How can I take my music to the living room?

emvath said:

I don't want to have to turn on my pc just to listen to music, so I'm not sure if Airplay would work for me.

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If you don't want to leave your PC on, then you'll need a NAS with a built-in media server. It might also be possible to use an external drive connected to your home theater.

If you're willing to leave your PC running, the solution could be as simple as an Apple TV or Airport Express with Airtunes, either one under $100.

Even simpler, of course, is to have all your music on an iPod which you then plug into something.

Synology NAS's can AirPlay from a web browser or smartphone app.

If your receiver has AirPlay you can control it from iTunes directly from your PC or stream directly from an iOS device.

emvath said:

I will admit that I am somewhat of a technological dunce. So if someone could help me out with this I would be very grateful.

I currently have all my music on my PC and would like to be able to listen to it all in my living room. I have approx 160 gigs of music (mostly 320 mp3 and 256 aac) and use iTunes to listen to it on my computer. I am thinking about moving it all to an external harddrive or a nas, but I'm still not certain how to be able to get it in my living room.

I'd like to get some nice floor speakers and a nice receiver. If I got a network capable receiver and put all my music on a nas would that work? I don't want to have to turn on my pc just to listen to music, so I'm not sure if Airplay would work for me.

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is your pc a mac?
do you want to do this wirelessly?
you can buy apple tv or airport, put that in your living room and send your music, via itunes, to either of those. additionally, control what you hear with the remote app on an iphone. no need for nas.

alternatively, move your pc to the living room.

emvath said:

... I don't want to have to turn on my pc just to listen to music, so I'm not sure if Airplay would work for me.

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i reread your post. seeing this bit again kinda makes my advice redundant.
but as you say you're not too hot with tech, i still say a NAS is possibly not for you (possibly is). using your computer to organise your music and then having, as mentioned, an ipod is a neat way of dealing with this except you already have 160 gb of music. as long as you dont need everything (all your music) all the time, the ipod route would work.

the next simpler is to buy a hard drive with audio out. sometimes called a media drive. this has plenty of space. but you still need to hook it up to your computer to update it. you will also need to maintain 2 music libraries which can be a real headache.
have you see the http://www.brennan.co.uk/brennan? load your cds into it, if you have cds, or transfer to it, it includes audio out.

after things like this your next option would be some kind of NAS...

im sure the next post will be NAS-centric and full of useful advice (unlike this one ;-))

iTunes Match and an Appletv is probably your easiest and cheapest solution. You pay $25 for a year of iTunes Match, they scan your iTunes library and make a 256kbps version of it available on their server. The Appletv will access iTunes Match from the onscreen interface. If you don't have a display in the room, you would need to stream fom an iOS device...an airport express or an Airplay capable receiver could be used in place of an Appletv.