Wireless Music. Airport Express??

[lyndeam]

I'm thinking about getting an Airport Express to play my music from my laptop, usually in our bedroom, from our stereo speakers in the living room.

From my understanding and what i've read I know this can play your iTunes library but can it play internet radio like pandora or slacker remotely?

I currently have a wireless network with 1 PC and 1 MAC. I would like to play music from my laptop in another room from the main stereo system but I would like to have the ability to play slacker and such.
Can this be done with the Airport Express? suggestions?

Thanks!!

 

[RMo]

You are correct that, officially, AirTunes (the feature you're talking about) works only with audio that originates from iTunes. However, a Web search will reveal some unofficial options, with one of the most popular being AirFoil. It is available for both Windows and OS X. If you search you can find a few more, like oAEP and probably others.

I haven't used any of these (I have an AirPort Extreme Base Station and this is one thing it cannot do), but hopefully it works well, or perhaps others will have some more ideas. Good luck!

 

[waw74]

i use airfoil, the 2 biggest issues with it are...

**there is a delay (caused by buffering), so if you hit pause or change tracks, it takes 2 to 3 seconds to get to the speakers. There is a delay when using airTunes with iTunes, but the interface matches up to whats coming out.

** the audio from airfoil doesn't appear to be as "in sync" as with airtunes. It's not bad, but i can hear more than one set of speakers from a given spot in my house, and i get a bit of an echo effect when using airfoil.


with airtunes you can only play out of the speakers on the computer that Itunes is on, and from the expresses

with airfoil, you can choose a program to send audio from, or take the whole system audio from a mac or pc, and it will come out of any mac, pc, linux, airport express, iPhone, or iPod touch.


in my house, i've got 2 expresses, a mac mini connected to the stereo in the living room, and an old iphone (with broken but semi-functional screen) in a set of speakers. I routinely play music from my laptop out of most of there.

 

[lyndeam]

Thanks for both of your responses. AirFoil sounds to be the missing link I will need once I have gotten the airport express.

waw74: The 2 issues you addressed I shouldn't have any problems with. I'm usually good about letting my the radio run continuously and do not do much skipping around. And I only have one set of stereo speakers so I wouldn't have to worry about any echo effects.

Both of you have giving me the information I was looking for. THANKS!!!

 

[rkdiddy]

I'm not sure if AirFoil is compatible, but I use my iTouch in conjunction with iTunes to control my songs. It is a very slick program that even shows you the album artwork and allows you to change playlists, songs and even adjust the volume.