Most boomboxes sell for, I'd guess, $150 to $250. A Slim boombox would
be starting with a $300 streaming component and then you would have to
add speakers, an amplifier and maybe CD and radio, too. Knowing the
quality audio that Slim Devices likes to deliver, I doubt this would be
entry-level equipment. So you're probably talking about, what, a $600+
boombox? Is there a market for such a device?
If the Slimserver were modular, you could do it. In fact Sirius does
this now with some of their receivers. Basically they sell you:
1. The guts of the product (the receiver with display, DAC, amplifier)
all in a small package. By itself you can't do much of anything with this.
2. A home docking station with jacks for power, antenna, and RCA out to
your stereo.
3. A boombox that is nothing more than a pair of speakers and a slot for
the dockable receiver (see #1 above). (Also an antenna, needed for
Sirius but obviously not for a Squeezebox.)
4. A car mounting kit that's a lot like #2 above but tailored for cars.
(Obviously not applicable to the Squeezebox.)
This way you could amortize the cost of a single Squeezebox module
across two (or more) listening environments. Want to listen outside? Pop
out the SB, plug it into the boombox case and drop it on your deck. Done
for the day? Reverse the process -- the SB pops out of the boombox case
and gets plugged back into the home docking station (which would still
have all its cables hooked up for digital/analog audio outs, power, etc.).
The only other way to do it would be to design an all-in-one,
non-modular product that didn't add much more than about $100 or so to
the cost of the existing product. But I agree, as you point out, that's
serious money for something that isn't going to be used for primary
listening. Not a lot of people would be able to justify that.
So back to the modular argument. Another point in favor of this approach
is that, for what it's worth, the huge third-party iPod market works
exactly like this. In fact I have an Altec Lansing inMotion 3C in my
bathroom: it's nothing more than a couple of speakers and a dock. You
pop the iPod into the dock and suddenly you can listen to all your music
in a remote setting. It even has a rudimentary remote control that lets
you fast-forward, skip tracks, adjust volume. Cost? About $130.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009I6K7K/
The universal connector on the bottom of each iPod was key to the growth
of this market. None of it would be possible without it. But because it
exists you can buy boomboxes that work with your iPod, table radios that
work with your iPod, home receiver docks that work with your iPod. All
you need is 1 iPod for all these different uses, so your total cost
remains pretty reasonable.
That's the kind of thing I'd be looking for from Slimdevices. They'd
have to reengineer the Squeezebox (i.e., add a similar kind of universal
docking connector) for this kind of use, but I imagine that wouldn't be
too terribly difficult (easy for me to say, right, I only know from
software, not hardware).
Well, surely I'm allowed to dream, am I not? ;-)
SBB
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