Thursday, October 03, 2013

Loving the little bugger

I was happy when I first managed to listen to my music (kept in my ipad) on the home audio system. It was so great because I have tons of songs and hubs's sound system is fantastic.

Soon after, I realised that it wasnt entirely ideal, because I also like to, in fact prefers to read my books from my ipad. And I cant do that, because I have to connect the ipad to the audio cable.

I started to look around if it was possible to use some sort of wireless thing ( thought of something like remote at first) to hook up and have the music played remotely.

After days of reading up about it, I came across two suggestions:

One - audioengine AW2. 

Two - AirPort.

Of the two, a lot of praises given to the audioengine AW2, for its simplicity and out-of-the-box setup. No configuration whatsoever, just hook it up and it will work. Because it comes in pair, one the receiver and the other the sender, and it creates its own wifi cloud without riding or hooking to the existing wifi network. I was sold on this one, and my only problem was that it is not readily available in MY. I found a  local authorised dealer but they are selling it based on the old price which is like RM360. I am not prepared to pay an overblown price since I know audioengine has knocked down the price to only USD49 nowadays.

I then started to look at the possibility of AirPort. A lot of the comments and reviews were not favorable. Mainly on the fact that it rides on existing wifi and some sites highlight incompatibility issues with Unifi. That, coupled with the fact that it requires certain setup - which reportedly not very straight forward held me back. Upon further reading, I came to realise that most of those issues are actually relating to using it as a router. Which is not what I intend to do. I then found out that I can actually use the AirPort as an extender or a client to an existing WLAN. Looks very promising, especially after I went for a hunting visit to the apple store in IOI mall and saw it retailing for RM249 for the 1st gen model. It is definitely closer to what I am willing to fork out. (Latest model 2nd gen retails at RM299).

After weighing all the pros and cons, in the end I decided to get the AirPort over the AW2. One main reason is that for the price, AirPort does have more functionality. If I cant use it as a medium to wirelessly play my music, I can still use it as something else. It is also an easier item to sell off should it not work for me at all. 

So tonight I coaxed hubs to go to IOI again so that I can buy the 'old' version of the AirPort. I was being very kiasu, as there were only one left and I dont want to have to pay the additional RM50 for the newer version. But as usual, when I got to the store i got sucked in to buy the newer version. But for good reasons, and when I got home I was glad I chose the newer model. The older model does not have an AC power cable, you need to plug in the AirPort to the plugpoint, which would have been difficult for the setup we have in the music room. Luckily I decided to be safe than sorry.

To top it off, contrary to what I was made to believe, the setup was actually very very easy and straightforward. It took less than 5 mins and it just worked like a charm.

So now uve guessed it, i am indeed writing this post while enjoying my music from hub's superb audio systems. 

Dont I just loved it when things work well :)



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