Let me scrap my boxes of CDs with Spotify Stereo

I love Spotify, I love internet radio, I love podcasts, I love the freedom to just drop in and out of content as I see fit.

Whether that dropping in and out be in the form of music from almost any album ever released on Spotify or a speech based podcast show.

But I’m not overly keen on having to turn my computer on to listen to that same content when all I want is something to hear while washing up.

At the moment CDs and linear FM radio win out for the ease, cheapness and convenience of being able to push two buttons and be listening to ’something’.

What I’m really looking for is a reasonably priced (under £300) home stereo I can put in my kitchen that has WiFi built in with a VERY user friendly interface that gives me access to albums on Spotify, podcasts streamed straight to the device and on demand content possibly through the new UK Radio Player.

A simple device that had space for a CD at the bottom alongside a USB and SD (why are the cheaper ones still Compact Flash) card reader with a LCD screen just above that – and a speaker either side.

The interface would give me the choice of a number of services through a simple icon based menu system on the front screen.

These would be:

CD | OTHER | SPOTIFY | ON DEMAND | LIVE

CD would give you all the options for the CD player including the option of ripping the music straight to an SD card inserted in the slot below.

OTHER would give you access to the media on the SD card or any USB device plugged in.

SPOTIFY would give you access to the full Spotify library using a specially designed interface for a small touch screen based display.

ON DEMAND would give you access to the UK Radio Player on demand interface including the BBC iPlayer – so all radio content from the last seven days.

It would also give you access to the wealth of podcasts from around the world in a specially designed directory.

LIVE does what it says on the tin and gives you access to both the UK Radio Player and radio stations broadcasting live from around the world.

But obviously that wonderful dream device isn’t available at the price I’d be prepared to pay at the moment so I use a combination of the annoyance of powering up a computer just to listen to audio – at which point I find other things to do and forget what I started out doing.

And of course my iPod – I have music synced to it, I have podcasts on it and with the help of a little app I have on demand content ripped to it – but this isn’t exactly what I want or even nearly what I want.

The computer thing does still work sometimes though – normally for my children’s birthday’s we will have pass the parcel and other party games at home with family.

This involves me having a playlist of kids music in iTunes and stopping/starting as necessary – this year I used Spotify for the music and didn’t even need to load up iTunes.

I just want to finish my design of my dream stereo by saying – I love Spotify.

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