Airport Express from iTunes in Vista

[cayorob]

Great forum guys, incredibly technical, and after trawling though the many posts i've almost convinced myself just to get a good iPod dock for my amp.....

Can anyone confirm that an Airport Express fed to a DacMagic via iTunes (lossless) in windows vista would be at least as good a sound as my Rotel RCD-02? Without many configuration changes of soundcard etc (i'm no I.T. wizz)

Or, would i be better off with a good dock, such as the Denon ASD-11R, and putting the money towards an upgrade from my Rotel RA-01 amp and Mission M73i speakers?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Anonymous]

If you stream to an AE you bypass the sound card, so the settings don't matter. Can't confirm about the Dacmagic, because I haven't heard that or your CD player.

 

[Anonymous]

Cayorob,

I used to have all Rotel kit and upgraded to computer audio over a year ago. Starting off with a Mac Mini outputting to a KingRex DAC, it completely thrashed my Rotel CD player/amp/Mission 782SE combo. Gone was the brightness and tiring forward attack ; you know the feeling - a song would sound great turned up when it began, but get to the chorus and I'd always find myself reaching to turn down the volume.

i now choose to use iTunes more than any other software; iTunes feeds the Airport Express an ALAC bit perfect audio stream. All controlled by an iPod Touch. This Airport Express / iTunes route means you don't have to worry about Windows processing your audio. I do also listen using Media Monkey (ASIO) and Foobar (WASAPI).

The only thing I'd warn you about it that iTunes 8 updates have caused havoc with many users and their Airport Express'. I've have this problem - the dropout issue at the moment which appears to be a Belkin/Netgear problem; prior to iTunes 8 everything worked perfectly, not so now ... Worth bearing in mind - and Appl'e's support for this product is very poor. The Apple discussion forums are full of angry users and Apple have chosen to do nothing to correct the changes they made.

RIP your music uncompressed if you have the hard drive space. If not, choose Apple Lossless for use with iTunes or FLAC for any other software. Lossless really is lossless, proven, measured, correct - so ignore any argument the other way as its been done to death. Ensure you have error correction ticked - the one thing that puts a computer ahead of most, it not all CD players that have to correct errors on the fly.

I've never heard the DacMagic but am 99% confident that it will surpass your Rotel system.

 

[John Duncan]

Schbeemb:I've never heard the DacMagic but am 99% confident that it will surpass your Rotel system

I have, so am a little more confident

EDIT - but actually, I might be more inclined to forego the DACMagic for the time being and upgrade the amp. Tricky call.

 

[cayorob]

Fantastic, thanks very much for the responses guys......

Schbeemb, Do you still use the KingRex or the AE's analogue output?

 

[Anonymous]

I can vouch for what Schbeemb has said about problems with AE and iTunes 8. I have given up trying to use the AE wirelessly and have now connected it direct to my router with a CATV cable. (I have turned wireless off on the AE). I had thought about dumping the AE altogether and getting a Squeezebox but I will give it some time and see hw this goes before I make any further decisions. All in all though....the AE and iTunes is a great setup....as long as you dont have problems getting it work properly with iTunes 8. HTH......

 

[Anonymous]

raym87:I can vouch for what Schbeemb has said about problems with AE and iTunes 8. I have given up trying to use the AE wirelessly and have now connected it direct to my router with a CATV cable. (I have turned wireless off on the AE). I had thought about dumping the AE altogether and getting a Squeezebox but I will give it some time and see hw this goes before I make any further decisions. All in all though....the AE and iTunes is a great setup....as long as you dont have problems getting it work properly with iTunes 8. HTH......

The AE works perfectly with your router. The problem is the Windows wzc service, which goes out and checks for connectins every minute or so, neatly disrupting your itunes playback.

If you're using XP, you can disable the service, which normally fixes the problem, not sure about Vista, though. Alternatively, if your network card software allows it, you can configure your pc not to use wzc - unfortunately much software now uses this service, so you may not have the option.

Professorhat has covered this in more detail, try a search.

P.S. Connecting the PC to your router by ethernet cable and leaving the AE on wireless also fixes the dropouts.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Tarquinh:
raym87:I can vouch for what Schbeemb has said about problems with AE and iTunes 8. I have given up trying to use the AE wirelessly and have now connected it direct to my router with a CATV cable. (I have turned wireless off on the AE). I had thought about dumping the AE altogether and getting a Squeezebox but I will give it some time and see hw this goes before I make any further decisions. All in all though....the AE and iTunes is a great setup....as long as you dont have problems getting it work properly with iTunes 8. HTH......

The AE works perfectly with your router. The problem is the Windows wzc service, which goes out and checks for connectins every minute or so, neatly disrupting your itunes playback.

If you're using XP, you can disable the service, which normally fixes the problem, not sure about Vista, though. Alternatively, if your network card software allows it, you can configure your pc not to use wzc - unfortunately much software now uses this service, so you may not have the option.

Professorhat has covered this in more detail, try a search.

P.S. Connecting the PC to your router by ethernet cable and leaving the AE on wireless also fixes the dropouts.

Been there, tried that. Didnt work.........I was not getting dropouts as you descrribed Tarquinh. Sometimes it would work OK for an hour and then start dropping out but not a any regular interval. Sometimes so bad that I would only get 50% of a track coming through. I put it down to some sort of interference...(maybe)...not from me I think because I have checked everythging I can think of....phones etc. Maybe from one of the neighbours....dunno. Thanks anyway.

 

[Anonymous]

raym87:Tarquinh:
raym87:I can vouch for what Schbeemb has said about problems with AE and iTunes 8. I have given up trying to use the AE wirelessly and have now connected it direct to my router with a CATV cable. (I have turned wireless off on the AE). I had thought about dumping the AE altogether and getting a Squeezebox but I will give it some time and see hw this goes before I make any further decisions. All in all though....the AE and iTunes is a great setup....as long as you dont have problems getting it work properly with iTunes 8. HTH......

The AE works perfectly with your router. The problem is the Windows wzc service, which goes out and checks for connectins every minute or so, neatly disrupting your itunes playback.

If you're using XP, you can disable the service, which normally fixes the problem, not sure about Vista, though. Alternatively, if your network card software allows it, you can configure your pc not to use wzc - unfortunately much software now uses this service, so you may not have the option.

Professorhat has covered this in more detail, try a search.

P.S. Connecting the PC to your router by ethernet cable and leaving the AE on wireless also fixes the dropouts.ÿ

Been there, tried that. Didnt work.........I was not getting dropouts as you descrribed Tarquinh. Sometimes it would work OK for an hour and then start dropping out but not a any regular interval. Sometimes so bad that I would only get 50% of a track coming through. I put it down to some sort of interference...(maybe)...not from me I think because I have checked everythging I can think of....phones etc. Maybe from one of the neighbours....dunno. Thanks anyway.

That sounds like interference of some sort, or else there's a problem with the AE. Might be worth checking that.

 

[professorhat]

Read an article on MacUser today which says Ofcom's report suggests dropouts in wireless connections are normally caused by other devices within your house such as baby monitors, microwaves, remote controls and audio / video senders rather than another wireless network in range.

 

[Anonymous]

I thought we had great wireless in our house, but since upgrading to iTunes8 and using the AE for streaming I've discovered this is no longer true. It is not iTunes 8 which is at fault either.

I'm mac based, so I've been using http://www.istumbler.net/ to monitor my wifi since the dropouts started. I've tried turning off all the devices in our house, even the DECT phone and baby monitors. The interference is still there, the 2.4GHz band which Wifi uses was not really designed for highbandwidth continuous usage, which is what iTunes AirTunes streaming to an AE does. Spotify uses a slightly different model, it sends the file in larger blocks rather than a continuous 400-1100kbps single. There is some buffering it seems, but not enough to overcome the single dropouts.

In my local area there are 12 wifi networks, most of them on channel 11. The best advice is to try a different channel. I moved from 8 to 3 and it is better. 11, 6 and 1 are the most popular, as they do not overlap, 11 seems to be the most popular. I'm going to move to 1 when I get time to fiddle. Moving to the 'n' wifi which operates on the 5GHz band is a good idea too as others have commented in the past, but this is not an option for me, as I currently have kit I use like my iPhone which is b/g only.

Though I'm also planning on having an old powerbook and some external drives connected directly to my amp, then use my iPhone as a remote. It means I can move the AE to the kitchen too =)

 

[Anonymous]

One other thought, I used to think that it was my ISP Be that were at fault for hesitant wifi access, but now I've discovered that even when just browsing the web that I get the hesitancy, but it usually coincides with a wifi dropout.

 

[Anonymous]

Tarquin,

If this works ... you'll find beer coming your way ...

i suffer from the one drop out per minute which is caused by address resolution protocol as you describe and .. is most definately caused by some change in iTunes 8 since 7 works fine!

 

[Anonymous]

Cayorob,

No the KingRex has gone and in it's place sits some AVI ADM9.1 speakers which have a built in DAC. I use the optical out from the Airport Express into the ADM's which reclock the signal from the Airport Express which is known to be a little jittery. Any good DAC will cope with that jitter though.

Matt.

 

[professorhat]

Schbeemb:i suffer from the one drop out per minute which is caused by address resolution protocol as you describe and .. is most definately caused by some change in iTunes 8 since 7 works fine!

As I remember, the explanation was iTunes 7 had a small buffer which meant that when the WZC service checked for a new wireless network every minute, music didn't stop. For some reason this was removed in iTunes 8 meaning the check causing momentary drops of the streaming thus stopped the music. I'm guessing it must be hard / impossible to code this buffer back into version 8 since the forums are full of this problem and it still hasn't been fixed in an update.

 

[Anonymous]

Schbeemb:
Tarquin,

If this works ... you'll find beer coming your way ...

i suffer from the one drop out per minute which is caused by address resolution protocol as you describe and .. is most definately caused by some change in iTunes 8 since 7 works fine!

Hope it does work, but if it does, the beer should go to professorhat!

Let us know how you get on.

 

[cayorob]

JohnDuncan:Schbeemb:I've never heard the DacMagic but am 99% confident that it will surpass your Rotel system I have, so am a little more confident

EDIT - but actually, I might be more inclined to forego the DACMagic for the time being and upgrade the amp. Tricky call.

Wow..... I'm impressed already and i've only got the Airport Express and using it's analogue output! Simple to setup and no drop out problems. So thats the Rotel CDP done with!. What to do next then??

Do i go for the DACmagic with current amp (Rotel RA-01), or upgrade the amp first, the get the DM later when funds allow, followed eventually by the speakers.

My local dealer has got an ex-demo Cyrus 8VS2 amp at the mo and i should be able part ex both my Rotel CD and Amp