How to set up my Airport Express to use solely for Airplay

[kendo88]

I have had an airport express for quite a while now, which I bought just to use for airplay, but have never had it set up in an ideal way.

My problem is my music is always cutting out and and dropping.

My wireless set up is like this.

A cable router downstairs in the living room.
A airport express upstairs in my bedroom.

What I want to be doing is playing music from my iphone/ipad to my airport express. Obviously my iOS device will also be in my bedroom, only a few metres away from my airport express.

I just want to check I have it set up in the best/correct way.

I have my airport express joining my existing wireless network.

I would imagine the problem is that although my iphone is only a few metres from the airport express, to play music it has to send the signal from the phone, all of the way downstairs to my router, and from my router back to the airport express?

Is there anything I can do to improve the signal and stop the audio from dropping out?

Any help appreciated
Thanks

 

[mistercormell]

Hi there- I too am interested if this is the best set up as I'm in a similar situation, it does seem silly for your iPhone to have to communicate with your router downstairs to change the music via your AirPort express.

I have an AEBS (as my main router) whose signal can be extended by my airport express which means I'm not experiencing the 'drop-outs' you are but I doubt you can do this with a non-Apple router.

I'd be interested to hear what other people have to say about the ideal set up to avoid latency but I imagine you have two options:

1) If you don't care about internet access and just want airplay, you could create a separate standalone network on the airport express and get your iphone to join that network- that should work imo.

2) You could run an ethernet cable from your router to your airport express (probably impractical for you ) and extend the signal that way.

I wonder whether there are any better solutions??!

 

[HazyCloud]

Apple suggests setting up an Express as a client only to avoid dropouts. You do not want to be extending your network if you plan to use AirPlay on the Express. If you have a cable ran to it, then it doesn't really matter how you've set it up as hard-wired can handle it all.

Apple: Setting Express as client

If you have a 4S, you will be getting cutouts as there is a known issue with AirPlay to Expresses. My iPad 2 and iPhone 4 have zero issues while my 4S only plays for 10-20 before dropping.