Streaming music is all about getting the music that is stored on your computer and being able to play it back through your hi-fi system in high quality.

The best way to think of a "streaming music player" is as a CD player. The player allows you to select the next track or previous track and play, pause or stop the music. There are two main differences though. Firstly the digital information that is stored on the CD is held on the computer. And secondly, you are generally limited to a single album with a CD player, a "streaming music player" can give you instant access to your entire music collection at the press of a button.

How does it all work?
Streaming music products work on the same technology that computer networks work on. They can either be connected by wires (Ethernet cables) or wirelessly (Wi-Fi). They "talk" to the computer where the music is stored and when you select the album or track that you want to listen to the computer sends the music to the player to play.

How do I select the music I want to listen to?
When the music collection is transferred from your CD’s to your computer, or "ripped" the software that does the transfer looks up on the Internet the information about the CD you are ripping and "tag’s" the tracks with various information about the artist and the album. Then through your "streaming music player" you have the ability to select albums and tracks by their names, their genre, the year it was released and by the artist who released the album or track. It is very easy and playback is instant.

Internet Radio
There is another very interesting aspect to "streaming music players" and that is Internet radio. On the Internet there are 15,000+ radio stations broadcasting from all around the world including all of your favourites like BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4. Because your "streaming music player" is connected to your home network, the likelihood is that your network is also connected to a broadband Internet connection and your Internet connection allows you to access all of these radio stations. Selecting which radio station you listen to is as easy as selecting the music you listen to. The radio stations are grouped together for you by genre and location allowing to quickly find the station you want to listen to.

Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi)
A lot of people think that if a "streaming audio player" works wirelessly that there is a loss of quality. This simply isn’t true.

The best way to get around this misconception is to think of the issue like this: when you transfer a file from one computer to another, download a file from the Internet or view a website in your web browser does the file or web page get corrupted if your computer is connected to the Internet wirelessly (Wi-Fi)? No, of course it doesn’t and wirelessly (Wi-Fi) connecting a "streaming audio player" to your network works in exactly the same way. The file that the music you want to listen to is transferred to the "streaming audio player" and is then converted to music to output to your hi-fi.