for john duncan or any body else who feels ok with computers/streaming

[smuggs]

hi i posted a problem on the hifi part sorry about that, i have to rule out streaming from my laptop as everytime i go to services and enable my windows media player network sharing and enable it, my computers cpu rasies to 85% min and the physical memory to 100% i have played around for hours and it seems that wmpnetwk.exe. is taking 2.7 of my 2.98 gb ram.

so as i stand im going to stick this £500 laptop next to hifi rip all my cds on it and usb it to my dac-magic and then i also have spotify with easy control. but then i have to go and buy a laptop for everyday use like email/bbc sport/fantasy football/ebay/whathifi ect ect.

the other option is what im after is maybe to keep the laptop around the house and try and find something (the hard part for £250 or less) that can sit next to the dac and give the dac spoify/offline as well and store all my cds and have a display to control it. I also have my hub close so it can be hard wired 24/7, and then hopefully in the next few months find the fault and stream my laptop to ps3/xbox360 ect.

thanks for all you time simon

 

[John Duncan]

Simon, I still stand by my recommendation in the othr thread of airport express and airfoil. Secondly, not sure why you're turning on media sharing, since I'm not sure from your description of your set up why you'd need it?

 

[smuggs]

john i have turned it on cause i want to stream all my hd camcorder footage/ itunes and photos to ps3 and xbox360 when the outlaws come round or friends ect saves my plugging my laptop into the denon which i know is not hard.

so does the airport not need windows media sharing on then

 

[John Duncan]

No. Furthermore, you can set it up as a different network so that it doesn't interfere with other gaming etc. Though note that you then wouldn't have Internet for Spotify so would have to be working offline, though you suggest this isn't a problem. Note also that you *need* the Airfoil software to stream anything other than iTunes content.

I did this into a DACMagic for ages and it sounded terrific.

 

[smuggs]

you are a diamond pal i had the thought that i had stopped my laptop from sending anything out.so can you just say yes if i have this right,

1-buy a apple airport

2-wire the airport with a patch lead from my hub and connect to dac magic

3-go into itunes and pair the 2 up

4-go on goggle and put in airfoil and buythat download

5-then i can control itunes or spotify premium from my laptop and the dac-magic will get a 320kbps through the airport.

have i missed anything out, i get paid on the 25th so i will be buying it then i can spend £150 easy so you said it would be £100 is there thing else gadet wise that assists this well around the £50-£100 mark. and is there any leads that you used that make a differance

 

[DavieCee]

JohnDuncan:No. Furthermore, you can set it up as a different network so that it doesn't interfere with other gaming etc. Though note that you then wouldn't have Internet for Spotify so would have to be working offline, though you suggest this isn't a problem. Note also that you *need* the Airfoil software to stream anything other than iTunes content.I did this into a DACMagic for ages and it sounded terrific.

I am confused by the no internet part as I often use Spotify via Airfoil and browse at the same time. Reading it wrong possibly?

 

[smuggs]

davie cee i just thought that if i had something go wrong with internet or was playing the xbox360 it would still work.(spotify offline mode) but i will have to use the net by the looks of things which is fine

 

[John Duncan]

DavieCee:
JohnDuncan:No. Furthermore, you can set it up as a different network so that it doesn't interfere with other gaming etc. Though note that you then wouldn't have Internet for Spotify so would have to be working offline, though you suggest this isn't a problem. Note also that you *need* the Airfoil software to stream anything other than iTunes content.I did this into a DACMagic for ages and it sounded terrific.

I am confused by the no internet part as I often use Spotify via Airfoil and browse at the same time. Reading it wrong possibly?

Yes that works if you get the AE to join an existing network, but Simon was saying elsewhere that this might cause issues. The AE offers an option to create a new network as well though, but the laptop could only be on that one network at a time, so would lose the Internet connection offered by that other network.

 

[Anonymous]

if you're going to run a dac from the aex you will need a 3,5mm mini optical jack, the one i have slots over the head of a conventional optical cable and fits into the aexs optical out, i don't know but i presume you can get a cable which has the 3.5 optical connection on one end and the regular sized one on the other too..

 

[smuggs]

ive 17 days to sort that out thanks for the heads up. i have been reading up and it sounds great all i want is to sit at my breakfast bar on my stool reading the whathifi forum while spotify/itunes/vinyl is playing so this fits the bill big time.

again thanks for to everyone cause posts do mess with you head

 

[John Duncan]

Simon, I'll respond to your point-by-point a bit later - you're more or less there, but there are a couple of gotchas and I need to make the tea...

 

[DavieCee]

Thanks for the clarification John & glad Simon is getting the answers he wants

 

[John Duncan]

smuggs:
you are a diamond pal i had the thought that i had stopped my laptop from sending anything out.so can you just say yes if i have this right,

1-buy a apple airport

2-wire the airport with a patch lead from my hub and connect to dac magic

3-go into itunes and pair the 2 up

4-go on goggle and put in airfoil and buythat download

5-then i can control itunes or spotify premium from my laptop and the dac-magic will get a 320kbps through the airport.

have i missed anything out, i get paid on the 25th so i will be buying it then i can spend £150 easy so you said it would be £100 is there thing else gadet wise that assists this well around the £50-£100 mark. and is there any leads that you used that make a differance

Simon

1) Yes.
2) Yes. It works wirelessly but I'd use it wired if you can, usually makes it more reliable.
3) Yep, there's software in the box to do so.
4. Airfoil can be had here. $25.
5) Yes. You can use iTunes without Airfoil (you need to select the airport express as the target in iTunes) but you'll need it for Spotify.

As max points out, you need a mini-toslink-to-toslink optical cable, or a mini toslink adapter for a normal toslink cable - I got one from maplins that had an adapter included for about a tenner. That goes from the headphone socket of the AE to the optical in of the DACMagic.

Hope that helps.

JD

 

[John Duncan]

smuggs:
you are a diamond pal i had the thought that i had stopped my laptop from sending anything out.so can you just say yes if i have this right,

1-buy a apple airport

2-wire the airport with a patch lead from my hub and connect to dac magic

3-go into itunes and pair the 2 up

4-go on goggle and put in airfoil and buythat download

5-then i can control itunes or spotify premium from my laptop and the dac-magic will get a 320kbps through the airport.

have i missed anything out, i get paid on the 25th so i will be buying it then i can spend £150 easy so you said it would be £100 is there thing else gadet wise that assists this well around the £50-£100 mark. and is there any leads that you used that make a differance

Simon

1) Yes.
2) Yes. It works wirelessly but I'd use it wired if you can, usually makes it more reliable.
3) Yep, there's software in the box to do so.
4. Airfoil can be had here. $25.
5) Yes. You can use iTunes without Airfoil (you need to select the airport express as the target in iTunes) but you'll need it for Spotify.

As max points out, you need a mini-toslink-to-toslink optical cable, or a mini toslink adapter for a normal toslink cable - I got one from maplins that had an adapter included for about a tenner. That goes from the headphone socket of the AE to the optical in of the DACMagic.

Hope that helps.

JD

 

[smuggs]

really top stuff and i cant see why on payday that ill change my mind for £110 airport extreme/lead/airfoil sounds good.

one more question john i will hard wire the airport but the laptop will be wireless is that ok. i know you said try and hard wire both but that will hard thanks simon

 

[Anonymous]

The problem with your laptop sounds like u have set wmp to check the root of the drive for media files.

You must make sure it doesnt include root - and only checks the necessary folders, eg myMusic

Once you've done this ur memory/processor utilization should be virtually nil.

U could just use dlna to stream to ur xbox (or any other dlna client) then u dont need AE.

 

[DavieCee]

Wireless from the laptop/computer is the whole point of Airport Express and should be easy-peesy.

If your laptop has digital out and you are happy with the laptop being hard wired to the DAC then you don't need the Airport Express.

 

[John Duncan]

edsib1:U could just use dlna to stream to ur xbox (or any other dlna client) then u dont need AE.

Have you ever got this to work with a virtual soundcard such as Jamcast's for services like Spotify? I couldn't get my Uniti to see it (hence sticking with AE/Airfoil), though I've never sussed whether UPnP and DLNA servers are entirely interchangeable...

 

[Anonymous]

JohnDuncan:edsib1:U could just use dlna to stream to ur xbox (or any other dlna client) then u dont need AE.

Have you ever got this to work with a virtual soundcard such as Jamcast's for services like Spotify? I couldn't get my Uniti to see it (hence sticking with AE/Airfoil), though I've never sussed whether UPnP and DLNA servers are entirely interchangeable...

Just tried this using wifi Phillips Streamium 2900 as client.

1.Install & run Jamcast & check target device shows up in devices tab, click find if not.

2. Start Spotify

3. On target device, select Jamcast from list of servers. Then my Music,playlist, virtual soundcard, virtual soundcard (again),and wait for it to buffer.

Simple as that.