Moveable music all around the house

iTunes on your computer AND on your stereo system - no problem: all you have to do is add an Airport Express near your stereo, connect the 2 together with a phono cable, and stream music to your stereo.

Airport Express in center (with green light) and phono cable (pardon my dust)



But what happens if you want to move your music around the house and garden? There are any number of wifi contraptions you can buy; but here's something elegant that sounds surprisingly good.

The WIHIFI

The ingredients:

• Hatten table from IKEA. This translucent little table has a removable tray which exposes a small storage compartment. $20. August 2014 oops: IKEA US no longer carries this, still available elsewhere.

• JBL "Spot" speakers with a subwoofer and 2 side speakers. These small speakers, now discontinued, have a superb sound. I bought mine from eBay for $60.

• Airport Express from Apple (see 1st picture above). This device is a router or wireless bridge, etc. - here used as a wifi receiver which provides audio to the powered speakers. $99 new, always available used around $50 from eBay.
• Power cord

So what does it look like? I painted the Hatten table white halfway up the inside, placed the Airport Express inside, and covered with a white lid.

The WIHIFI

WIHIFI: Top view

WIHIFI: side view showing subwoofer under table, satellites on side of table, all attached with industrial-strength Velcro.

WIHIFI: painted white on the inside of the table, halfway up, with a (hardly visible) scalloped painted tray covering the guts.

So: take it anywhere, plug it into an outlet, and stream iTunes to it. To select the music, it's really easy with Remote app on the iPhone.

The Remote app on the iPhone allows you to visualize what's playing and to control the WIHIFI.