5. Source components: what options do you have?
Source components are the roaring engine of your multi-room audio system. A source is where the music or movie originates.
When we're talking multi-room audio, the big three are CD Players, Radio Tuners and Music Servers.
CD Player
A single CD Player can deliver just one tune at a time. No matter how many rooms (or 'zones') you have, with just one CD Player you'll only be listening to one tune at a time.
Some CD Players might have multi-room features, but the technology isn't as flexible as a Music Server.
Radio tuner
Like a CD player, a radio tuner can deliver just one tune at a time – except if it has a dual tuner, like Russound's ST2.
Music server
All good Music Servers have been specially designed with multi-room audio in mind. Your entire music collection is stored on a hard disk inside the Music Server. Up to 40,000 tracks can be stored at once, so there are no more messy CDs cluttering up the house. You can play the same or different tunes in different rooms at the same time too – some Music Servers can even stream up to 32 different tracks into 32 rooms at once. If you want to, you can connect a Music Server with a computer network to share and back up music onto your PC or Mac computer. The possibilities are endless.
Music servers are simple to use too. For example, to copy a CD onto a Music Server just insert the disc and it is automatically loaded onto the hard-disk. Your music can then be catalogued and archived in a way that just isn't possible with CDs and a CD-Player.
The biggest downside is that music files are compressed to a greater or lesser extent which causes some loss of sound quality. However, the differences can be so subtle that only the most ardent audiophile could pick them. For the rest of us? Sounds awesome!
To learn more about Music Servers, read our article: Choosing a Music Server
Listening to your source components
To hear any sound from your source components you'll need to hook them up with a set of speakers. There are many types of speakers that have been developed with multi-room applications in mind. They're a bit different to the lounge-room variety and you probably haven't encountered them before. They're small, sound great and take up none of your living whatsoever.