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AirPlay system sound to multiple airport express

E

ea9

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 14, 2011
192
0
Hi guys ! I come with a difficult question !

Mac Mini 2014 and/or Macbook Pro retina 2014

Currently I can output music from iTunes to multiple airport expresses.

I would like to do the same from the OS Directly. (To play soundcloud music)
The only option I've found was to airplay the sound to 1 airport express at a time plus the built in output, wondering if there was a way to have multiple airports working together. (2 for the moment)

thanks in advance,
Hope i'm in the right section... not really sure where to ask this.
 
waw74 said:
https://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/

you can pick a particular app to send from or whole system audio

there is a slight delay, about 2 seconds, but only really noticeable when you stop or change tracks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I found another app called porthole. Seems to work pretty well, somewhat integrated into the OS which I like. But no option to send only one app. I'll look into it.

Should be a core system function :(

edit: thanks again for the reply
 
bubsdaddy said:
I would like to be able to do this from my iPhone
Click to expand...

airfoil also has a free companion app called airfoil speakers, you can set that as a target on your phone, and then set it as a source in airfoil.
so ...
iphone -> airfoil speakers -> airfoil -> all of your airplay devices.

there will be a bit of a delay when doing this, but for audio you probably won't notice.
 
waw74 said:
airfoil also has a free companion app called airfoil speakers, you can set that as a target on your phone, and then set it as a source in airfoil.
so ...
iphone -> airfoil speakers -> airfoil -> all of your airplay devices.

there will be a bit of a delay when doing this, but for audio you probably won't notice.
Click to expand...


The Airfoil speakers touch app receives sound from a desktop running airfoil. Can you explain how this works again?
 
bubsdaddy said:
The Airfoil speakers touch app receives sound from a desktop running airfoil. Can you explain how this works again?
Click to expand...
It's a bit convoluted and I always forget how it works myself, but that's Apple's fault.

The way it works is you have Airfoil and Airfoil Speakers apps running on your Mac and you have the Airfoil remote app on your iOS device.

On your iOS device, you Airplay your audio to your Mac. Then you open the Airfoil remote app on your iOS device, and it will list all the Airplay devices, which you can simply select which ones you want to use.

In summary, you are streaming audio from your iOS device to your Mac, and then using the Airfoil remote app on your iOS device to remote control Airfoil running on your Mac to stream that same audio from your Mac to other Airplay devices.

It does work pretty well, though there are the occasional hiccups with something not connecting on the first try, or something crashing. But once it's streaming, it sounds good.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the explanation and the link. The Airfoil Remote app ($4.99) gets pretty bad reviews and I still don't know if it would work with third party sound sources like Pandora or Spotify.
 
bubsdaddy said:
Thanks for the explanation and the link. The Airfoil Remote app ($4.99) gets pretty bad reviews and I still don't know if it would work with third party sound sources like Pandora or Spotify.
Click to expand...
If you are running both apps on the computer (Airfoil Speakers and Airfoil) any app will work with it. When you run AS (Airfoil Speakers) on your computer, it shows up on iOS with all of your apps in the Airplay selections in the Control Panel. You simply choose the computer, send audio to it, and then Airfoil sends that audio back out to multiple Airplay devices.

I haven't found the AFRemote app to be a turn it on and it just works all the time app. It will sometimes need to be started a couple of times to see Airfoil running on the computer. However, once you have it connected, it works great. You can select each individual speaker or all speakers with volume control of each. It also has basic control if you are running Spotify/Rdio on a computer.

(I want to mention that you don't need AFRemote at all to use Airfoil. It just gives you control of the speakers via your mobile device. You could use a program like Splashtop/TeamViewer/etc.. to just take control of your computer and make the selections that way, as well. Personally, I don't mind restarting the AFRemote app, so I use it on the rare occasion that I want all speakers playing at the same time with independent control of each speaker).

I haven't tried Airparrot, but I am going to look into it. It looks interesting.
 
Last edited:
I'm a huge Airplay and also Rouge Amoeba fan but Air Parrot looks interesting and I'll check it out.
I have a Yamaha receiver with Airplay built in with an Apple TV connected to the receiver as well as a Roku 3 and Blu-Ray player. I also have Airplay on a set of powered Micca speakers in my bedroom and office. The Micca speakers are great sounding speakers for $99 and I have bought three of them to use as Airplay targets in addition to my home theater. Beats thee snot out of Sonos and its lower sound quality and many other limitations. Is sent all that stuff back in favor of Airplay with better sound, much more flexibility, at a much lower price.

Micca speakers. They are powered so you only have to connect an Airplay receiver of some sort to them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=13EJ5VFCWJVGKZCZRQJ1
 
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