![]() And it’s accidental, in the form of a product that is obsolete for almost a decade now! So, while lossless music was available for almost two years, I couldn’t benefit from it.Ĭut to a fortnight ago, when a discussion on one of the threads reminded me something that I already knew - that there is one way still to stream lossless wirelessly from handheld Apple device to the stereo system. But I don’t want to either tether my phone/tablet to the DAC, nor do I want to go to a computer to play music on my stereo system. An alternative was to play Apple Music from your MacBook and airplay to your streamer from the universal setting (and not the app). However, as we all know, Apple’s Airplay didn’t allow streaming lossless from handheld devices to your streamer/DAC. Now, I am quite invested in the Apple ecosystem even otherwise and this was a godsend. Alas Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon don’t seem to be interested in launching lossless in the big market that is India.īut meanwhile Apple took the initiative and launched lossless at Rs 99 pm. A couple of years ago I’d tried Tidal and Qobuz lossless, and knew it’s the way ahead. Over the years our appetite for resolution has been rising and though Spotify and YT satisfy most of my listening needs, the urge to stream lossless remained. It opened up many possibilities, the best of which were native play and internet radio. ![]() The Cambridge CXN 2, purchased over four years ago (and extensively reviewed by me in a thread) was a big step in this journey. Apple also still hasn't opened up iTunes' DRM to other audio-streaming hardware vendors, which means the AirPort Express and the Apple TV are still the only networking devices that can stream music from iTunes.īecause audio streaming is generally not that demanding on your networking bandwidth, the benefit of the AirPort Express's move to 802.11n feels like more of a "keeping up with the Joneses" kind of upgrade, although its wider bandwidth opens up the possibility for streaming high definition video smoothly across your network.As must be obvious from my posts that I am hugely into streaming music. It's no replacement for a dedicated music-streaming device such as Logitech's Squeezebox Duet, but if you're okay with playing DJ through the iTunes interface on your computer, the AirPort Express can provide a straightforward way to pipe music throughout your house. If you plug a set of speakers (or any audio output device) into the AirPort Express, you can then use any iTunes-equipped computer on the AirPort's network to stream music to that device. That audio out is one of the main features that the AirPort Express can hold over Apple's Time Capsule, the pricier AirPort Extreme Base Station, and indeed most other wireless routers. ![]() That's fine, since the AirPort Express isn't intended to accept any client systems wired directly to it. And where the others offer Gigabit Ethernet jacks, the AirPort Express also has only a single 10/100 Ethernet jack. The AirPort Express can support 10 simultaneous users, while the AirPort Extreme and the Time Capsule can both support up to 50. The AirPort Express is also the only one that won't support an external hard drive over the USB port, although like the others, it does support a USB printer over the network. All three are 802.11n capable, but the AirPort Express is the only one that offers built-in iTunes audio streaming over a direct connection. Although nothing aside from the networking standard has changed in the AirPort Express, with Apple's new Time Capsule and the older AirPort Extreme Base Station out there as well, it can't hurt to clarify the characteristics of Apple's family of networking products.
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