Playing Your iPod Music Through a Stereo

Because the iPod has such a compact and streamlined form, you might think of it as only an individual, private musical device. With headphones this is, of course, true. But it's very easy to hook an iPod into a more public music system. Whether you connect it to a mini FM broadcasterso that you can hear your music on any nearby radioor to speakers for direct playback, an iPod is definitely portable but not necessarily private.

With iPod in hand and a single cable, Christopher can take his favorite music on the road, ready to hook into any available stereo system for a public music experience.

Note

The law prohibits the public playing of copyrighted musicwhether from CD or iPod or record album. Restaurants and retailers know this and tend not to put their private music collection over loudspeakers. They can be seriously fined. Instead, they often choose licensed collections (from services like Musak, AEI, DMX, and so on), for which they pay a small fee. The only way you can play your iPod over a stereo, legally, is if it's for a private groupyourself, your friends, your home. Christopher gets to play his iPod at the ceramics studio because it's a private party.

At the ceramics studio, Christopher checks with Jennifer, the studio owner, then plugs his iPod into the store's sound system. The cable required is different on each end: a 1/8-inch stereo minijack, to go into the iPod, and a pair of RCA plugs on the other end, to go into a stereo.

1.	Plug the 1/8-inch stereo minijack into the top of the iPod.
2.	Connect the pair of RCA plugs to the stereo. Most stereo receivers have many audio input jacks for a variety of devices (CD players, turntables, and so on). If you find some empty jacks, you can use those, or choose the AUX input jacks usually provided for other assorted audio deviceslike your iPod. The two jacks are color coded for stereo sound channels: red for right, white for left. If your iPod is going to remain connected to the stereo for a while, you might want to use an adapter to plug it into a power source. If you have a dock, you can set it up and hook the FireWire cable into a FireWire AC adapter (which comes with your iPod). Then you won't have to worry about running out of juice. Note If you're using an iPod with its dock, the dock sports its own plug for a line connection to the stereo (it looks just like the little hole on the top of the iPod itself). You can select either plug to connect; they work in the same way.
3.	With your iPod hooked up, set the stereo to play from the AUX source (or whichever source you hooked the iPod to), and start playing the music from your party playlist.