How to Build a Wireless Digital Home Audio System with Apple iTunes and AirPlay

We want music throughout the home, but too often, our digital music gets stuck on our computers, and we cannot enjoy it in different rooms throughout the home. Building a wireless multi-zone music system, however, is now incredibly simple and affordable.

To get their music around the home, the solution that people often use is to plug an Apple iPod or iPhone into a pair of dedicated speakers. But the quality of these speakers is limited, and your iPod or iPhone is meant to be a mobile device that should not be tied down to one room of your home.

A better way to listen to your digital music around the home is to create a wireless multi-zone audio system. We can build this wireless music system using Apple iTunes and the new Apple AirPlay technology.

AirPlay allows you to stream any music in iTunes over a wireless network to any connected speakers in your home. You can wirelessly connect a pair of existing speakers to iTunes with the $99 Apple's Airport Express base station. Alternatively, new speakers and receivers are coming onto the market that have AirPlay connectivity already built-in.

Once you have your speakers connected, you then select the music in your iTunes collection on your computer, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and choose the speakers that will play the music. You can select multiple speakers, and hear your music in different rooms at once.

Building a wireless digital home audio system with Apple AirPlay is remarkably affordable. If you already have a wireless network and speakers in place, then a multi-zone system can be built for a few hundred dollars. In contrast, proprietary digital audio solutions, such as Sonos, or home automation systems, such as Control4, can cost you thousands of dollars.

The Apple AirPlay technology is a very easy way to listen to your iTunes music wirelessly around the home. AirPlay is not as easy to use for listening to internet radio, Rhapsody or other music services, however, there are tricks and techniques for getting these audio streams to play over your wireless home audio system.

We should be able to enjoy our music collections in any room of our home. With Apple iTunes and AirPlay, it is now easier and cheaper than ever to build a wireless multi-zone audio system that distributes our music and allow us to enjoy life in a digital home.

For more information on building a wireless home audio system, read Audio Essentials on the Digital Homes website.