Introduction

My dilemma each summer seems to be how to get music outdoors – not just speakers, that’s easy - but to sit outside and choose without leaving my lawn chair. Traditionally it meant playing a CD and running back and forth, not that my house is large, sort of not the point. Multi-disc player you say? Been there done that, still not the same thing.

Sonos makes a terrific handheld wireless controller, but a basic system will set you back a grand. There are of course a myriad of other whole-house devices and wall mounted keypads, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, and I was tired of putting a two-channel receiver outdoors. I needed something more flexible especially to take advantage of all the music now stored on my computer, in this case, laptop.

I came across an e-mail from the good guys at Audioengine who had developed some great sounding desktop and bookshelf speakers. The press release was for a device they called Audioengine W1, an adapter that connects any two-channel audio source with any preamp/receiver, including computers, and transfers music wirelessly. The entire package costs $149.