Our gymnasium supplies music throughout the building. They have been using a 5 disc CD changer until it recently died.

Having seen my empeg in action, the director asked me to hunt up something similar to do music for the building.

Seeing as it's pretty difficult to get ones hands on a Rio Central these days, I thought I'd query here to see if anyone had any suggestions.

some criteria:
price: Under $1000... preferably under $500
usability: Volunteers (some of them computer illiterate senior citizens) work at the front desk and would be controlling the audio.
feature: Must be able to easily play a chime track on demand...used to dismiss classes on some occasions.

There is at least one computer that remains on constantly, so streaming solutions from that computer's Hard Drive are acceptable, but the control box must be in a separate location from the computer. Wired and wireless networking available.

I'm not entirely opposed to a mini-pc setup if the user interface is simple enough and the cost is low enough.

Right now, a Karma in a dock seems to be a cheap easy solution. The user interface would not be ideal however. Any recommendations or suggestions would be very helpful.