horrible airport express sound

[bay24]

Hi all hope you had a good Christmas!

Now I got an airport express as a present and surprisingly I managed to get it set up on my network quite quickly and was soon streaming spotify which was great but soon after I started the sound started cutting out and every now and then there is a horrible metallic jangling noise that comes through the music.
I was wondering if anyone has experienced this and if so how it was rectified? I thought it may be interference from all my plugs, cables and aerials which are all very close together. I have not got a long enough optical lead to try it from another socket further away at the moment and wanted to check it wasn't anything else before I paid out for a longer length optical cable to try out my theory.

 

[Anonymous]

It could be a networking problem. Is your AE connecting to your network via a wireless router? Could you try it with an Ethernet cable to your router?

 

[John Duncan]

It does sound like a combination of poor wireless reception and interference. Got any mobile/wireless phones anywhere close by? Have you tried the Airport Express wired directly into the router?

 

[bay24]

No I havent tried connected to the router, would prefer not to have it wired though but will give it a go when all the fammily have finished eating all of our food and if no joy I will get a longer optical lead!

I think the wireless reception should be ok as it is all in the same room and I have used my iphone to stream in the past. there is a wireless home phone right next to the router, could that cause interference?

 

[Hems]

How do you stream spotify or anything else through the AE?

 

[John Duncan]

bay24:there is a wireless home phone right next to the router, could that cause interference?

Oh yes...

 

[bay24]

Hems:How do you stream spotify or anything else through the AE?

I use airfoil to stream to the AE and for the i phone there is something called airfoil speakers touch which lets you stream any music that is is on on your computer to the iphone, was great to test out if i wuld use spotify enough to justify the premium subscription.

Once again John thank you very much for your knowledge, I will have a tinker this evening and report back!

 

[John Duncan]

No probs.

 

[bay24]

turned the phone off and so far so good......

 

[Anonymous]

Almost any wireless device, plus microwave ovens, use the same radio frequencies as computer networks, and may interfere with them. Also the building itself (heavy concrete walls, any metal and technical installations inside the walls) might make things difficult.

First of all, in AirPort Utility choose a channel that's not used by another local network (there's lots of free or inexpensive software that let you check things like that). If one unused channel don't solve your problems, try another one.

Then, use as few wireless devices as possible, and don't put any of them close to the AirPort stuff or wi-fi routers.

You might also need to experiment a little to find the ideal location for the AP devices. Often only a couple of inches will make a difference.

 

[bay24]

Thanks fahnsan

I moved the phone which semed to help but it is still making the odd metallic sound at times I may experiment with the channels to see if that helps. Am going to see what it is like with a wired connection and moving the AE itself about.

 

[bay24]

Hi,

How do you change the channel? I have been looking at the airport utility for a while now and cant find the option. I am not the best with computers so it could just be me being stupid.

 

[bay24]

ok so I am on a channel that is not used by other local networks, I have moved the AE away from the plugs and wires and moved the digital phone into another room but I am still getting the metallic noise in the music. I think it may be less than before but not by much.
I also tried it wired to the router and it seemed to get even worse so have gone back to wireless. I am realy confused as I didnt think a wired conection from the router would be able to get interfearence from things as it is not having to use the wireless network.
my next plan is to move the AE with a long optical lead to right next to the router to see if this helps but after that I am a bit of a loss. does anyone have any other ideas? it seems amazing to me that a wireless devise that is designed to stream things would not be able to do so from a router that is in the same room!

 

[Anonymous]

i presume your streaming from a pc so id check the settings including the sound card settings spotify settings airfoil settings and so on first

also try ripping a cd to lossless and streaming that if it sounds fine then its not the ae nor the network that is the problem

 

[bay24]

OK I have not had any joy with anything I have tried up until now. I thought I would try my headphones in the AE instead of an optical to my 740C and the metallic noise and the blips stopped. does this mean that I have a dodgy connection via optical? I have tried two cables and it happens with both. the connection at the CD player end should be OK as I have not had any problems with other devices sound when going through it so to my mind the only thing it could be is the AE end connection which is a cheap toslinc to mini jac conector from maplins. Could this cause the metallic sound and blips?

 

[professorhat]

This is an odd one - how long did you try with the headphones? If it really has no issue when using the headphones, it does rather suggest it's either the optical cable, or something within the AE when it's sending out the digital signal rather than the analogue signal going to the headphones. To test this, do you have any standard 3.5mm to RCA phono leads?

You could use this lead to plug from the AE into the amp using an analogue connection and see how it is then. This also rules out anything going on within the amp itself.

 

[Anonymous]

Make sure you've taken off all of the little protective caps from the ends of the optical cables as well.

 

[Anonymous]

do you mean converter if so yes suspect that i use a cheap toslink to minijack cable and its fine so might be worth finding a proper cable rather than using a converter

 

[Anonymous]

Unless it's downright broken, the optical cable works fine -- even with the protections on, if they're not too much scratched and you can fit them into the contacts.

A TOSlink connection is not degraded step by step -- it works as long as the the signal has no more glitches than the digital signal correction can handle, and it stops working if this is no longer the case.

 

[bay24]

have not got a 3.5 to RCA so will need to get one. May get an optical to mini optical as well. I suspect the RCA will work fine, if the optical to mini does not work it sounds like people are suggesting it could be somethng wrong with the AE outputting the digital signal as the optical cable should either work or not but not degrade in sound. Have I got that right?

 

[Anonymous]

bay24:have not got a 3.5 to RCA so will need to get one. May get an optical to mini optical as well. I suspect the RCA will work fine, if the optical to mini does not work it sounds like people are suggesting it could be somethng wrong with the AE outputting the digital signal as the optical cable should either work or not but not degrade in sound. Have I got that right?either the ae or the cas digital input but it does rule the cable out

ive a vague memory of problems with the ae and ca having come up before though possibly not on this forum

to check if its the ae you need to connect it to another dac

 

[bay24]

hi,

I have finally managed to get both a 3.5 to RCA and a dedicated optical to mini optical lead to test what will work with my AE without it making the strange metallic sound. on testing the optical lead is still making the same noise but with the RCA to mini jac it works fine just like with my headphones. from this I am pritty sure it must be something to do with the optical connection in the AE.
the only other possibility is one that one off has noted that it could be the DAC in my CA, the reason I do not think it is this is that the inputs work fine when I connect my DVD player or PVR.
What I was hoping to find out is if there is anything else anyone can think of that it might be before I send the AE back.
At least I can listen to Spotify on my hifi now.. it actually sounds pritty good going direct from the AE to amp.

 

[Anonymous]

Are you using a licensed version of Airfoil, as the free download will add 'noise' to transmissions over 10 minutes long.

 

[bay24]

Carl_R:Are you using a licensed version of Airfoil, as the free download will add 'noise' to transmissions over 10 minutes long.

No I have a licence for airfoil, it works fine via the rce to mini jac. if I use the optical it makes the noise when using spotify or itunes. good idea though!

 

[bay24]

bringing this thread back from the dead as have been tinkering again.
to recap I have had a horrible metallic sound coming with the music via optical from my AE into my CA740C, I have tried different optical cables, moved the airport around, tried it wired instead of wireless and found that it works fire via RCA to mini jac into my amp. the optical connections on the CA work with other digital sources (eg DVD or TV box).
I had come to the conclusion that the AE was faulty in terms of its optical connection so I went to an apple store and they asked if I had tried it via optical with another hifi, I had not so I set off home and connected it up to my Onkyo mini system via optical and it worked fine! noved the little hifi into the living room close to to where my main hifi is to test again if it was interference in the room I was using it but still it was fine.
This lead me to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the CA740C, so I called my local richer sounds for advice and the person I talked to thought it was something to do with the settings on the airport which meant the signal to the CA was not decoded in a way it could read fully. he said that I need to change the settings to "PCM" (I don't know what this means) but for the life of me I can not find any options in the airport utility for this. does this make sense to anyone or is the RS guy wrong? he said he had not personally used an AE but he thought that would be the problem. I was unsure of his response as so many people use the DAC magic with AE with no problems.

Any help would be really useful. I have had the airport for ages now and it is starting to really annoy me that I have not been able to use it to its full potential.