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Running Audio Over Home Network

I am in the USA and want to run sound into my 5 year old son's bedroom. He gets a night time story on CD as he falls asleep, but he tends to play it over and over, having figured out the CD player, and he ends up not getting enough sleep. Why exercise parental control when there is a technological solution? Exactly!

I thought I'd run sound into his room so that we can control the playback from downstairs. Doing a little research made me realize I couldn't share a remote CD-ROM drive and play the story through a computer in his bedroom controlled remotely via VNC, so it's on to plan B.

I have two CAT-5 cables with phone connectors spliced into two of the unused wires in my 100MBS network. I used them to run my Vonage phone service up to my bedroom, but now that I dropped my POTS line, I just run Vonage through the basic phone network in the house, so these cables aren't needed, but they are just calling out to run mono sound up to my son's bedroom.

Now I just need connections from a sound card out to a RJ-11 male jack. Then from a RJ-11 male jack to computer speaker inputs. Don't really have a question, but if anyone wants to comment or offer a suggestion, I always like hearing other points of view.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Reply to
BrianEWilliams
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It may work just plugging the pair into the soundcard and speaker. You might have to boost the volume a bit but it will probably be OK. If not, some audio baluns might do the trick if you put the line level on the pair and use an old stereo receiver to amplify in the bedroom - but I doubt you'll have to.

Reply to
BruceR

That's (the?) one thing that remote desktop did right... they do sound. Suprised the heck out of me once. If you have XP on the kid's computer, I believe you can remote it. (which also locks it locally... although i think you can unlock locally if you know password of the logged in account.)

Along the lines of your original suggestion using VNC:

1: Log on to your account on the kids computer. 2: Start playback of ripped MP3 of the story. 3: Lock computer. (all remotely of course)

Saves making the specialty cables.

Reply to
Philip Lewis

Just because there is a technological solution doesn't mean it should be implemented.

The best solution is to read the bedtime story yourself. The time you spend will be worth more than any any pile of equipment. The bedtime story is an important bond between parent and child and free discussion during this time can help allay many of the normal childhood fears.

Read to your kids. It is important for their development.

Sorry if I have overstepped a parental boundary.

Reply to
Lewis Gardner

No problem at all. We read a fair amount to both our sons, and I agree it is very important, but the older one seems to hang out in bed after lights out and goof around. A story on tape or disk really seems to calm him down and let him get to sleep earlier *except* when he can put it on repeat forever or keep flipping the tape over.

Reply to
BrianEWilliams

Shortly after I posted, I rummaged through my parts bin and discovered I had all the connectors I needed. The bad news is that the sound level was VERY low, even on a 5 foot test run. Over the full distance, it was barely audible.

One of the connectors is suspect, so perhaps I should replace it, but several hours of work leading to basically nothing definitely cooled my jets.

Your excellent suggestion to use a receiver to boost the volume makes me think of a old Adcom pre-amp tuner I have lying around. Then I can just use my audio system as the front end. TIme to try it out.

Reply to
BrianEWilliams

Check out SlimDevices SqueezeBox. Maybe overkill for you app, but sends music anywhere over Cat5 or WiFi

Reply to
Pat Farrell

Thanks. I'll file that one away in my wish list, but by the time I get around to it, they'll be 5 better things on the market. Isn't it a great time to be a gadget hound?

I finally got everything working. Turns out I was an idiot. I was testing with one speaker, and the setup I had was sending the sound to the other, MISSING speaker. I actually got some volume by cranking the pre-amp up almost al the way. When I pulled the mini plug out of the speaker, my 5 year old and I jumped when the music blasted out as the other channel briefly contacted the lead. DOH!!!

Glad I setup the preamp and cd player anyway because of theremote control, and I don't have to run a computer or wait for a computer to boot up. Thanks to everyone for their help and happy automating!

Reply to
BrianEWilliams

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