Synchronizing Music Players?

orn asks: "Lots of people now have MP3 players in the living room. Some people have players in the kitchen, bedroom, garage, and so on. They are great when it comes to getting to your music from multiple places, but when you walk from room to room, it's almost impossible to get the music aligned. Are there software packages or techniques for synchronizing multiple networked music players? One thought is to use streaming software to stream to all players — but is there any streamer that will let you account for the different delays in different hardware to create a single synchronized whole?"

SlimServer

[jad4]

SlimServer works for me. http://slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html [slimdevices.com]

AirPort Express

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy AirPort Expresses [apple.com]. iTunes will drive multiple units in perfect sync. If you don't like iTunes or need to play from some other source, the Mac version of Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil [rogueamoeba.com] can also drive multiple units in sync using any application on your computer as the source.

Don't think DIY is going to do it

[Zadaz]

Standard Network latency and timing is not precise enough to reliably sync audio between rooms in such a way that you won't hear an echo. At least that was what I found when I researched this a couple of years ago.

Buy a Sonos [sonos.com] and forget about it. It's an amazing set of hardware that's worth twice the price.

Re:Simplify

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you don't know who makes it (which means it wasn't a DIY project), and it has both a wireless tablet and on-the-wall controls, chances are it is Crestron and costs a boatload.

Hate to point out the obvious but...

[cybereal]

Apple's iPod + iTunes + Airport Express covers all of your needs.

One iTunes installation streaming to several AirPort Express base stations (connectable via wifi or ethernet) provides just what you need, including synchronized output. I was really surprised when I discovered the output was synchronized, despite being streamed as data and decoded at the express device itself.

Furthermore, if you have several iPods it's trivial to synchronize them all with the same iTunes installation, in fact, it's kind of the entire point and reason behind the iPod's success isn't it?

It's not like the iPod is that great of a player, and people can quit pretending the scroll wheel was a good idea because it's not (my sore thumb joint...) but the software to manage the things, that's the golden feature right there.

I'm sorry to be the one that pimps Apple on this, but son... they've got you pegged.

Re:Simplify

[blhack]

sorry about the double post, but this website shows pretty much all the stuff you would need to do a setup exactly like mine.

Click [lightav.com]