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Help a newbie. Outdoor music poolside from indoor hardrive. Please help me.


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Thanks in advance, all your input is much appreciated, if this is the wrong forum I also apologize.

To all of the audiophiles out there, I have a dream, of playing my music in my backyard at my pool, from my home computer in the kitchen, using my cell phone and home network.

 

I can already do the phone part and control the media player on the computer using my android phone.

 

MY QUESTION: How do I take my Gateway (i7, 8 gb RAM, 3.4 GHz) desktop and wire outdoor speakers to it? Please, I can use a lot of help here. I promise I’ve tried to do my own research, for quite awhile, but the summer is coming up, I don’t want to buy something I don’t need and have to Ebay it later.

 

Considerations:

Budget: < $1000.

 

Since the debut of Napster I’ve always tried to rip/download 320 kbps, but in no way do I pretend to be an audiophile. I’ve decided on wired speakers, 2 of them, unless anyone feels wireless is good enough (though I would worry more about somebody walking away with portable speakers, nor do I wish to carry them out every time we’re outside). I just need some decent speakers for about 1/3 an acre. I thought about having 2 omni speakers at opposite corners.

 

I suspect I’ll need an amplifier/receiver to connect somehow to the CPU, please, don’t be too technical but what would be a good product? If one could go as far as shopping for me or providing a link…even better, that’s how lost I am. I know nothing about specifications.

 

Will the outdoor speakers need a power supply?

What's a "good enough" underground speaker wire?

I have some brochures for Sonos system.

 

Thanks in advance, all your input is much appreciated, if this is the wrong forum I also apologize.

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I can see two ways of doing this...

 

Option one would be to connect an amplifier directly to your computer, then run speaker cable to your pool.

 

Second a Sonos system could be run wireless. This will require power. Either use one of the Zone player devices with a pair of passive speakers; or use a Play 3 or Play 5 which are self contained units. Android app will control the Sonos system. You'll probably also need a Sonos Bridge to connect to your network.

 

Personally I would go with the Play 3 or 5 as these can easily be carried indoors to protect them from the elements.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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I did something similar last year for my pool. I bought an Onkyo TX-8050 networked stereo receiver and a Klipsch AWR-650-SM Granite Outdoor Rock Speaker. The system sounds surprisingly good. The Onkyo sits in by basement and is connected to my home network. All of my music is stored on a NAS - running a DLNA server app - as FLAC files. The Onkyo can stream music from my NAS, internet radio or FM local stations. Onkyo has apps for iPod, iPhone and Android to control the TX-8050. Hope this helps.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I did something similar last year for my pool. I bought an Onkyo TX-8050 networked stereo receiver and a Klipsch AWR-650-SM Granite Outdoor Rock Speaker. The system sounds surprisingly good. The Onkyo sits in by basement and is connected to my home network. All of my music is stored on a NAS - running a DLNA server app - as FLAC files. The Onkyo can stream music from my NAS, internet radio or FM local stations. Onkyo has apps for iPod, iPhone and Android to control the TX-8050. Hope this helps.

 

Darth B

 

Thanks for replying, I've just gotten around to looking into this option. I read many reviews about that particular receiver, on Amazon.com, and it seems like a lot of people have issues with the network capabilities, and to be honest I've tried to use DLNA with my blu-ray player and it seems to be hit or miss, songs take a long time to load and skip and sometimes don't stream at all. Furthermore, if I understand all of this correctly, in your current set up, you are controlling the output through the TX-8050.

 

I can already control my computer with my android phone to play files from my hard drive using media monkey and the MM android app., I think I just need to be able to connect outdoor speakers directly to my CPU or have an amp in between the outdoor speakers and the CPU. Media Monkey also has DLNA features, but I wonder if this would result in the same choppy output.

 

Does any of this make sense? What am I missing?

 

Again, thanks for your reply. Any furhter thoughts? Anyone else out there?

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  • 2 weeks later...

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