Lossless over AirTunes

Is Apple Lossless Audio re encoded for AirTunes or is the full datarate sent?

Data can be in any file format that iTunes recognizes, from lossy MP3s at the low-quality end of the spectrum to Apple Lossless and lossless AIF or WAV files at the high end. The AirPort Express Base Station (AX) functions only at a 44.1kHz sample rate. When you play 32kHz or 48kHz data, iTunes sample-rate-converts the data in real time before sending it to the AX.

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Using airport disc as a music server, and playing music over airtunes

I know that I can put my itunes library on an external hard drive, and that I could access this external hard drive wirelessly if I attached it to an airport extreme. However, if i did this would I still be able to play music over airtunes. It seems that the music would have to be sent wirelessly from the drive to my macbook via the airport extreme, and then from there to the airport express and on to my amplifier. This seems convoluted. Would it work?

I think you are missing the point.
1) It is fast enough. I've never had a problem doing anything I needed to. Also, there is nothing preventing you from hooking directly to the external hard drive for extended data transfers. And unless there is a serious problem, the wireless connection is faster than any burning speed. And it isn't wireless internet. The internet has nothing to do with this. 802.11n has typical throughput speeds of 70-80Mbps. That is a song a second or better.
2) Actually, what gets kept on the shared volume is only the music. The library file, the artwork for albums and everything directly related to how iTunes understands the library remains on the internal drive under the user directory.
3) This is true, but as soon as it regains contact everything is corrected. What is really nice, almost as if Apple intended for it to be so, is that any new songs brought into the library while contact is lost to the Airdisk can be consolidated by simply using the menu item ...consolidate library.
4) Not close. If I gave up the hard drive space it takes to hold my music/video library on my internal hard drive I wouldn't have any space left. I'm thinking you interpreted the situation as referring to someone with a desktop computer. I think in that case, that unique case of a single desktop Mac household, then yes, of course, plug the external drive into the computer. In the other cases, where there are laptops involved, and more than one user, this is part of the beauty of the design of the whole system.
I suggest to you that your response is a very closed view of the possibilities that are possible. You may not see the benefits, but it is by no means pointless.

Possible to play iPhone over AirTunes?

I'm guessing there isn't an app to do it, but I'm making sure I didn't miss it. Is there an app out there that plays your iPhone audio (iTunes, Pandora app, etc.) over AirTunes connected speakers?

There isn't an app (yet) that does what you want. But...
All the music on your iPhone is managed by iTunes, so download the Apple Remote app for controlling iTunes from your iPhone. It allows you to select the AirTunes speakers for output.
For Pandora, you can control the webbrowser on your Mac using the VNC app. Install AirFoil on your Mac, and you have a poor man's remote for sending Pandora music to the AirTunes speakers.

Know what's playing over Airtunes

Like many businesses, we use Airtunes in our office to allow everyone to play their iTunes over the office speakers. But two questions that always gets asked are "what is playing?" and "who is playing this?".
Is there any way to know either what person or what song is currently playing over Airtunes via desktop interface?
Thanks!

Never found an answer to this. If you have any ideas please let me know! http://unraveled.com

Songs breaking over airtunes, not playing continuously

During setup I created a new encrypted network. Connected Airport express to this new secure network. I could play songs from my IMac to the powered speakers but the songs played intermittently. After speaking to customer services, I removed all possible sources of interference like cordless phones, mobiles, sky box, and Belkin wireless router to no avail.
I have since unsecured the network, with better results. Songs played without breaking up, more listening hours scheduled for the weekend before giving it a clean chit. Not convinced if this could really be the reason. Any thoughts?
IMac Mac OS X (10.4.9) connecting Airport Express to Cambridge Audio Azur 540 amplifier
IMac Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I have the same problem, new firmware and robustness on and still having cut out. Did not have this problem for first 6 months i had the airtunes. I have set up my whole system for the airtunes and plan on upgrading to apple tv soon, but this is a big problem for me. Is there a solution if the problem is neighbors microwave or cordless telephones? I am about to hook up a harmony remote with RF extender in order to hide all stereo components, will the RF extender do the same thing as a cordless phone? anyone using a RF remote next to airport express? Anyone who can solve this problem for me gets a nice steak dinner at Morton's(airfare to chicago not included)

M4v audio over airtunes

I have an airport express with airtunes running file for playing music to my speakers. However when i play m4v video files, the audio goes back to my computer speakers and not the remote speakers.
Is there any way to redirect the m4v audio to the airport express?
Thanks!
Paul

Hi EnigmaPaul:
You can stream any audio files to your AE from a 3rd party program called Airfoil which can be found here: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/
I hope this helps!

Problems syncing Airtunes over multiple Airport Express speakers

I've recently purchased a second Airport Express to allow me to stream music over airtunes to two rooms in the house at the same time. However, the music doesn't synchronise - there is a noticeable latency between the two sets of speakers so it sounds awful when you move from one room to another.
Is there any way to address this? I'm wondering if the issue is that one AX is brand new and the other is about two years old (so is only 602.11g, not 602.11n and is also on older firmware).

Unfortunately, you're at the mercy of both the ieee802.11 and ethernet standards here, and without complex timing signals, there isn't much you can do. The latency can be affected by any number of issues. I have found, however, that having both AX's on the same type of networks (such as both on ethernet or wifi) does help. However, I did have my appleTV on wifi and AX on ethernet with no timing issues.

Airtunes sound quality - Please share your experiences

I use a Powerbook G4 to stream mostly lossless classical music files to an Airport Express 802.11n linked using a standard cable to a NAD 326BEE amplifier (auxiliary input) and PSB Imagine B speakers. The sound is very good with not a lot of bass but I find that despite all the "sound enhancements" features of iTunes [8.02 (20)] being unchecked, the music is projected forward, overeager, too present vs. a portable CD which I also use from time to time. For a start, the maximum volume of this CD player has nothing to do with iTune's maximum volume which is sensibly louder but still, even at volume levels that appear comparable, the sound from Airtunes has a glow which can be fatiguing after a while. Are there differences between computers over Airtunes? Are some better than other? Any idea on how to improve the sound?

Tesserax wrote:
Are there differences between computers over Airtunes? Are some better than other?
Not really. The AX can only handle audio at a 44.1kHz sample rate, regardless of the source ... so switching devices shouldn't make any difference.
iTunes uses a QuickTime CODEC to convert audio files to Apple Lossless, and then, uses AirTunes to send them to the AX. In turn, the AX uses built-in software that converts the Apple Lossless to an Encoded Digital Audio format. From there, digital audio is sent to a optical transceiver to convert the electrical signal to an optical one before sending it to the innermost part of the audio port.
The AX works only with iTunes v4.6+ and is limited to music files that iTunes can read; ie, 16-bit data only. (An exception is you can use a third-party product like Rogue Amoeba's AirFoil to stream other non-iTunes sources.) These data, though, can be in any file format that iTunes recognizes, from lossy MP3s at the low-quality end of the spectrum to Apple Lossless and lossless AIF or WAV files at the high end. Again, it is important to note that the AX functions only at a 44.1kHz sample rate. When you play 32kHz or 48kHz data, iTunes sample-rate-converts the data in real time before sending it to the AX.
In all honesty I have no idea what half of that means.
I'm having the same problem, horrible Airport Express sound. And all of my files are Apple Lossless which is apparently a completely copy of whatever is on the CD.
kHz and sample rate is irrelevant as far as I know. It's Lossless. It's a straight up copy basically, right?
So why does it sound so godawful through Airport Express?

Just upgraded to iTunes 9.1 and Airtunes no longer works

So I just upgraded to iTunes 9.1. Have external speakers hooked up through my Airport Express to play my music wirelessly over AirTunes. The Airport Express option still shows up in the dropdown in iTunes, but when I select it and try to play music, there's no sound coming from my external speakers. Internal computer speakers still work. I've already tried restarting iTunes, my iMac and AirPort. Any other ideas? Thanks.

I'm having the same problem with iTunes 9 and Airtunes now. Is there a solution to this problem? It's driving me crazy!
Since a week, I've been using an iMac, with external speakers connected to my two Airport Expresses. Airtunes used to work fine on my recently deceased Windows PC+iTunes 8, until I bought my iMac which came with iTunes 9. Tried downgrading to iTunes 8, but doesn't work, because then iTunes won't accept my iPod Touch anymore (only with iTunes 9).
Another weird thing is that iTunes 9 seems to mess up my playlists when syncing with my iPod Touch. Selected playlists won't appear in my iPod Touch, while other playlists do appear in my iPod Touch, but empty. It's now solved by adding some extra (irrelevant in my opinion) rules to the playlists, but it's madness that one has to go through all these efforts just to correctly sync your playlists. What happened to user-friendliness?
Anyway, if anyone has a solution to the iTunes9/Airtunes problem, please let me know!

Ax/airtunes/itunes on xp sp2 ever? informal survey

lots of problem posts... very few if any success stories.. ibook and mac mini effortless... xp box sees the ax/speakers but will not connect...seen a lot of posts re: connecting to speakers in windows enviroment... never any success ... has anyone ever connected to speakers via itunes/airtunes running xp pro sp2???.... i don't doubt it is a windows issue because my ibook and mac mini work with no problem.... the xp box sees the speakers in aiport admin utility, itunes sees the speakers and makes them a choice in the drop down menu, but will not connect... apple sell this as windows compatible but i have never seen a success story posted... even tried AIRFOIL as a work around... same result... speakers are seen but cannot connect... itunes gives compatability error ... AIRFOIL gives rtsp error 0... ***?

I'm currently running XP SP2 listening to itunes over airtunes. I had a problem w/ the bonjour service preventing me from seeing the speakers, but disabling the service fixed that. I've done this w/ both wired and wireless connections to the airport.
This answers your original question, it can work... but it doesn't help your present situation much
dumb question: You aren't trying to connect while another machine is already connected are you?

Stuttery audio when using ATV as airtunes

I've had no significant problems with ATV in most use cases, but - when streaming music from my Mac over airtunes, I get a bunch of dropouts. The ATV will just go silent while the mac keeps playing; ATV picks up again, with differing amounts of stutter.
The Mac is about 30 feet from my base station with a bunch of stuff in between - including a microwave - but manages to maintain full signal most of the time. The ATV, by contrast, has a direct line of sight to the base station over about half the distance.
The signal should be going via the base station, right? Or is it going directly to the ATV? Anyone else had issues like this?
thanks
-jk

I had the problem if trying to stream to an Airport Express (wireless) and AppleTv (wired) at the same time.
Not tried with 2.01 as I don't really use the feature.
AC

Airtunes ever? informal survey

seen a lot of posts re: connecting to speakers in windows enviroment... never any success ... has anyone ever connected to speakers via itunes/airtunes running xp pro sp2???.... i don't doubt it is a windows issue because my ibook and mac mini work with no problem.... the xp box sees the speakers in aiport admin utility, itunes sees the speakers and makes them a choice in the drop down menu, but will not connect... apple sell this as windows compatible but i have never seen a success story posted... even tried AIRFOIL as a work around... same result... speakers are seen but cannot connect... itunes gives compatability error ... AIRFOIL gives rtsp error 0... ***?

I'm currently running XP SP2 listening to itunes over airtunes. I had a problem w/ the bonjour service preventing me from seeing the speakers, but disabling the service fixed that. I've done this w/ both wired and wireless connections to the airport.
This answers your original question, it can work... but it doesn't help your present situation much
dumb question: You aren't trying to connect while another machine is already connected are you?

Airtunes stopped working

I performed the update to 10.5.8 today. Since then, I get this error message when I try to play itunes music over Airtunes:
"an error occurred while connecting to the remote speaker "chumpchangenet". An unknown error occurred (-15000)."
Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions?
thanks

I have just done exactly the same thing with the same outcome. I too was having the error message referred to above, even though AirPort Express and iTunes had been working fine previously after their respective updates. I was getting the error message when my MacBook was unplugged, so followed the procedure, plugged in and it came right on. No drop-off when unplugging.
This is bizarre. I have to confess that when I first read the solution I was a bit dubious, thinking it was either coincidence or a proximity thing - you might have your plug near the router or AE, for instance. Very odd.

Music skipping over wireless network.

This has not happened before. I just had to reset the network, but now all of the music played over airtunes skips and sounds terrible. I have an airport extreme base station extended by two airport expresses. It happens when it is played from any computer on the network, so it is a problem with the wireless. Also, this has not happened to me before, I am not sure why this is happening.

I have the same problem. I have an airport extreme (the older round one) base station running 5.7 firmware (latest rev). My network is a .11g one. I have 2 older airport expresses connected to that base station that work fine but I added a new airport express (802.11n) and playing through that one (and only that one) skips badly (actually distorts is a better word). I had to rollback the firmware on the new airport express to 7.3 since 7.3.1 rendered it inoperable, but even with 7.3 it still skips.
Oh, and I am running leopard too. All software is up to date.
I think it is a firmware issue on all the new airport expresses.

Airtunes volume (too loud!)

Here's the story:
I like to sit around the room and work on the Powerbook wire-free. So I'm listening to my music over AirTunes. I keep the Powerbook volume at 100%, and turn iTunes down to about 20% volume, because music coming 100% out of my AirPort speakers (which I'm too lazy to change the volume on) is just too loud.
Whenever I close iTunes with the AirTunes volume set to 20%, and reopen it, the volume is back up at 100%. I (of course) don't notice, start playing music, and wake up everyone in the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure this didn't happen before 10.4.4, because it's been a huge irritation the past few days, and I've never noticed it before.
Did I break something? Is there any way I can force iTunes to remember what I had the volume set at?

See this discussion: http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=1524578
The above discussion is concerned with iTunes volume problems after waking the computer. Does your problem occur only after relaunching iTunes without having restarted or awakened your computer? Which version of iTunes are you using?

Lossless over AirTunes

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