In May 2005 I wrote about a wish I had for years:
"As usual I've got a very strange wish what nobody else seems to have on this
planet. I have several computers of different platforms. And on one of this machines
there are speakers attached...I want to have the possibility to output from any of
the machines to the speakers. And please loss-less and low latency!"
It took more than 3 years to fulfill this particular wish. But now it's done. In 2005
I mentioned the Airfoil software that could run on MacOS X and forward sound from
almost every application to an AirTunes compatible device. As it turns out Rogue Amoeba
did their homework and created a free "Airfoil Speakers" application which can be
used on Windows and MacOS X.
So the things are simple: Start the speaker application on a machine that is in the
same network/subnet as the Airfoil master. The virtual speaker is then displayed on
the master machine and you can assign a sound source from that machine to the speaker.
Hmm... Simple Setup sample: One machine is in my kitchen (Windows XP machine) and
one machine is on my desk - an iMac. In the kitchen only the speaker application is
started and the iMac instantly "sees" the speaker. One click and the sound output
of my desk machine is forwarded through the network to the kitchen... Easy and cool.
One can think of any other combination of Speaker/Master application - even multiple
speakers can be powered by one master...oh joy!
So here is what the master looks like:
and this is what it looks like on a client (speaker):
Source 1: nerd
wish of 2005
Source 2: http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/
