Stream iTunes to multiple Airport Express units

Aug 17, '04 09:55:00AM

Contributed by: somersam

I came up with a novel way to get around the single-stream limitation of AirTunes, with a little help from Nicecast. I tried it with the two Airport Expresses (AXs) I have and it worked pretty well, although I got occasional but infrequent dropouts, mainly because I was doing everything wirelessly. It will probably work better on wired networks.

I used Panther's Fast User Switching feature and three user accounts:

  1. The first account was the playback account, where the music originated. I set up Nicecast to stream iTunes' output to port 8000 (the default). I then started a playlist playing.
  2. The second account handled streaming to the AX in my family room. I opened iTunes, selected my family room speakers, selected "Advanced>Open Stream...", and typed in "http://localhost:8000". The music started playing on my family room stereo.
  3. The third account handled streaming to the AX in my study. I followed the same steps as the second account except that I selected the speakers in my study. The music started playing there too!
The music wasn't completely in sync between AXs -- probably due to buffering -- but it played nonetheless.

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