It's Time To Stream Some Music

A recent Christmas present from my wife was Chromecast Audio, a very small device that can be attached to my Yamaha home theater receiver. It’s no more than half an inch thick and not much wider than a silver dollar. Basically, it looks like a small, black, plastic, hockey puck with a couple of wires attached.

Once Chromecast was plugged into the RCA V-AUX outlet on my system all I had to do is register it online and begin streaming music directly from my laptop. Installation is easy even for those of us who are not tech savvy. Now I can play streamed music through my Klipsch floor speakers in beautiful, room filling, clarity.

There are additional ways to plug Chromecast Audio into traditional speakers (what some people now call "dumb" speakers) and equipment so you can use it virtually with any kind of setup. You can enjoy Chromecast by using apps downloaded to your phone or ipad or on a laptop or desktop computer.

Chromecast Audio is inexpensive too. It lists at $35, but my wife purchased one at Best Buy for only $25. You can’t buy it from Amazon because the online shopping giant considers it competition for their own Echo. I’m using it to replace my Sirius/XM subscription that was now surpassing $100 per year and because there are so many streaming sites available I have far more opportunities to hear a lot of different music.

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