THE SOUND OF MUSIC

(Julie Andrews)

When we had our house built, I goofed. Originally I wanted the zoned house system (3 'extra' speaker locations) to be run from the home theater room upstairs via DVD player and amp. But my LISTENING room is downstairs, as are the CDs. It turned out to be a pain to shuttle upstairs every 55 or 65 minutes. If only I had run a wire! But the builder said that NOW we'd have to punch holes in walls in several places, etc.

I tried an FM transmitter but the quality wasn't good. I read about a mod and tweaked it with more power but that still sounded bad.

I researched a one watt (illegal) FM transmitter but they stopped making them available in the states.

Then someone suggested Bluetooth. And I found this device - The Motorola Stereo Gateway (DC800) at Radio Shack. Two of these did the trick. CD player downstairs, FM receiver/distribution amp upstairs.

This box spec out this way:

Audio input and audio output capabilities

Designed with advanced Bluetooth® Class 1 technology which provides a wire-free range of up to 100m (300 ft.) when used with other Class 1 devices*

RCA jacks for input and output. Plug input into one, output from the other.

What was especially appealing was the stated range of 100m! You read right.

The result: it works just as I could have wished. Let the music play everywhere!