If you are like me, you love music, you have a lot of it on your computer, and you want to play it all through your office or house, not just through your computer’s speakers. Here’s one simple, low-cost way to do it:
1. Make sure the computer on which you have your music stored has wi-fi capability.
2. Purchase an Apple Airport Express. The Airport Express plugs right into the wall, and plugs into your remote speakers via a 3.5mm jack and standard audio cable. The Airport Express will communicate with your computer via wi-fi.
3. If you use iTunes, you can use Airplay with the Airport Express and stream the music out to your speakers.
4. If you’d like to listen to more than iTunes on remote speakers (maybe you are streaming music from Spotify, or playing vidoes on YouTube), you can also purchase, install and use Rogue Amoeba’s excellent Airfoil software. Airfoil effectively “hijacks” the audio signal, from iTunes or any other program running on your computer, and will output it to the Airport Express. Note that you may need to tweak your firewall settings to permit the “hijack”. Regarding iTunes, I have had less trouble using Airfoil than not.
If you have multiple speaker sets, you can either purchase multiple Airport Expresses, or move the one you’ve purchased around as you like. You will be able to stream to only one set of speakers at a time.
In this manner, you can stream your music, centrally located on one computer, to speakers throughout your home or business. Enjoy!
