I just put a music system together in my house that some of you might be interested in trying.

I used to work for a big music company, so i have about 800 CD's that are a pain in the butt to store in the house - a nice rack is expensive to buy especially if you want the cd's close to the main stereo which is in my living room so i can't buy some el cheapo cd rack, where do you put it, etc etc etc... Up until now I haven't really gotten into the mp3/ipod craze, don't know why either, i'm a pretty big gadget guy, but anyway, i finally decided to rip all of my CD's to my computer (converted to 192bit mp3's) and then I can store the cd's in a big box in the closet. The problem i ran into was how to play the cd's on my stereo/entertainment system in the living room when the computer is on the 3rd floor, and not have to buy a 60GB ipod and hook it into the stereo via a crappy apple stereo/rca cable or an fm adapter that will play through the tuner on the amp.

So here's how i did it:

outpost.com has 200GB hard drives for $69 (bought 2, 1 for primary storage, 1 as a backup for when the primary blows up)

bought 2 USB2.0 external hard disk enclosures from newegg.com for $29 each to house the drives and allow them to be connected to my computer via USB2 (almost every computer in the last 2 years has USB2 built in)

Bought a Linksys Media Adapter ($51) from newegg.com- this is the cool piece of equipment. This adapter connects to your computer (either via a network rj45 cable or wirless!) and then connects to your stereo and TV via RCA stereo jacks and/or S-Video. If you already have a linksys or some other wireless router you can connect the adapter via wireless, which lets you have the computer and stereo as far apart in your house/condo/apt as the signal will let you (you can also use a network cable if they're close by one another). The software that comes with this adapter allows the adapter to read the mp3 files off of your computer and and then play them out through the stereo. It can also read your digital pictures off of your computer and display them on your TV as a slide show or single pics.

The entire setup is going to cost less than $250, my cd collection will be conveniently at hand as will my digital pictures while the actual CD's are tucked away in a closet and not taking up space in my living room. Considering that the cost of a nice CD rack (i.e. one that you can put in your living room etc) for 800 cd's is probably going to cost more, and your entire collection of CD's is now readily accessable and playable on your stereo, this is a nice alternative.

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