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Send music to AirPort Express from wired computers
Authored by: aal on Mar 25, '05 11:24:19AM

I am the original poster and have found out some additional information.

It turns out I was being stupid about controlling the line-out level. I was mucking with my iTunes Preferences and noticed in the Audio Preferences pane I had both "Look for remote speakers connected with AirTunes" and "Disable iTunes volume control for remote speakers" selected. Deselecting "Disable iTunes volume control for remote speakers" allowed me to control the line-out volume of my Airport Express with the iTunes volume control, making the equalization hack unnecessary. iTunes even remembers the volume settings when you switch it between the internal speakers and the Airport Express.



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Send music to AirPort Express from wired computers
Authored by: ebernet on Mar 25, '05 01:11:07PM

Airtunes is best used with a Stereo with its own D>A convertor and an optical digital input. Data is compressed using ALAC when sent to the Airport Express, and if you are using an optical cable is sent unaltered to your stereo for decoding. Therefore, if you are playing a CD or an ALAC file to being with, your stereo (which almost certainly WILL have a better D>A than the $129 multi-purpose device called the Airport Express) will do what it was designed to do, convert the digital audio to analog for playback. I do not mean to knock the Airport Express, I love mine, but given all it does, I do not expect much for the probably <$5 circuitry to decode the digital data to analog. If you can, use the digital output. In those situations, I do not believe you have the option to control the audio volume for Airtunes. Either way, you would not want to since that would modify your source audio.

I record audio in the field, and then send my unadulterated audio to the airport express. It will handle 24/48 audio and sound great. This allows me to immediately test the audio I recorded without first converting it to an AAC or MP3 file and without using the sub-par noisy D>A convertor built into my PowerBook G4.



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