Apple AirPort Express with Air Tunes M9470LL/A [OLD VERSION]
by Apple Computer
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List Price: Our Price: $55.00 You Save: $74.95 (58%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple AirPort Express with Air Tunes M9470LL/A [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: It slices, it dices...
Summary: 5 Stars
The diminutive Airport Express is an amazing overachiever. It does:
1) connect to your stereo to play music from iTunes
2) connect to a (supported) USB printer to serve as a wireless print server
3) serve as a convenient, take-everywhere wireless router
4) extend the wireless range of some WDS-compatible wireless routers (such as Apple's recent Airport "flying saucer" routers)
That's quite a lot, and the most surprising thing is that it does them all quite well.
I mainly use mine to play music from my computer onto my main stereo system. It couldn't be easier to use: from any computer in the house, launch iTunes, select the Airport Express (instead of "Computer") for output, and from then on the music you play on iTunes plays on your stereo instead, with zero loss of quality. This applies not only to MP3 or AAC music (including tunes purchased from the iTunes Music Store) but also to internet radio and even music CDs played straight from the drive.
Most networked music players either have some sort of display (such as the Squeezebox and the Roku Soundbridge which are also great products, and the Netgear and Linksys boxes, which aren't) -- or they rely on a video interface (Roku media box, Happauge MVP, etc...). The unique design of the Airport Express is that it places the user interface on the computer and pushes the music to the receiver, instead of giving the receiver a user interface allowing the user to pull music from the server. All in all, the Roku Soundbridge and the Squeezebox are probably better products if all you want is a network music player. They're also much more expensive. But if you don't mind going to your computer to select music, the Airport Express is very compelling with its reach feature set, very high quality and reliability, and inexpensive price.
Customer Review: Best way to spread music throughout your House!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've got a wireless network setup in my home and 2 Airport Express base stations which reside as clients on the network just as my computers and my iphone do. They are assigned an IP address just like any other client on your wireless network but a technology known as Bonjour allows iTunes to discover the Airport Express base stations and provide you with sound output options in a pop-up menu that appears in the lower right of the iTunes application window when Airport Express or Apple Tv's are detected on the network. The pop-up menu will give you the option of routing the sound output of iTunes to either of my Airport Express's or the computer or all three at once!! So, I stream music to my Livingroom, play it through the speakers attached to the computer in the office and also to a small Onkyo executive stereo in the Master Bedroom. Filling my entire home with music. I so love this device.
One word of advice if your an audio purist like me... The audio connector on the Airport Express is a combination analog & optical digital connector. Meaning, you can connect a standard 1/8" stereo pin to Y RCA connectors for both left and right or you can connect a fiber optic cable from the Airport Express to your stereo receiver. The difference is with a analog connection you are using the digital to analog converter built into the Airport Express, with the fiber optic connection the Digital Analog conversion is done in your Stereo receiver where the DA converters are most likely to be of a higher grade. Believe me when I made the switch from Analog to digital the difference was quite noticable. You'll need a mini to toslink adapter and then a toslink (optical cable) to connect the ap express to your receiver. I found both the adapter and cable available elsewhere on Amazon for < $5
Customer Review: Combined With Airfoil, a complete solution
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my second Apple product - ever. The reason I got it was that my first Apple product was an iPod, and I fell in love in iTunes at the same time. Before this I was a Windows user, then a Linux user, and finally back to being a Windows user just a few months ago. With that out of the way, here is my experience with the Airport Express( APX ).
This product was very easy to setup. I installed the latest Airport management software and then turned on the APX. The software discovered it almost immediately, and I elected to add it to my current network( 11g Wireless using WAP2 security, with a hacked Linksys WRT54GL as my AP ). It was intuitive to set up, with my configuring the network name, security type, passkey, and admin password and then rebooting it. After the LED on the APX turned green, iTunes immediately located it an I was able to select it an output device in adddition to the computer iTunes ran on.
That is the basic configuration in a nutshell, if you are only using it to stream audio. It can do a lot more, but I haven't used other features such as WAP and WDS.
In addition, I installed Airfoil application so that I could direct sound from other applications ( Windows Media Player, VLC, Winamp, etc ) to the APX as use them as much as I do iTunes.
It is good to have a high quality access point device so that the APX has a good connection. The WRT54GL can run the DD-WRT ( and other ) custom firmware that let you boost the wireless signal many times the maximum strength of the default firmware, which I had to do to keep my microwave from making my wireless network unusable.
At the time of this post, the price for the APX had dropped from $129 to $99, with means I will be getting another one soon. :)
Customer Review: excellent product, setup requires some knowledge
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent product that works extremely well. Combined with iTunes it is really amazing. I set this up in my living room and hooked it up to surround sound speakers. Now my roommates and I are able to stream audio to the speakers without ever moving our computers or any connection cables. In addition, iTunes allows you to play music that others share on the same subnet. So I was able to easily stream audio from a friend's apartment 18 floors above me to my computer (in my bedroom) and then to the speakers in the living room. I think this is really cool. Without this product each of us would have to run a wire from our bedroom to the living room speakers. And this probably wouldn't even work because of signal loss. I highly recommend purchasing this product.
That said, there are some issues with setup. Some of which require some knowledge of networks and others are just common sense. For example, I originally placed the unit behind the tv and subwoofer (this is where the plug was) and I was constantly loosing the connection. You need to move the unit to a better location that is higher, unobstructed, and not too close to other routers (these can interfere with each other when too close). Also, if you are connecting to the unit wirelessly then make sure to enable DHCP using the admin utility. Finally, if your computer and the router are on the same subnet then you can connect over the ethernet (not wirelessly). You can enable this in the music tab on the admin utility. If you have a desktop that you're not going to move then this is a great idea because you do not need to worry about signal strength or dropped connections in a wired environment.
Overall an excellent product.
Customer Review: Very tough set-up; works great, now
Summary: 5 Stars
This product does work quite well once going. Actually I am pretty thrilled with it. However, I did spend about nine hours trying to get it to work before it finally did.
Here's my set up: Windows XP with a SBC 2WIRE wireless Homeportal. Apparently, 2WIRE modems are notoriously onerous to get to jive with AirPort Express.
Since there are tons of threads on how to set up using Windows, I am writing here for the benefit of those who have followed these threads' instructions and still are having problems. BTW, I am using the AirPort for purposes of sending tunes to my stereo and not for the wireless network, which already exists. What I did not understand at first is that when entering my security code (i.e., firewall), that the 64-bit encryption my network uses is the same as the 40-bit WEP in the security drop-down box. That being said, the big problem getting the AirPort to work had to do with the fact that for whatever reason with 2WIRE it is necessary to put a $ in front of the ten digit code, otherwise it won't work -- at least with mine it didn't. So if you have a similiar set up, this might be helpful. I had to default-reset the AirPort about fifteen times (unplug; hold down button with a paperclip and plug into outlet while continuing to hold button until, after 20 secs. or so, it flashes green four times). Finally I called Apple Support (they were awesome) and they figured it out. Aside from adding the $, I had followed the other threads instructions exactly, and those instructions were correct. Anyhow, that's my story. And the moral is, if all else fails, call Apple. This AirPort is a thing of beauty.