just get a pretty component that doesn't really do anything, get an older Powermac G3; make it your component. the computer would be a dedicated MP3 player / server / ect. you can control it via the keyspan remote i think it is, via VNC, on the TV or even hook it up to a computer monitor. think of it, when you have your music on, put the visualizer on the TV for a acid trip of sorts. you can even use it to burn movies or TV shows to VideoCD's. i haven't tried this yet, but will be trying it with the World Cup this summer ;)
Space constraints...
It all depends on what you want to do; your solution is definitely yet another alternative to consider!
Space constraints...
RCA jacks into my amp aux out of the cube audio module and you hae a $6 solution.
Space constraints...
So how do you change songs? Is there a remote or do you have to go to where the Mac is? Honestly, how is this better that a CD player? I use a DVD player to play music CDs, since my TV is hooked up to my component system anyway ;-)
Multiple answers...
I use my Mac while my wife listens to music. Hence, iTunes is not always running when she wants to listen to music. And yes, I might be playing Quake3. So the complex Samba solution lets me keep using the Mac for what I want to do while she gets to listen to what she wants to listen to. With iTunes as part of the mix, that's no longer true. I don't run iTunes while I compile code, play Quake3, or render DVDs, for example.
ye old MP3 server
Another old-tech approach to this would be taking a 7500 or 7600 (sells for less than $50 on eBay), adding a cheap IDE PCI card (~$50) and a big ATA harddrive (prices keep dropping). Use stardard SCSI drive as system, put OS 9.1 and iTunes on, and fill your ATA drive with MP3s. You can use the composite RCA video ports to hook this to your TV for monitoring use and the RCA audio ports to hook the machine up to your stereo. |
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