Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bp1000

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 7, 2011
1,476
185
Currently i have my MBA hooked up to an external HDD which holds my itunes library.

When ever we wish to listen to music i have an airport express going into my DAC and amp.

Perfect for me, i can control it all with my iPhone/iPad, but my wife isn't happy, she wants a plug and play solution instead of relying on having the mac plugged in, turned on, itunes open and external HDD powered on and plugged in.


I had a couple of ideas

1) Will a Time Capsule talk directly to an airport Express without needing a mac, i think not from what ive read so far? Is there anything out there that will store music and talk to an airport express without the need for itunes and a mac?

2) Ideally we would like to have multiple speakers/docks around the house playing the same music in sync. Is this possible?
 

T5BRICK

macrumors G3
Aug 3, 2006
8,313
2,387
Oregon
I've heard that iOS 6 will allow the AppleTV to output to external devices such as the AirPort Express. This along with iTunes Match could solve your problem.
 

waw74

macrumors 601
May 27, 2008
4,668
938
1. you need a computer running itunes to send audio to an express.

2. iTunes will stream to multiple locations in sync, you can control volume for each location separately. this is accessible both from iTunes and the remote app. (you can try it now, using both the computer speakers and the express, it works the same way as it does with multiple airplay devices)
currently iOS devices will only stream to one location at a time, I'm not sure what iOS 6 will bring, I've also heard something about iOS 6 allowing the aTV to be an airplay source, don't remember where, and not sure how reliable that source was.


---
there are a couple options.

You could get a small PC, and leave it on all the time, wouldn't need to be too powerful if it's just running iTunes, even one with an atom processor would work.

get some sort of NAS (the time capsule would work) and put your music on that. would save the external drive plugged in an powered on part, but you would still need the computer on, running itunes, and connected to the network share.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.