Rock On!
Satellite radio, iPods, and wall-mounted
televisions disguised as fine art are en vogue.

Bringing the excitement of the entertainment electronics enjoyed at home onto a boat is nothing new. But as home entertainment systems evolve, so do the options for boat owners. New entertainment electronics pump up the volume and selection while trimming the size of components. Prepare to cast off VW-size audio components. Say buh-bye to CDs and DVDs, and chuck those cassettes overboard. Alan Wenzel, vice president of business development and strategic planning for JL Audio says, “Satellite radio and iPods are the biggest trend in entertainment electronics for the boating industry.”

And iPods aren’t just for kids, anymore. In case you have been living in a cave, an iPod is a digital music source, a portable device that stores and plays audio files in a personal music library. Designed by Apple Computer and released in 2001, iPods have distinctive styling and can hold anywhere from a few hundred to 10,000 songs. The iPod Shuffle, the smallest and latest member of the iPod family, is about the size of a book of matches, while iPods that easily park in the proliferating array of “docking stations” are about the size of a deck of cards. In the same way that black box computer music servers replaced drawers and racks of CDs, the iPod is now replacing the big black box. An iPod allows you to keep your music portable. Instead of grabbing 50 CDs for a Bahamas cruise and chucking them into a CD carrousel in the yacht’s main saloon, you just sync up your tiny portable iPod (or any compatible MP3 player) and plug it into the yacht’s system when you arrive. ...

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