ITunes only mono / very poor quality audio via Airport Express

I have a relatively old (3-4 years?) Airport Express, which had been working perfectly to play iTunes over my hifi system wirelessly. However after a year or two of not using it (and upgrading my OS X Tiger regularly in the mean time) I am having problems. Initially iTunes would not connect at all (unknown error -3256) so after reading various discussion posts I (a) downloaded AirPort Utility 5.3.2 for Tiger and (b) used it to upgrade the operating software on the AX unit (now 6.3 I think?), successfully I think.
Following this iTunes finds the external hifi/speakers and music plays wirelessly through them BUT the audio quality is terrible, varying from treble only with no base to playing only out of one speaker.
The audio quality is perfect if I plug my Mac / iTunes directly into the hifi using the same cable as that connecting to the AX unit, so I figure this must be a problem with the bandwidth/connection from the Mac to AX.
Can someone please help me? Much appreciated.

If it's bandwidth probelm I would expect to hear the music cutting in and out (as the AX trying to fill its buffer up and then the buffer becomes empty as not enough data coming in to fill it). Rather than becoming mono only or treble only.
I think you should check your analog connections.

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Message was edited by: new2appletv

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