Got the Airport Express I asked for and have just completed install and tests. Boy, is this nice. I have a huge lossless playlist in the confuser which now will send ANY tune to the Airport which will send it over to the DA section of my CA840c which than converts and ships it over to the stereo. Since I have both lossless and MP3s made from the lossless files, I can do direct comparisons between formats.
The glitch? So far, I haven't figured out how to run the wired and wireless networking of the computer at the same time. So, when I want to stream music, I must switch to wireless. Also, and I think I have this figured out, when I have I-Tunes manage the volume, it puts it to maximum and I adjust it at the stereo. Well, occasionally, the sound gets a real hi frequency shimmer / glassiness which is awful to hear. Not quite fingers on a chalk board bad, but pretty bad. I than tried using the computer volume control, turned it down A LOT and the problem went away.
And, for all you remote control fans, the FREE application called 'remote' works fine, too. I have enabled the lossless and MP3 playlists and am learning the 'touch' to operate easily.
What a kick. And, as a bonus, in prelim tests, the SQ is easily as good as I've heard. As soon as the place goes quiet this weekend, I'll post back what I hear in a lossless / MP3 comparo. The Apple encoder has several options, which I may explore. But, 120kb MP3 seems like a clear winner for automotive duties which was the purpose of those files in the first place.
Sounds like a nice setup Leo. Can't say I'm a fan of iTunes, though. From my experience it's a bloated turd. Not sure you can run two network adapters at once (ie: wireless and hardwire), at least on Windows. I don't know Mac stuff at all, which I assume you're using.
Itunes / Apple Lossless are a decent match. I don't go for all the additional features. A CD will be copied to lossless than I can later make an MP3 copy. The Apple store has the aps for my 'touch, which is used for remote and as the source player in the car.
Playlists are easily managed. I use the keep it simple mode, so I don't have to try to manage everything.
I will go play 'stump the expert' at the Mac store, sometime in the next week. I need to see if I can run both at same time!
Windows just became too much BS for me. I don't want to start 'The argument with no winners'.......MS vs Apple......but I'll stick to Apple for now and the foreseeable future. Just got a bunch of garbage off the neighbors confuser, including a 'backdoor' bot. fun for all.
That's great Leo. I got an Apple TV to go with the iMac and Airport Extreme I got last year. Great fun. I'm not a fan at all of the internal DAC, so I'll have to bring my CI Audio DAC up from the listening room and try routing it through the optical connection.
I got an Apple TV over the summer. Its a great music server IMO. It took forever to synch the music to its HD from my computer. Then in one click of the mouse, it had completely erased itself and I had to start all over again. No 'Are you sure you want to delete everything and spend 2 more days synching?' icon.
If you haven't synched it yet, use an ethernet cable from your wireless router to the Apple TV. It takes less than half the time.
After the initial transfer, music synches pretty fast. An entire CD in lossless takes a minute or so wirelessly. MP3s take seconds.
I remembered that you had mentioned your Apple TV before Stu. You must have more of a music library than I do, as it only took an hour or so to sync my music and photo libraries through my wireless network. Re-syncing seems to take just a minute or two. I still haven't purchased a new optical cable to try it plugged into my DAC....and by the look of the weather outside today (snowstorm) I won't be getting one today either.