Low Cost, Easy Household distribution

[Mallette]

Last summer the PAW (Perfect Audiophile Wife) approved my purchase for my birthday of a Ramsey FM30B transmitter kit. Folks, it's proven to be one of the most cost effective and usefull music system extensions I've ever obtained. I was a bit apprehensive as I can't even quote Ohm's Law without a lot of thought and hadn't picked up a soldering iron in several decades, but after about 8 hours scattered over a few days, I had it up and running.

 

I've had it on continuously now for 3 months. I am now incredulous that everyone doesn't have one. The signal is better and cleaner than any FM station I've ever heard and perfectly clean to all stretches of the grounds and house. I have it running off my vacuum tube preamps second line output set, so the PAW can watch TV in my music room and I can play whatever I want and listen to it on one of the other systems or even on the patio. Anywhere there is an FM radio. I can program hours of playlists on the music server and just let it go! Further, the PAW loves it because it is so simple. Just tune to 101.9 and the music is anywhere she wants it. She likes easy.

 

Sure, there are lots of distribution systems for computer based music servers, but I've never heard anything at this price and able to cover the whole house and grounds that sounded so good and was so user friendly.

 

Anyway, it's highly recommended. I think I paid about 180.00USD for mine. I think you can purchase them assembled and tested as well, but I wanted to try my hand and save a few bucks.

 

Dave

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Dave - WOW, thanks for sharing that one! Hadn't even crossed my mind.

 

[Mallette]

Chris, it is hard to overstate how good this thing sounds. All I can say is that it is better than any commercial station I've ever heard and I listen mainly to classical and jazz stations that are quite fastidious about their signals. Granted, when your sources are "audiophile" good that helps, but I am really amazed at how little degradation there is. Two of the systems I send it to would qualify as "high end," one with a Soundcraftsman tuner and another with a high end Denon receiver.

 

To be able to so easily and inexpensively distribute LP's. computer playlists, CD's, or whatever throughout the house and have independent volume control at each point is just great.

 

I am surprised it is so rare, other than that good ones are hard to come by. In fact, Ramsey is about it as far as I can tell. I'd tried others, including the highly touted "Whole House FM transmitter" and they failed pretty miserably, mainly in range, but also in quality. The Ramsey could be tweaked to cover a couple of square MILES, but I have it toned down to a few blocks around the house. Of course, I carefully chose a frequency that was not in use so as not to step on any stations.

 

Here's a link to a good deal on fully wired and tested:

 

http://diamonddann.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=3377296

 

This is a link to Ramsey. They have a really great forum there on their products.

 

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/

 

Dave