Audio: Juke Box Hero

Christian Gulliksen

12/01/2007

No matter how you decorate the rest of your house, if you’re like the rest of us, your game room probably puts nostalgia front-and-center. We tend to gravitate toward the decade in which we spent our teenage years, and popular themes range from the 1950s diner—with its booths and soda fountains—to the 1980s arcade, complete with pinball machines, Pac-Man video games and air hockey tables.

But whenever you grew up, there was likely a jukebox nearby, playing Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones or maybe Bruce Springsteen. Without one, a game room just wouldn’t feel complete. And Crosley’s Digital Jukebox ($5,000) looks the part with its mahogany finish, neon lighting, and percolating bubble tubes. Unlike its predecessors, however, this one features a full complement of state-of-the-art technology—
accessed through a touch screen. You can download new music and videos using the iTunes interface, load up to 1,500 hours of content onto the Jukebox’s server, and burn CDs of your favorite playlists. Or connect your iPod and use the four-speaker 100-watt audio system as its speakers. The Jukebox is even WiFi- and Bluetooth-ready.

The Crosley Composer ($400), meanwhile, is a retro-styled stereo system with a twist: It copies music from records and cassettes onto compact discs. (Usually, the process requires a computer program that the less tech-savvy will find complex.) This not only provides you with a back-up copy of music that might be long out of circulation, the digitized files can be played in your car or on an iPod. Suddenly, you don’t have to apologize for hanging on to those boxes of records and cassettes for all these years—so load everything onto your Jukebox and have a party.

Crosley, 866.276.7539, www.crosleyradio.com