MediaMonkey: Remote Speaker Output vs. Airfoil?

[dongna]

I have settled, for the time being, on using MediaMonkey streaming (wired) to an Airport Express feeding into my amp (an external DAC is warming up in the bullpen, but not in the game just yet).

 

For the past week, I have been playing around using this setup with Eric Mille's Remote Speakers plugin. Just as I was about to pull the trigger on registering this plugin, I was made aware of a product called Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba which is supposed to accomplish the same thing. I have not even downloaded this yet, but before I distrupt my setup, can anyone tell me if there is any sound quality differences between these two options?

 

[iamimdoc]

I could not comment about sound comparison except to say that I could never get various versions of Airfoil to work - would drop the signal even on AE 15 feet from an Airport Extreme very 1-5 minutes. This was in 2008.

 

Developer was helpful and tried many times to get it to work. I eventually gave up even though I bought a lifetime license.

 

On the other hand, RSO has always worked flawlessly for me with up to 3 AE's going at once, never drops out and sounds OK. This is wireless. It also works with Melloware's product for remote control from an Iphone or Itouch.

 

Both products compress any file into the compressed Apple format (ALAC I think) and the AE uncompresses at the other end (if this bothers you).

 

[dongna]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't get Airfoil to work reliably.

 

After messing around for a couple of weeks with both MediaMonkey/RSO and iTunes, I eventually decided to use the latter. The whole setup-- iTunes outputting to the Airport Express and controlled by Remote from my iTouch-- just works.