Suitable Replacement for AirPort Express (AirPlay)

Well now, my AirPort express seems to be giving me a bit of trouble and being from the Mac world, I'm a little stumped as to what would be a suitable replacement for an AirPort Express. I'm not after anything fancy, just needs to have one ethernet socket and an 3.5mm socket for my 2.1 speakers. Music needs to stream from my laptop through iTunes to this new magical device.

Sadly it seems that they tried to cram too much into my poor little AirPort Express and it just cannot keep up anymore.
Price range isn't too much of an issue as long as it does the job properly.
Does anyone have any suggestions? :loyal:

 

Another AirPort express.

 

Harsh but fair... :wink-new:
Doesn't the PC world have some sort of equal when it comes to this?
Who out there uses a PC and isn't buried in Mac junk?

 

The pc equal is an airport express lol.

It needs to work with iTunes, not "Windows" or "Mac"

 

Hahaha, yep I know what you are saying.
Name eight PC users that use an AirPort Express in a PC environment!
Go!

 

Sit in a runway. Might work

 

LOL! Now from this we can tell that you are a PC user! No idea what AirPort is! :tranquillity:

 

I know what airport is, I was mocking it's name

 

And I was doing the same! :wink-new: But gentlemen, this gets us no closer to the ultimate goal of music over the modem that doesn't drop like a turd.

 

I think some amplifiers/receivers have AirPlay support built-in. I couldn't tell you which ones, but it should be easy to obtain this information. They also make speakers and soundbars with integrated AirPlay.

 

But those dont have ethernet connection for extending your network

 

I think some of them have ethernet ports. They probably don't extend the wireless network, but I don't think RJ needed that feature, do you?

 

Seemed like it to me?

 

No interest in extending the network, I have a perfectly capable 802.11g network! :friendly_wink:

I've seen some of those AirPlay built in devices at the local shopping mall, but I love my current speakers!
They have the perfect balance of bass and treble! That's all I need! :topsy_turvy:

 

So why did you say you need ethernet? =/

But I dont think you will find something other than an airport express to meet your needs. Other units will be speakers with airplay, as mentioned above.

 

Ahhhh well, I tried. I made a thread and didn't have any luck!

Goes from laptop -> Router/Modem -> Speakers.
Too bad Apple refuse to stick an ADSL2+ modem in things.
Less devices = better! :loyal:

 

Which variant of the Airport Express do you have? The older ones used a somewhat under-powered 200MHz broadcom SoC, but the latest version has switched to a much faster (550MHz?) Atheros chip - if your Airport Express is the 802.11g only model, then you have the old one.

 

Nah I use a Netgear DG834G V5, rock solid. I was tired of having expensive modem / router combos that kept failing.
The DG834G was cheap and works well! :love-struck:

The AirPort Express has been used by itself, even as the WiFi part of the network with the DG834Gs WiFi disabled.
Still drops out or just completely disappears. I even had it replaced under warranty for that.
To answer your question though, it is a current generation AirPort Express.
It cost a few dollars more than my modem / router too! Hahaha! :congratulatory:

 

Make sure that the airport express is bound over Ethernet and not WiFi (using airport utility). Make sure the airport is plugged directly into the router that is serving your PC. Some people thing that they can have two routers to get more Ethernet ports, but it actually creates a double NAT. If you need more Ethernet ports, get s switch.

AirPlay is otherwise know as RTSP, it's just an apple specific implementation (just like everything else they make). RTSP transmits all data over UDP which works well but a lot of older routers have problems with this. Routers can pull some strange things to make life easier for the general public, a lot of them force local traffic to still pass through the router's rules even though it's unnecessary. Some firmware don't handle long UDP streams well, especially cheap netgear and belkin routers, i assume because most people don't use udp for anythings.

What you need to do is try to update your router to the latest firmware. If that doesn't fix it you may try to see if DD-WRT makes an image for your router. The only other option afterwards is get a new modem/router combo or go separate.

Also keep in mind that your existing router can only operate at a maximum of 54 megabits per second (6.75 megabytes per second). AirPlay will need roughly 300 kilobytes (0.3 megabytes) per second of bandwidth. That doesn't sound like much, but when you factor in all of your other wireless devices using some degree of bandwidth along with the signal strength of those devices (low signal strength will cause a computer to repeat wireless packets which slows everything down by consuming more bandwidth). If the device your trying to use airplay has log signal strength, it can also cause problems.

 

No more ports for me! Out of the four the Netgear has, two are occupied. Double NAT is not present check and check!

At least they are calling Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi now... baby steps! :friendly_wink:

Firmware is up to date on the modem side. DD-WRT... that rings a bell. Was that popular on Linksys / Cisco modems back in the day?
Doesn't look like it has my particular modem in there.

I don't have any wireless devices except the computer at the moment.

Thanks for your help! I'll poke around, maybe try out another router from a friend see if it makes any difference. Fingers crossed! :victorious: