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Air Tunes is COOL!

S

Super20

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2004
204
1
Council Bluffs, IA
I had a big gift card to CompUSA and went in there to buy a wireless router for my home when I saw that they had the Air Tunes Express thing. I bought that and it ROCKS! I hooked it up to my cable modem and tested signal strength throught the whole house (1500 sq. ft) and not one problem. I even went outside into my 1300 sq foot cinder block garage and still didn't lose much signal. Went across the street...no problem. I'm sure I lose a little speed, but I'm not gaming online...only surfing the internet.
The only downfall is that, unlike more conventional and less expensive wireless routers, this only has one cable input. I guess I just need to make my desktop PC wireless so i don't have to worry about it. I'm also anxious to stream some music through to my stereo with it.
If you have the cash I would highly suggest one of these.
 
The tech director added a few AirPort Express Base Stations to our school wide wireless network to cover some low drain classrooms. Unfortunately, he forgot to disable AirTunes, and so ANY computer in the school that loads iTunes can 'see' the AEx stations as audio options. With one in the faculty lounge especially, this could make for some interesting pranks! :D


More on topic though, I'm glad to hear that it covers your 1500 sq.ft abode. That means that mine should do very well in my 650 sq.ft apartment this school year!
 
virividox said:
range looks good, is ur home made of wood or concrete?

my house is concrete with reinforced steel...so signal is crap in my place with other routers im curious if the airtunes has a stronger signal than their regular airport extreme base station
Click to expand...

imho, i have been comparing the ranges of the Airport Express I find the placement of the Airport Express is the most important. Considering there is no external Antenna the body is the antenna. Having the AExpress plugged into the wall works better than sitting flat on it's side with the extension cord. I will get the try it later in the week in a concrete house with lots of copper radiator pipes in it. That will be the real test of it.
 
superbovine said:
imho, i have been comparing the ranges of the Airport Express I find the placement of the Airport Express is the most important. Considering there is no external Antenna the body is the antenna. Having the AExpress plugged into the wall works better than sitting flat on it's side with the extension cord. I will get the try it later in the week in a concrete house with lots of copper radiator pipes in it. That will be the real test of it.
Click to expand...

Interesting!
I have mine plugged into a powerboard extension cord thingie... and only live in a two bedroom apartment... and get hit and miss signal strength in my bedroom?!?!!

Mmmm might experiment and try plugging it directly into the wall somehow. Only problem there is I don't have a wall powerpoint behind my home theatre setup... Mmm time to rethink.
 
oh cool.. I didnt really know that the coverage is so high with Airport Express since it doesnt have any antenna outside.. I'm buying one as soon as the shipment starts in Turkey..
 
Super20 said:
Went across the street...no problem.
Click to expand...

Just one note - good range is a blessing and a curse. If you can see it across the street, so can others who may be looking to pirate your bandwidth or see what's on your computer...

I realize that not everyone has this problem - but make sure you enable security both on your internal devices and on your router (MAC address filtering is a good one, as well as not publishing the SSID).

Otherwise, though, glad to hear it works so well. I've been expounding upon my Linksys in a bunch of posts, but the more I here about the Express, the more I like it. I may get it just to stream iTunes to my basement stereo, since I get crappy radio reception!
 
The nice thing about my neighborhood is I'm the only one within a mile that even has cable internet. It's available, just no one wants it or has the cash for it in my little area of town. PLUS...I have my connection pretty heavily firewalled anyway.
 
timsq said:
I can't believe that I enjoyed my compy and stereo before the AEx?!? Three big thumbs up for airTunes!!! :D
Click to expand...

man, you made me think where that third thumb came from.
 
I do like the Airport Express with Airtunes, but there is a feature I wish it did:

I wish it had the option to play out your Mac/PC speakers while it was streaming. It could use some kind of synchronization algorithms to make sure they started on time. I've seen other devices that do this. I want to be able to play the same music in my bedroom AND the living room.

Maybe an future update to iTunes or AE firmware (or both) will give us this.
 
Definitly I don't know what I did without my AirPort Express. I had been wanting to buy the Airport Extreme Basestation for a while but was turned off buy the $200 price tag. Because of my patient waiting I get the same features plus wireless audio streaming to my stereo for much less. I love walking around the house with my Powerbook and show people how I can surf the net, print, control my iMac with RemoteDesktop, and play music on my stereo, all without wires. :cool:
 
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