Saturday, 29 August 2009

You may be already having a lot of songs stored in iTunes, one of the more popular music management software, and want to listen while sitting in your sofa. However, all my songs are in the Mac which is located in the study room. What should you do? With an AirPort Express and an iPhone, you can do that with ease.

AirPort Express was designed as a wireless router for creating wireless network at home or office. It comes with 2 extra features: printer sharing wirelessly and music streaming. To begin streaming your music, you have to first enable AirTunes in AirPort Utility

and then connect your AirPort Express to your stereo or amplifier with a 3.5mm connector. This  audio connector can support both analog or digital signal. Monster has one of those cables in the market, Monster Cable ILS100TM-1M Toslink-to-Mini Optical Digital-Audio Interconnect (1 Meter). After you have completed the setup, you should able to see the name of your AirPort Express available for selection in your iTunes. And off you go, you should be able to stream your music to your remote speakers.

You will be asking how can I select the songs from iTunes if I am sitting on my sofa?! Apple Remote for your iPhone or iPod Touch is what you need. You can download the application from the AppStore free of charge. Once you start up the application, you will be asked to select the iTunes library that you would like to connect and pair up. At this time you will be asked to input a passcode on your Mac to enable your iPhone or iPod Touch. It's just similar to what you did when you pair up your Bluetooth device. Very simple! If you have multiple AirPort Express set up at home, you can simultaneously stream your music to all AirPort Express.

The sound quality from the music streaming through the AirPort Express is surprisingly good. If you are building your music library, it’s always good to have your music encoded in Apple Lossless format. It will always give you a near CD music quality.  There are always debate over the AIFF vs Apple Lossless. I do really find the Lossless format acceptable in terms of the sound quality and fidelity. Definitely the AIFF is a non-compressed format and if file size is not your concern, AIFF is your choice. Or you can do more Google in the Internet and before you made your choice. No matter what your choice is, the AirTunes does have its own limitations or you can say restrictions. iTunes will use QuickTime codec to convert audio files to Apple Lossless, and then use AirTunes to AirPort Express. Then, the AirPort Express uses its built-in software to convert the Apple Lossless to an Encoded Digital Audio format. Depending on your connection, digital signal is sent to optical transceiver to convert the signal before sending it to the audio port; while the analog signal is converted by the built-in DAC before sending it to the same audio port.

All in all, the AirPort Express gives you the reasonably priced option for audio streaming and given the Apple Remote, you have your music in your palm no matter where you are at home.