The $6.35 alternative to Apple's AirPort Express

Last week my wife through threw me a 30th birthday party at our home. While I helped out with all of the preparations my main concern was getting the music ready. 

For a while I've been using TiVo Desktop to stream music to my home stereo system via my wireless network.  I love this feature of the TiVo Series 2 as well as being able to view our digital photos on our TV.  The downsides of the Music feature is that it can't play music files with DRM and it can't play playlists (as far as I know). Since I purchase music from the iTunes Music Store fairly often this is kind of a hassle.

So I was considering getting the $129 Apple AirPort Express so I could stream all my music from iTunes and set up exactly the playlist I wanted for this party and others. I hesitated because I didn't really want to run the wire to my stereo and I kept thinking this was an overkill solution for our two-bedroom apartment.

And then it dawned on  me.  Why not just plug my iPod directly into my stereo?  This would have also required getting back behind my stereo for wiring except my VCR has RCA inputs in the front!  This way I could just set my VCR to the AUX input and set my stereo to play the audio from the VCR. So I went to Radio Shack and bought a 1/8" to RCA cable (specifically packaged for connecting portable music players to stereos) for $6.35.  The whole thing worked like a charm (see photo at left) and I played my party playlist straight from the iPod.  My wife was extremely glad she didn't buy me the Airport Express.

Technorati tag: iPod