Your iPhone isn’t just a portable music player; it can also serve as a high-quality stereo system at home. Five effective strategies will be investigated in this project.
- Having fun with a speaker dock for an iPhone.
- Using a cable to link your iPhone to your car’s audio system.
- Allowing your iPhone to act as a wireless transmitter for your stereo or speakers via Bluetooth or a radio transmitter.
- Streaming audio to an AirPort Express via the AirPlay function.
- In a pinch, you can use an echo chamber to pump up the bass on the go.
Use an iPhone Speaker Dock
Connecting your iPhone to a set of powered speakers is the simplest way to increase the volume (speakers that include their own amplifier). High-quality sound can be heard from an iPhone by plugging it into a pair of speakers made specifically for the device that use the Dock Connector port. However, if you don’t want to use the headphones that came with your iPhone, you can plug your iPhone into any powered speakers that use a miniplug connector.
Reasons Why the Dock Connector Jack Is Superior to the Headphone Jack
- You can use either the iPhone’s headphone jack or its Dock Connector to attach external speakers.
- The headphone jack should be avoided in favor of the Dock Connector slot whenever possible. You can use it directly with a Dock Connector speaker or cable, or you can use a dock to connect your iPhone, and then connect the speakers to the dock’s line-out port.
- Compared to the headphone port, whose output level varies with the volume setting, the Dock Connector port provides a fixed output level and superior audio quality. The majority of iPhone-compatible speakers have a Dock Connector for receiving audio in constant line-out quality and volume.
Turn your iPhone’s volume down to zero before connecting speakers through the headphone jack instead of the Dock Connector port.
When connected to an input designed for a standard line-out volume, the headphone jack’s maximum output of 60 milliwatts (mW) (30 mW per channel) may cause distortion or even damage. After you’ve connected everything, you can begin playing music and gradually increase the volume on your iPhone until the input sounds good to you.
Connect your iPhone to Your Existing Stereo
It is possible to stream music from an iPhone to a high-quality stereo system. We’ll examine wired, wireless, and radio transmission methods for linking an iPhone to an audio system.
Connect your iPhone to a Stereo with a Cable
A cable is the simplest and most direct method of linking an iPhone to a stereo. You’ll need a cable with a miniplug on one end and two RCA plugs on the other to connect your device to a regular receiver. The iPhone in Figure 1 is connected to an amplifier and then to a stereo system.
Instead of two RCA ports, some stereo receivers and boom boxes only have one, stereo miniplug input. You’ll need a stereo miniplug to miniplug cable to link your iPhone to these gadgets. Miniplug to miniplug cables are typically mono, so make sure yours is stereo. Stereo cables, like those found on the majority of headphones, have two rings around the miniplug, while mono cables have only one.
You should use a high-quality cable to connect your iPhone to your high-quality receiver and speakers. It would be a shame to waste the money you spent on your iPhone and stereo by using a low-quality cable to connect them.
There are a number of home-audio connection kits available, each with a unique set of cables designed to meet a specific set of requirements. These kits are risk-free purchases in most cases, but unless your requirements are extremely specific, you will likely end up with extra cables. If you already know which cables you’ll require, you can save money by purchasing a bundle instead of buying them separately.
Follow these steps to link your iPhone to your stereo system:
- First, plug the mini-plug into the headphone jack on your iPhone. For more consistent volume and higher quality sound, connect the miniplug to the dock’s line-out port rather than the headphone jack.
- Turn your iPhone’s volume all the way down if you’re using the headphones.
- Third, lower the volume on the amplifier regardless of which input you’re using.
- Inputs on your amplifier or boom box will likely have RCA left and right ports; if you’re not using a cassette deck, try the AUX input.
If your amplifier has a Phono input, don’t plug in your iPhone. To compensate for the record player’s low output, the Phono input has been engineered to be more sensitive. It is likely that the Phono input will be damaged if a full-power signal is fed into it.
- Play some tunes for us. Turn up the volume a bit if you’re listening through the headphones jack.
- Raise the receiver’s volume so you can hear the music.
- Seven, raise the volume using both knobs simultaneously until you’re happy with the audio.
If the iPhone’s output is too weak, the amplified signal may become garbled. If you crank up your iPhone’s volume too high, you might hear distortion.
Use a Bluetooth Connection Between Your iPhone and Your Stereo
If you want high-quality sound from your iPhone, you should connect it via cable to your stereo. However, this will keep your iPhone stationary (unless you get a cable long enough for you to roam the room like a 1970s guitarist). Bluetooth is a better option than a cable if you want to listen to music from your iPhone without having to put it down.
Get a device like the Belkin Bluetooth Music Receiver ($49.95; http://store.apple.com and other retailers) to wirelessly connect your iPhone to your stereo system. This is a Bluetooth accessory that plugs into your stereo system. Then, using Bluetooth, you can wirelessly stream music from your iPhone to the receiver. The sound isn’t as good as when you use a cable, but the freedom to move around more than makes up for it.
Use a Radio Transmitter Between Your iPhone and a Stereo
A radio transmitter can be used to transmit audio from an iPhone to the stereo’s radio instead of a direct connection or a Bluetooth receiver.
You shouldn’t expect the same level of quality as you would with a wired connection, but it should be better than listening to a regular radio station in mono. If you’re happy with that quality, a radio transmitter is a clever way to play music from your iPhone throughout your home.
One more perk of using a radio transmitter is that you can listen to the music on multiple radios at once, providing you with music throughout your home without having to resort to complicated and costly rewiring.
The radio transmitter is activated by plugging it into the headphone jack or Dock Connector port of an iPhone, selecting the desired transmission frequency, and starting playback. Radios that are tuned to that frequency can pick up the signal just like they would for any other broadcast station.
Use Your iPhone’s AirPlay Feature to the Max
AirPlay is a feature on your iPhone that lets it stream audio to wireless speakers through an AirPort Express.
Play Audio to an AirPort Express
Apple’s AirPort Express (a wireless access point) can be used for more than just connecting devices for a home network; it can also be used to stream music from an iPhone or computer to a home stereo.
Get your AirPort Express ready for some tunes by following these steps:
- Step one is to plug an Ethernet cable into the receiver and the AirPort Express. It is possible to connect the AirPort Express to the receiver in either an analog or optical fashion via its line-out port.
- Join the AirPort Express’s line-out jack to the receiver’s optical digital audio input jack using an optical cable. For the highest quality audio, use the optical input if your receiver has one.
- Plug an analog audio cable into the line-out jack on the AirPort Express and the corresponding RCA ports on your stereo.
- If your network also has a wired component, connect the AirPort Express’s Ethernet port to the switch or hub. Connect the DSL modem to the AirPort Express using an Ethernet cable if you intend to share your DSL connection with other devices.
- Connect the AirPort Express to a power source.
Figure 2 shows the AirPlay icon, which allows you to stream music from your iPhone, in the bottom right corner of the left screen. The icon consists of a solid triangle atop a hollow rectangle. Tap the AirPort Express button in the resulting AirPlay dialogue box (Figure 2, right).
To return to your iPhone’s built-in speakers, simply tap the AirPlay icon again, and then tap the button labeled “your iPhone.”
It’s the same method you’d use to stream music from iTunes on your computer over AirPort Express. To access the list of available speakers, click the AirPlay icon in the iTunes window’s bottom-right corner. To send iTunes’ audio or video output to your AirPort Express, select it from the menu and click the AirPort Express option.
Audio from iTunes can be played through either the computer’s internal speakers or an external audio device, such as an AirPort Express. Here are the measures to take:
1. To access the pop-up menu, select AirPlay from the iTunes menu by clicking the icon.
2. The Multiple Speakers dialogue box, shown here, can be accessed by selecting the aforementioned item after clicking it.
3. Check the boxes next to each pair of speakers you intend to use.
4. You can change the volume level of each speaker by dragging the corresponding slider.
5. In order to get rid of the Multiple Speakers dialog box, click the Close button (the x button on Windows, or the red button in the top left corner on a Mac).
Boost the Bass with a Pint Glass
If you’re like most iPhone users, you don’t have a set of portable speakers on you at all times. To play music from your iPhone, all you need is access to a stereo or an AirPort Express that supports patching or AirPlay. But if you don’t have headphones, you’re stuck using the iPhone’s speaker, which isn’t powerful enough to fill a room.
If you need a quick fix, consider this: Get a pint glass, rinse it out, and make sure it’s dry. Play some tunes on your iPhone, and then put it in the glass as shown in Figure 3. Thanks to the glass’s echoing properties, the volume will sound roughly doubled, and the bass will be significantly amplified. In light of your resources, the quality is admirable.
Once you’re done making music with the pint glass, you can put it back to its regular use.