wireless speakers - airport extreme question

[grahamtearne]

Hi, basically I would like to be able to hook my laptop up to some high quality speakers, i would like to hang them in my bedroom, the thing is my laptop is used in differenent places, sometimes i lie down in bed, sometimes on my desk etc and so i dont really want wired speakers.

I like to play my music load as I think it has more impact (for some songs at least) and my MacBook Pro just doesnt cut it at times.

I was looking at airport extreme, but I already have a wireless network and I am confused as to how I would be able to use this. My modem is on the other side of the house so thats where the router is. The airport extreme needs to be plugged into the speakers so its no where near the modem. Thing is I cannot connect to both my wireless network and the airport extreme at the same time can I? because it is only possible to join one network at a time right?

I hope you understand what I am asking, is it possible to use AE to use speakers wirelessly and stay connected to the net at the same time. Any alternatives to AE?

Thanks, Graham

 

[Dreadnought]

Yes you can. You can make the Airport Express as an extension to your existing network. Configure the AE so that your other router gives out the ip addresses and is the main, this is very easy is the setup tool. So you are on the same network and you can stream music.

 

[Atlasland]

Yes, I think so.

I looked into this myself a little while back. Basically you "Airport Express with Airtunes" - i.e. the latest version of Airport express. Then plug your speakers into that. Then make sure you speakers and the Airport expres are powered (i.e. plugged into the mains).

When you do this, iTunes will automatically recognise your speakers, and you can elect to play your music through those speakers. However this only works for iTunes.

If you want to use it for other sounds - i.e. movies, games, TV, system sounds, then you need to download & buy a program called "Airfoil" (google it). This will allow you to stream any sounds you want. However it should be noted that there is supposed to be a 2 - 3 second delay in the sound, so it is not great for playing games. Watching DVDs is okay if you use VLC (then stagger the video compared to the audio).

Hope this helps. I'm entirely sure on all of it - I decided against the wireless speaker idea in the end, because it was too complicated & I didn't like the idea of a 3 second delay. But hopefully someone can confirm/refute what I've said.


EDIT: Not sure I've entirley answered your question - but hope this helps anyway.

 

[grahamtearne]

thanks alot for the replies guys, between you both you have both answered my questions very well. I will be looking into this further as I have some very nice speakers that I would love to be able to use wirelessly for my music.

notes about the delay for games/movies is interesting but unlikely to affect me, only game i play on my mac (often anyway) doesnt even have sound (football manager). movie wise wouldnt be an issue either as i normally hook my ipod or laptop up to my tv for films.

thanks guys