discrete bedroom audio and maintain WAF

[bbig119]

I want to move my 32 inch LCD TV which is now serving as our home office PC monitor into our bedroom. If I do this, I’m likely going to get a SageHD300 and possibly pickup another fios HD box. In addition to these video devices, I’d like to have an easy way to listen to music (both my library on my file server and internet radio). I’ve got two issues that I need help with.

1. What do I use for playback of audio?
I could use the HD300 (not a big fan of Sage for audio though), small client PC (possibly a netbook), or I could run audio from office pc in other room and control it remotely somehow (RF?).

2. What to use for speakers?
Using the (crappy) speakers in the TV would be easy, but then the TV needs to be on in order to listen to music. This won’t work unless I can put up a black screen (and that feels like cheating– energywise anyway).

What I’m really curious about is if there are any halfway decent, small, discrete (READ High WAF) audio receivers. I’m not as worried about the WAF with the speakers (maybe I should be), but almost all receivers are large, ugly and anti-WAF unless they can be hidden. However we don’t have any space to hide the components easily, so any normal sized receiver will score poorly on the WAF scale.

I’m looking to keep this relatively low cost. I’m just looking to see if I can solve this puzzle of better audio and keep the WAF. Most threads on AVS seem to have higher budgets and/or a larger space(to hide stuff).

[Mike Garcen]

SO i’m not sure how big an audiophile you are, but since it’s the bedroom, and you mentioned the importance of being able to play audio withOUT the TV on, here’s my thoughts:

1) Get a SFF (i was going to say a netbook, but not sure what video formats you’re trying for), since their power consumption is super low anyways
2) Get a set of Computer speakers–I’m still a fan of the Klipsch THX ProMedia’s which can be had for around $200, and Logitech makes some great PC speakers as well
3) This way, you can play audio directly from the SFF and then turn the tv off. And if you demand more, you can always use a smartphone or iphone to control it to skip through songs as well

You could do all the above for less than $500, again all depends what else you’re planning on playing through the PC. Less needs = lower specs = lower cost.

[bbig119]

Yeah, I was considering that. If I’m going to build a client PC, then I would expect it to be capable of playing back bluray which shouldn’t be much of an issue. And I’ll be happy with decent computer speakers. Personally I’d like a separate receiver/speaker setup, but PC speakers can easily handle this job while keeping things small.

OTOH, the office PC is on the opposite side of the wall to where this stuff would be going. If I were willing to drill a slightly larger hole (already rg6 going through), I could put through HDMI or even a small audio cable and run the office PC as a dual monitor setup. I just worry about how robust that will be though.

[Ugadata]

Have you looked at the Aluratek Internet radio players?

Admittedly I have only seen ads for these and have no hands on experience with them. I always thought they were a bit pricey but I just went to the Aluratek web site and the prices were $99 to $130 which is better than what I remembered them to be.

These devices will stream radio stations as well as media from a local media server

Aluratek Internet Radios
http://aluratek.com/products/digital-music-internet-radios

[Naylia]

I connected my Sage HD300 to something similar to this

 

http://store.cambridgesoundworks.com/Cambridge-SoundWorks-Extreme-2.1-Computer-Speaker/M/B0036UU14G.htm

Just a whole lot older version and it sounds freakin great compared to my tv. I can’t beleive I didn’t do it a long time ago.

[Adidas4275]

squeezebox is a no brainer for this one. My wife loves our Duet System.

 

I installed speakers in the ceiling and with the controller and iPeng it is a dream.

 

no clunky UIs or boot times.

 

If you want a self powered unit the Radio version sounds amazing for a mono/ small speaker.

 

I have one radio and 3 duet recievers with 1 controller and it is a very nice system.

 

doesnt have all the bells and whistles that Sonos has, but its close.

[Author]

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