Whole House Music Party (part 2: first steps)

I made a decision on a direction and dove in recently. I did not want to spend too much money right out of the gates in case it all fell apart. I decided to pick up an Airport Express and a pair of speakers to get started.

For the first set of speakers, I wanted something small and powered with good sound. I went with a pair of Bose Companion 2 speakers. The only bad things I read about these in reviews was that the bass can be a bit overpowering. I have found this to be true but it is not bad. I am keeping them in the kitchen for now and the little nook they sit in is a bit enclosed so it's not helping the strong bass either. So far I am happy with the quality and performance of the Airport Express on wireless N. It is not dropping out all that much - really only when I am transferring huge amounts of data across wireless which I rarely do as most of the network is wired.

Also, I came across an application new to me made by Rogue Amoeba, makers of Airfoil. They came out with 'Airfoil Speakers' recently. Speakers runs on OSX and Windows - drumroll - even on iPhone/iTouch! This eliminates a need for an Airport Express for the living room since I can run Speakers on the home theatre PC I built last year.

In addition I picked up a RadioSHARK 2 and am pretty happy with it as well. Very basic functionality of course but it does it's job well. I am not using the intended use of it as they market it as a DVR for radio.

For next time:
Putting it all together with centralized and remote control





Tab:
Airfoil (family pack) $46
Airport Express (Kitchen) $89
Bose Speakers (Kitchen) $89
RadioSHARK2 $47

Contents so far:
Whole House Music Party (part 1: planning)
Whole House Music Party (part 2: first steps)