How to listen to digital music while on the back patio

When the summer finally kicks in, Canadians are rightfully determined to spend as much time outside as humanly possible — even going so far as to pick up a sleeping bag and tent to spent the night in Great Outdoors on occasion.

When the summer finally kicks in, Canadians are rightfully determined to spend as much time outside as humanly possible — even going so far as to pick up a sleeping bag and tent to spent the night in Great Outdoors on occasion.

And so it’s no surprise we’d also like to listen to our music collection while hanging on the back patio with friends, clinking bevies and barbequing meat on the grill.

So here are some suggestions on how to bring your digital music outside:

PC Speakers

If all your music resides on a portable MP3 player, pick up a pair of powered computer speakers (and if you can, a set with a subwoofer, too) and create a special “Chillin’ with Friends” playlist. It’ll take 10 minutes to drag and drop the best tunes for a summer night into this playlist, tweak the order and you’re good to go.

Laptops

Notebook computers don’t have the best sound, but they’ll do in small areas. All your favourite songs are likely stored on your PC’s hard drive anyway. Use your music management software to select tunes – or let your guests grab the mouse to take control. If you have powered speakers (per above), use these if you can for louder, clearer and more balanced  sound.

Docking Stations

If all of your songs and playlists are already loading on your portable audio player, you might want to consider a docking station you can dump your MP3 player in, which usually recharges it at the same time (especially for iPods and iPod nanos). Many have remotes so you can control the volume and track selection from afar. If you missed my article on recommended docking stations, click here.

Wireless Media Players

Finally, many products today let you wirelessly stream music from your PC to your home theatre. A few of my friends have speakers on their back patio, either with wires running out the backdoor or window, or in other cases, cleverly prewired when the home was built. If this is the case, you can still tap into all that great music that may be stored on a desktop or laptop PC, but through your home stereo.

Cheers,

Marc

Filed Under: Computers & Software