airport express for dummies - please?

[tommyb]

Ok, i know it's meant to be dead easy to set up, but i have a few questions.

I currently have my pc in lounge connected to my Onkyo 875 via optical cable so i can listen to my itunes. But, i'm looking to move my pc to spare room and so obviously, the Airport Express would appear to be my solution.

I currently have my pc running off a netgear wireless adapter http://www.netgear.co.uk/wireless_starterkit_dgb111g.php

My questions are:

1) how does the music actually get off my pc to the airport? (my pc doesn't have bluetooth)

2) does the airport then connect to my 875, and if so - is via optical / coaxial?

3) is there any 'loss' in quality when streaming in comparison to direct connection via optical to the amp?

sorry for all the questions - don't want to buy one and then find it doesn't fit into my system.

Or, is there a better alternative? - it must work with itunes.

 

[professorhat]

Hi there,
Well, in theory, the Airport Express should be easy to setup, though I think it's when you're trying to integrate it into another existing wireless network, it can get tricky (have a look at some of the other recent Airport Express posts here to see what I mean!). To answer your questions though:
1. It all works over wireless, so bluetooth is not needed. If you have an existing wireless network, you can set the Airport to be another gateway into that existing wireless network and your PC / Mac joins this network. If you don't, you can get the Airport to create a new wireless network for your PC / Mac to join to. In your case, it looks like it will be the first option here you need to do. Once this is done, you will see an option within iTunes to play the music through the Computer or, through a set of other speakers (the name of which you set up when you configure the Airport Express). You can also set it to play through Multiple speakers simultaneously.
2. Yes, the Aiport needs to be in a position to connect to your Onkyo. This can either be through a 3.5mm mini-jack to RCA phono lead or through an optical connection. NB - these both work through the same port on the Airport, so when using an optical lead, you need one end to be a Mini-TOSlink connection (which looks like this). You can get leads which have both standard TOSlink optical and optional Mini-TOSlink adaptors built into them for this purpose.
3. Possibly, though tests that both John Duncan and I have done with our AE units have shown them to produce excellent results. If you want, you can always hook the AE unit into a separate DAC like the Cambridge Audio DACMagic one everyone is going on about on the forums at the moment.
Hope this info helps.
EDIT - I should add, sound quality is obviously going to be heavily influenced by your source. So if your music collection is mostly encoded at 128kbs MP3s, then adding an external DAC is probably not going to improve things much. On the hand, if your using lossless, you can definitely argue a case for it.

 

[tommyb]

Thats brill thank you!

I have some mini-toslink bits so that's a good thing. On the airport,which gives the best quality - the phono connection or the optical?

I have been doing some research and another very popular option seem to be the sqeexbox duet - how does this compare - does it work with itunes?

Not convinced I'll need an external DAC though - my Onkyo 875 has excellent DACs

 

[professorhat]

tommyb:On the airport,which gives the best quality - the phono connection or the optical? ... Not convinced I'll need an external DAC though - my Onkyo 875 has excellent DACs
Basically whichever is best will depend on the DAC in the AE unit compared with the DAC in the Onkyo. Common sense says the Onkyo should be better so use optical, but the only way to truly know is try out both and compare.
Not used the Squeezebox I'm afraid so can't comment on how it compares.