Apple AirPort Express frees your music

Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 12 Dec 2007 at 10:00 PM

A few years ago, I received an Apple AirPort Express as a gift. Few devices have changed my listening habits so radically (the other one I can think of is my iPod). Anyway, the AirPort Express is a really fantastic device. It is small, inexpensive ($99) and has many talents. I’ll focus on the one I use mine for, namely, streaming music digitally from my computer to my home theater receiver.

In my computer room, I have all of my music on CD ripped to my desktop computer. I use iTunes as the media player. If you have an AirPort Express on your wireless network, there is a button that shows up in iTunes. The button allows you to select where you want to send the music, that is, whether you want to play music on the computer speakers or whether you want to stream music to the AirPort.

The crucial detail that really makes this a stellar device in my opinion is that the data path is completely digital. iTunes streams the music at full-bit resolution to the AirPort. And if you want to do your digital-to-analog conversion downstream, you can connect the AirPort via a proprietary cable that plugs in to any standard digital Toslink cable connector on a home theater receiver. So the music reaches the receiver in full resolution. With that digital stream you can apply digital effects such as Dolby ProLogic II for 5.1 audio or just send it straight to the D/A converters for 2-channel reproduction.

The point is it sounds great. I encode my CDs as 320 Kbps AAC audio, and that sounds about as good as it’s going to get from CDs. And with the digital stream, it’s easy to manipulate.

The one thing the AirPort lacks is a way to control the music from where you’re listening to it. You need to go back to the computer if you want to change the playlist. Any playlist you can play on iTunes will work. I often throw it into the Party Shuffle mode, and just let it pick songs randomly. It’s like having my own personal radio station in the living room. And it sounds far better than any radio station does.

For $99, it’s a great device that works very, very well. It’s easy to setup, and once you setup there’s nothing to change. It just works. It works with either 802.11g or 802.11b networks, and it’s compliant with WPA2 security, if you use that on your wireless network.

Of course, I still listen to a lot of vinyl on my setup, but sometimes it’s nice to just put the music on and let it go. I should note that if you want to use the completely digital setup like I have have, that is, connecting to a Toslink connector on your receiver, you’ll need to purchase the $39 Stereo Connection Kit with Monster Cables. The kit comes with an analog audio cable and the proprietary digital one. If you want to digitally output audio from the AirPort Express you’ll need that special cable (a standard Toslink cable won’t work).

Tags: airport express · apple · digital audio · toslink · wireless

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