Independent Airport for a subwoofer

[mosbrook]

I run NEAR M20 monitors with a powered subwoofer, which is quite a distance away from my main amp. I added an AirPort Express to the system from iTunes, and was blown away by the convienence. So I started adding AirPorts to secondary sytems throughout my house, when I got to thinking: what if I ran a seperate Airport through an inexpensive DAC to my main subwoofer in an effort to eliminate the 30 feet of RCA cable snaked around my livingroom.

 

My concern is that the two AirPorts running independently would not sync up perfectly, considering that they have independent clocking mechanisms. I ran a test running two AirPorts through two sytems in the same room, and they seemed to sync up pretty well. Plus, a slight miss in low bass would be less of a problem then higher range frequencies.

 

Any thoughts?

 

P.S. Chris, killer site.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi mosbrook - Thanks for the kind words. I think running two AEs in your configuration would be totally fine. I've had really good luck using a couple of these and having them 100% synchronized.

 

[souptin]

I'd suggest trying the built-in dac on the Airport Express first, before you go looking for another dac. For a couple of reasons:

 

1. The AEX seems to be less prone to dropouts and 're-bufferring' problems when using analog out from it's built in dac.

 

2. Subwoofer + power cable, + AEX + power cable + cable to subwoofer / external dac, + external dac + power cable + cables to AEX and subwoofer... Point being that although you're getting rid of one RCA cable going across your living room, you're replacing it with several platefuls of spaghetti next to your subwoofer.

 

I'd be interested to know just how well the bass integrates with the rest of the sound with this arrangement once you're had some time to listen to it properly.

 

[mosbrook]

Souptin, good thoughts. Thanks for the input. I was reluctant to use the Airport DAC, assuming that it was of about the same quality as an iPod, but you raise good points. I'll try it out and post results.