Airport Express woes. . .

[chebby]

professorhat:Sorry, just assumed that's all you wanted to do from your original post otherwise I would have mentioned it.

As I originally said.....

chebby:professorhat:I guess it depends on whether this is a convenience thing to play music wirelessly from the iMac / laptop or you're actually looking at CD beating quality.

For now a convenience to play iTunes, ripped CD tracks (lossless) from iTunes, internet radio on the hifi and youtube sound. So a mixture of good quality (Apple Lossless) and variable quality stuff including some purchased iTunes tracks....

Ah well never mind.

This pile of.... goes back to the shop tomorrow. It will not talk to my laptop, and it needs paid software as a workaround just to play internet radio.

I tried system preferences in iTunes and went to advanced and set it use iTunes as a default for sound from the internet and 'ok'ed it. Sound still comes through the iMac's own speakers on BBC radio!

Grrrrr

 

[John Duncan]

I refer you to my similarly-timed post

 

[chebby]

It is my fault. I should not have been impetuous and also should not have allowed myself to be so easily persuaded (nor should I have been tempted by the saving of £40 over the price of the Fubar II USB DAC)

If JL give me the refund tomorrow I will get back on the blower to Russ Andrews for the Fubar and be patient and wait for their next load of stock to arrive.

 

[John Duncan]

ie needs 3rd party software to play BBC internet radio, but has thousands of other internet radio stations, some of which are really good quality.

But if you just want to listen to Radio 4, then Airfoil it is (primarily the BBC's fault......)

 

[chebby]

John I have just tried a number of sources including the youtube film of Du Pre playing Elgar's Cello Concerto and that also still defaults to the iMac's own speakers despite the setting in iTunes being changed.

It is not just BBC. (I can get radio 4 in glorious FM anyway).

I also just tried a couple of american 1950s/60s music channels and they also don't default to the Airport via iTunes

 

[John Duncan]

No, it's not just BBC, but I still think that $25 to get any content you like around your house wirelessly is a bargain - nothing else is going to do it......

However, I would still persevere with getting airport express up and running - wireless networking is a black art and it could take some time to work out precisely what the issue is - took me about four months to get my vista laptop on my network, and about 2 minutes to get it talking to airport express, so you never know.

Have you tried setting it up wired, and then taking the network cable out? That works for some people.

Have you tried unchecking the option "look for remote speakers connected with airtunes", closing, opening again and checking the option back on? That has also solved some issues - though sounds unlikely in this case.

Are you sure your laptop is on the same subnet as the AE (which requires delving into IP cofiguration and looking at your routers settings - I don't know whether this is grandmoter/eggs territory)?

Presumably you get internet access on your laptop wirelessly? What router do you use? And are you using WEP or WPA encryption?

Lastly, download the Airfoil trial and see whether it works for you - you might just find it genius as well.......

 

[PJPro]

This is the trouble when start getting involved with Apple....it's pay, pay, pay and pay.

I'mmmmmmmmmm jooooooookinggggggg!

 

[chebby]

It's all packaged back up now in the bag with receipt and awaiting return in the morning.

I don't work for my hifi. It works for me.

The fact that it was up and going in 2 mins with an iMac and iTunes shows it was not faulty.

That it was recognised (when first out of box or when reset) by the laptop's wireless card means that it could be 'seen' at some level BUT not by Apple's own Airport Utility on the laptop when scanning.

The fact that it disappeared off the 'radar' as soon as it was set-up on the iMac Airport Utility gives me the suspicion that it was not hardware or the laptop or the existing network to fault but Airport Utility software on the laptop. (Yes it was updated.)

I tried with and without the 'extended' box ticked and allowed other clients to access it to no avail.

The last straw is being informed that I need to pay for 3rd party software to get it to play anything but iTunes.

The solution I am after must be plug-n-play, utterly transparent, and just need switching on to do it's duty. I do not want my wife and kids (or me) to have to faff around with software, menus, preferences etc every time they (or I ) simply want to play through the hifi. I don't want there to be exceptions to this. (BBC iPlayer, Youtube or whatever)

This Apple stuff is too far up it's own ***e and too precious. A simple USB DAC only needs plugging in with an RCA phono at one end and a USB cable at the other and when switched on will automatically take over from the soundcard on the laptop. That means any source whether iTunes or internet has to play through it as if it were the soundcard.

 

[professorhat]

True enough, these things can be troublesome to sort out - not sure why the laptop couldn't see it. I don't think the plug it in and go product you want exists as yet I'm afraid - certainly not the wireless version anyway. Sounds like since you don't really need the wireless bit, the USB DAC is definitely the way to go.

 

[PJPro]

USB is OK if your PC source is co-located with your amp. Only use all this streaming stuff if your PC is remote from the amp.

 

[chebby]

professorhat: I don't think the plug it in and go product you want exists as yet I'm afraid - certainly not the wireless version anyway.

It does - according to reviewers elsewhere and here in the forums a while back - and I am ordering one tomorrow.

http://whathifi.com/forums/t/135120.aspx

 

[professorhat]

Okay, the product you want doesn't exist in wireless format I'm afraid. That's basically what I meant...

 

[John Duncan]

And this is fair enough of course. Be sure to look into Windows Audio Optimisation though (bang goes plug 'n' play.....)

 

[chebby]

JohnDuncan:And this is fair enough of course. Be sure to look into Windows Audio Optimisation though (bang goes plug 'n' play.....)

In time I will explore differences between kmixer & ASIO4ALL and other 'refinements', but I want to keep the tweaks down to just those that are (1) 'set & forget', (2) are reversible, (3) don't involve any work when we just want to play music/speech/radio etc throught the hifi (4) are free and (5) don't restrict what we can play.

I took the AE back this morning and got a refund and ordered the Fubar USB DAC when I got home. With any luck I will get it somewhen between tomorrow and Tuesday. (Awaiting dispatch confirmation.)

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Hi,

I have been follwoing this (and other Airport) threads here for several months and recently finally got an AE. Took me 3 days of trying to set it up (on a simple Netgear wireless Win PC network), including updating software, reading and trying fixes from apple support pages, trying all imaginable ways around and spending 3 hours on the phone with Apple tech supoprt (who were impressively committed to getting it to work. I was very positevely impressed by that. Very good guy was helping me but after trying a million things even he gave up, not being able to get what the issue was) - all unsuccessfully so far. Apple even offered to send me a new AE (having not sold me the fisrt one!) so we can try to set that one up - I will probably take that offer.

But I now also need to try return the first one (bought from Amazon and outside their standard 14-day return rule) and get a refund.

Before I bought it, from various forums I knew it may not be straightforward but I though that with all the published fixes and Apple tech support it should be possible to get it working. Nope, not so far.

I will keep trying with the next one. There is a small chance that the first one was faulty.

Good luck, hope anyone getting AE will avoid these difficulties.

 

[Anonymous]

PJPro:USB is OK if your PC source is co-located with your amp. Only use all this streaming stuff if your PC is remote from the amp.

This is the realisation I am coming to as well. macbook / macmini / apple tv local to amp and tv.

Use an AE for second locations, not the primary one. It does mean that you need another computing device, but the Apple TV start are less than 300 for 160GB, which is 2-300 lossless albums

 

[professorhat]

AlmaataKZ:I will keep trying with the next one. There is a small chance that the first one was faulty.

Absolutely, and as I remember there has been at least one user of the forums who after trying everything finally returned it and found that a replacement worked straight away. So it's always worth a go. Of course the other thing to do is book yourself into the Genius bar at one of the Apple stores (if there's one near you) and they can then test the unit to see if it's faulty or not. You can do this online here.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry to jump in on this thread. I've got an unopened as yet AE. If I get it to work straight away. Will I be able to turn it off at the mains socket along with the rest of my hifi and it boot itself up and start working without a reinstall?

I will be using it on XP service pack 3 PC with WPA encryption and Steganos Internet Security Software. I have didn't have any problems getting simplyfi to work with my Touch. I'm hoping that I can use Remote app to allow me to control iTunes.

I have been messing around with the Remote app but it seems temperamental. After a minute or so it stops controlling iTunes but the song continues to play. After a minute or so control returns. Sometimes it can't find my library. Is this common?

 

[professorhat]

Yes, the settings are all stored onboard so you can turn the AE off and on without having to set everything back up. There's also an option within the AE application to backup your settings so once you get it to work, I recommend doing this (and re-backing up if you change anything). That way, if you do have to do a factory reset at any point, you can just restore the settings without any faff.

As for the Remote app, occasionally it has issues if my iPod goes to sleep and I wake it up, it will be showing that it's playing the song when it went to sleep and won't update this even though the music continues playing. Normally I just exit and reconnect and everything is fine again. This rarely happens these days though and most of the time it just works.

 

[John Duncan]

Pretty much my findings as well - I turn it off and when it's turned back on again it usually comes back straight off. As for Remote, I'm with prof - generally if you exit and start again it picks up the correct 'Now Playing...' track.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. I've got a free evening tomorrow so I'll set it up then. Fingers crossed it will all go fine.