We spent almost $1K on a phone system with eight wireless slave phones that had an intercom feature. But our systems guy talked us into installing an intercom and we're really glad we did. First, if you call someone, they can simply answer you from across the room without having to walk over and push a button or pick up a phone...very handy. Next, the doorbell rings on each intercom, a real benefit in a house as large (7K SF) and spread out as ours. You can tell the person at the front door to wait until you get there. We've used the monitor feature when infants have visited the house and it works great. Our unit has a built-in radio and CD player but we rarely use that because we have a whole-house audio system and the intercom speakers are low fidelity. But it has a timer that turns on the radio at a particular time and I've used that to remind me about an appointment when I didn't know what room I'd be in. And finally, you can chose from perhaps 20 different door bell tones (e.g., Jingle Bells), not that that's a reason to install an intercom. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it adds yet more "wall acne", i.e., functional junk on the wall that detracts from the aesthetics of the room.

There are some really 'fun' and simple ways to convert your music from CD format to hard drives. The way I would do this is AA. Find the best absolutely no cost limit what you can imagine without regard to the time it takes and image absolutly what you want. BB. Consider the absolute minimim .. totally at the edge of giving up on the idea and nearly not doing it.. level of minimal work .. CC. Decide where you lie between those limits. That's a part of the puzzle. One facet from each of us will describe a part of the 'diamond' of idea we all have. They're all different diamond like ideas. Music is easy to play on a computer without loading the computer down. The basics of lots of music at your command for free using Winamp or VLC as the player and free software to convert CD's to hard drive audio is simple. A CD copy shop might do the entire job of 200 CDs for $200 or less. I had a shop once and I would do the job for that price. What woudl happen is all of your CD's would be loaded by hand or machine so the computer can read them and copy their data, music, to the hard drive. Each hard drive can be huge or small. It can be a portable, push into a carrier, where it can be hidden, or locked. These are common $14 items and each hard drive can be slid into the computer from the outside. Each HD can have separate music or one hard drive can have all of your music. At this point you have music available. Now playing it is as simple as choosing which albums or which tracks or if you want to make or download, for free, your own playlists which run , for free on Winamp or VLC. Those players will play a playlist of your music or they will simply play whatever you have on the har drive and they'll play it in any order , all day and night or at various volumes, But the basics is that it's simple and you'll have all your music right at your fingertips with no cost except the computer and some help from your own questions or a professional. copying CD's to hard drive is dumb simple. For $200 you can buy an automatic disc loader for CD copying and let it run for you and then sell it when you're done. Or you can pop in a CD every few minutes and do it yourself by hand. Or pay a CD copy company to do it for you. They have the auto loading device. It can run at night and the entire job might be done in the morning and your hard drive(s) will have all of your music ready to play. The basics are the same no matter if you use an ipod, a computer, or a cell phone. The limits are how closly are you wanting to be involved with the technology. Personally I would want it to play, quietly ni the background without me knowing it was there. Other people get 'ready' to rock and can't wait to program the tracks and make a date of it. This behavior pattern is the 'high and low' of the experience you want to experience back at AA, BB, and CC. Let us know a bit more about you, where you live (big city or not) And what you plan to do with your music.. what does it mean to you? IF it's simply about protecting your investment then an external USB hard drive is the easiest way to handle it but it's also and easy way to break it. Note: You'll want to have at least 1 backup of all of your work. So that means 2 hard drives, full, of music. Not at all expensive or hard to do. But you have to back up. You will need a plan and a good plan because it's a big project , unless someone does it for you, and you don't want to live through it more than one time I'm pretty sure. Good luck. I'll look back on you. Andre

With the size and scope of your project, you really need to find somebody knowledgeable, locally, to come out and view the project first hand and discuss options with you. Once all of your want list is taken into account, though, you may find that this will be a good chunk-of-change. While your intentions may be all good and pure, I would never design and/or install a system that allows of eavesdropping (for whatever reason) on occupants of areas that are considered to be private spaces.

Again, I would recommend using an off-the-shelf telephone system with a handset intercom feature. Only the base unit needs to be attached to the landline twisted pair. The other units just require power. Most of the systems come with four handsets, but check the specs because you can usually add more handsets purchased separately. Some of these systems even have video screens. The speakers on these are standard phone speakers so I would really recommend using a separate system for music.