Last weekend I replaced our radio tuner with an Ethernet switch (a 24 port NetGear switch as I ran out of ports on my 8 port switch) as we never used the tuner and even when we did, it was hard to get a station that wasn’t fuzzy. (OK, it physically replaced it, but didn’t replace the functionality.) It almost seems that the radio tuner is on the way out, at least in our household. My wife listens to XM Radio in the car and we listen to XM Radio in the house.
The second part of replacing the tuner was to get a SqueezeBox Duet. I was looking on eBay for a SqueezeBox Classic as I already have 2 of the 2nd generation units and we wanted to be able to have music setup for me, my wife, and my son separately without having to change the music. Since our house stereo system is setup for 4 sources, the SqueezeBox was the perfect solution. (I couldn’t believe what the SqueezeBoxes were going for on eBay; Amazon had it for $237, so I wasn’t going to pay more than $200. After a little looking, I found the Duet for $270 after rebate and then Tiger Direct had a $20 credit for using PayPal which made it about the same cost.)
The SqueezeBox series of devices are perfect for us. We stream XM Radio on them and with the web interface, we can change what is playing from our laptops. The Duet adds a new dimension to our listening; I can now control all 3 SqueezeBoxes from one handheld, WiFi based remote. It is a bit costly, but in the day that I’ve had it, I can’t say enough good things about it.