I’m old enough to remember when most music was played, if not off the “wireless”, then on a record player, using large discs of vinyl. They were easily scratched and inconvenient and the systems back then would certainly only play in the room that they lived in.
For a more portable solution, there was the cassette tape. However, these were not renowned for their great sound quality.
Then, back in the early 1980s, the CD player arrived. CDs were easily portable, robust and, unlike records, weren’t damaged by the very act of playing them. This was the start of the digital music revolution.
Those in the know talked of a time when we wouldn’t even use discs and lasers to play music. Instead, the music would be written onto a microchip, tiny in size. We would buy the chips and play those in dedicated players. It all seemed pretty far fetched back then.
But even that was only part of the truth. Digital music storage arrived with a bang and now many people have a digital library consisting of hundreds, or even thousands of tracks and albums.
They can play their music through their computer speakers when they’re in the office or at their desk, listen on their iPod when they’re out and about, or even plug into a dock or use a lead to play through their hi-fi at home.
But what happens when you move from room to room? If there’s a radio playing in the kitchen, you get that point between the two rooms where you can hear both systems, and it never quite works as well as a mashup on Glee, does it?
Or if you’re hosting a party, you want music playing through the whole house. But you have to turn it up to 11 in one room just so it can be heard in another.
Enter the Logitech Squeezebox system. These nifty little players are able to access a wealth of music, be it from your own personal collection on your computer, courtesy of your wi-fi network, or from literally thousands of internet radio stations, with something to suit every musical taste. There are even online music servers which have millions of tracks to choose from, all streamed straight to your Squeezebox.
There are models suited as a bedroom unit, which even functions as a clock radio, larger units for use in the main room or a second room and even a model (The Logitech Squeezebox Touch) which is designed to feed the music straight into your hi-fi so that you can enjoy sound reproduction at its peak.
You can set the units to play individually, for each member of the household, or to create a different mood in each room at your party. Or, if you want to fill the house up with party music, set them all to play in perfect synchronisation.
Want to find out more about Logitech Squeezebox, then visit Mike Deakin’s site on how to choose the Logitech Squeezebox for your needs.