I am looking to start to build a decent wireless home audio setup. I know the Sonos system is pretty nice but I can't justify the price when I already have some quality speakers that are already paid for and they will blow away that $500 box that Sonos expects us to buy. So far I have a small amp coming from the US to power some Axiom M3Ti's I have just sitting around and this will go in a large bedroom. If I am happy with the performance I may order a larger amp to drive some ProAc towers in the living space and perhaps finally another small setup for my son's room. My question relates to the best hardware on the computer end to accomplish this feat. Would I be OK with just getting an Airport Express for each room and just use the wireless router I have now? Would I be better off with the Airport Extreme Router and ditch the one I currently use? My last question involves streaming of different audio to different rooms, I know iTunes on a Mac won't allow multiple streams but with two Macs in the house, and a PC could I not tell a system to play its content to only one Express unit and have the other source feed a different Express unit? The ability to stream different music to different rooms is a very important feature I would like and was the only redeeming feature I found for the Sonos setup.

Thanks for your help,

Pat.

My recommendation is to use the Airport express units in places where you can't have a video monitor and just use your iPad/iPhone/iPods as remotes. If you can have a monitor then I'd say get an AppleTV instead as it will give you access to a very nice interface and the ability to view photo's and movies etc as well.

Also if you really care about high end audio you might consider looking at buying an external DAC to take the optical feed from either the Express or AppleTV and convert to analog...assuming you are running it straight into an amplifier and not a receiver that would have its own DAC.

Thanks for the reply Andrew. I am trying to figure out the setup you mention I have an apple tv 2 already in two rooms of my home and I can stream audio through my LCD TV bug the sound quality is lacking to say the least The amp I have coming will just use the audio out jack to feed this small unit attached to bookshelf speakers. If the extra cost is worth it I may consider a better amp with built in DAC to feed the big speakers.

Pat

As you suggested, you will be able to stream different music to each Airport Express unit, providing you have have a different computer to feed each one.

I'd recommend getting the Airport Express units first. Then If you find your central router isn't up to the task of streaming multiple feeds to multiple units (stutters, unexplained stops, etc) get an Airport Extreme. They are rock solid and fast.

I really like the fact that the Airport Express has that combo optical/analog plug, so if you decide to go with a DAC, you can simply get a spdif cable for pristine audio.

I just wish I could find a small amp/dac for an inexpensive price, I don't want the hassle of a large receiver or multiple boxes to decode the digital stream back to analog.

Pat.

I use a small digital amp that uses the tripath chip. They can be bought on eBay or amazon cheap and they are pretty good value for this application. I wouldn't try to power a large tower speaker with them but small bookshelf speakers work very well (I use Energy Encore's).

Having a DAC would improve the sound quality but it isn't going to be a big difference unless you are using much better then average gear and are critically listening...ie dedicated music setup.

Here's my setup to give you an idea of what you might want to do.

Kitchen
iMac with my digital amp and a pair of Energy Encore speakers. From here I can listen to any music in my shared iTunes library or watch movies etc on the iMac screen.

Livingroom
An old airport Express with a set of computer speakers plugged in. We rarely use this setup but it can provide background music as needed from any computer or iPad/iPod/iPhone in the house using AirTunes

TV room
Here's the big system that has the AppleTV plugged into an AV receiver and a large flat panel TV. This gets used mostly for movies/TV shows from iTunes but it also can act as an AirPlay device so like the livingroom we can play content from the iDevices or directly from iTunes etc. Having the AppleTV obviously gives us the remote control as well which is handy for guests to use (ie babysitter etc)

Might be too late if you've already ordered your amp, but just in case you hadn't thought of it, it's great to get an amp that automatically "sleeps" when there is no audio input detected. I ordered an amp with this feature and it sits in a cupboard attached to an airport express. It powers up when I send audio to it and powers down after a bit of inactivity, so I don't need to worry about it at all.

Might be too late if you've already ordered your amp, but just in case you hadn't thought of it, it's great to get an amp that automatically "sleeps" when there is no audio input detected. I ordered an amp with this feature and it sits in a cupboard attached to an airport express. It powers up when I send audio to it and powers down after a bit of inactivity, so I don't need to worry about it at all.

neat! could you let me know what amp it is that "sleeps". Thanks

neat! could you let me know what amp it is that "sleeps". Thanks

I got this one from Tiger Direct (but I see that it's at a bunch of places so shop around):

AudioSource AMP102 2-Channel Stereo 50Watt Power Amp

It did exactly what I wanted and is relatively inexpensive. I have two bookshelf speakers mounted in my kitchen and (soon) will have two in the living room - I can select between these two outputs.

As I said, it is connected to an airport express, so any of us can stream from our iPads / iPhones to the amp. And after a period of inactivity, it goes to standby.

Another great feature is the priority switching. I have a 1/8" stereo jack connected to the 2nd inputs - if someone is in the house and doesn't have an iOS device or doesn't have access to the wireless network, they can simply connect the 1/8" jack to their device (say an iPod Touch) and it will automatically switch to that input.

All in all a pretty good solution for a kitchen / living room system at a decent price.