Apple Remote, Airport and other oddities

[rockrabbit]

Greetings,

 

First off, this is simple a wonderful place for a music server neophyte to discover. Many thanks to the head man for creating this!

 

So here was my plan.

 

Get an Apple TV

Transfer my music to it

(turn off my computer)

Get an Ipod Touch, install remote

Optical out into my DAC

 

and ta da... music server...

 

but wait, I've been reading the forums and see this option, and I'm not sure I'm reading this right..

 

 

Get and Airport Express

Connect a NAS (with all my music on it) to the Airport

Run the optical out (via a mini adapter) to my DAC

Get an Ipod Touch, install remote

 

um.. thought itunes had to be up and running... so for this system the computer would be streaming the audio... right?

 

Thanks

 

Drew

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hey hey Drew - Welcome to Computer Audiophile and thanks for the kind words about the site.

 

You pretty much have this stuff down. Your first option certainly works like a charm. In addition to synchronizing your library on to the AppleTV you can connect to another library or two and it works the same. The only is the computer must be on to connect to the other non-synchronized libraries.

 

Your second option does require the computer to be on just as you suspected. I think the term Airport and Airport Express and Airport Extreme can be mistakenly interchanged easily. You can stream your music from the computer to an Airport Express and then Toslink to your DAC. You can connect a hard drive to an Airport Extreme which turns the disk into a NAS drive and connects to your computer.

 

As you said it goes like this: NAS >> Airport Extreme >> Computer >> Airport Express >> Toslink >> DAC

 

Let me know if this raises more questions. I think you already get it though :-)

 

[rockrabbit]

You Rock!

 

Will post a pic of my baby audiophile system once I pay off the Bryston BDA-1 I ordered today!

 

AudioQuest Optilink-5 - check

BDA-1 - check

AppleTV - to do

Ipod Touch - to do

 

[user34]

Ok,

 

I've just had my eyes opened to the possibilities of a mac based hifi system. My current situation is MacMini streaming to Airport Express toslinked to a Dac and into my normal system. Storage is a Lacie 250Gb USB hard drive. I have about 100Gb of ALAC files.

 

I know I need a backup to this drive, but, for the moment, almost all the content is from my own CDs. So I have Physical back up.

 

I'm considering a Time Capsule as a backup and as Router. If I understand correctly I can attach the Lacie disk to the USB point and now my Lacie is a NAS ? I just bought an iPod touch, can I access the NAS from the touch, if I do this?

 

I'm working on integrating my Hifi rig and my TV rig, which are currently in separate rooms but will be physically in the same room in a month or two. With my current stock of ALAC files iTunes could sync with an appleTV, and appleTV would offer a good interface via the Telly, yes ?

 

I'm still on Tiger, and wondering if it was worth spending the 129€ for Leopard, the only advantage I can readily see is the Time Machine functinality. Anything else ?

 

regards

 

Peter

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Peter - Welcome to Computer Audiophile. You certainly can attache a LaCie USB drive to the TC and it becomes a NAS drive accessible from anywhere on your network. I'm not totally sure what you mean by accessing the NAS from your iPod Touch. The iPod Touch doesn't access music directly, it uses iTunes and controls the application. Apple TV is a pretty nice interface. I find it a little hard to navigate if you have over 1000 albums. The scrolling feature is very fast but is still cumbersome. For video I love the Apple TV.

 

I really like Leopard and can't even remember much about Tiger to be honest! If you don't see any features you must have then you'll fine without upgrading.

 

Let me know how I can help with anything else.

 

[user34]

Chris,

 

One day at a time :-) Only just cottoned to the possibilities of using a mac as a music playback machine. I think that, since iPod touch will control iTunes directly, there's not really a need for me to have a NAS.

 

The computer and it's ancilleries will always be in a different room to the main system. Once I get the TV in the main system, I don't see me taking a longtime to get an apple TV. This means I won't have to have the computer on to listen to music, a touch will also control this so I don't have to wait till I connect it to the TV.

 

Will the appleTV output a bit stream at higher than 44.1khz/16 bit resoltion ?

 

But I think I need more and safer storage. So I'm starting to read up on a Drobo. Looks like the most open ended way forward, it's compatible with Time machine on Leopard.

 

Thanks

 

Peter

 

[user34]

I have an airport express that I use to stream iTunes to my main rig. It shows up on the Airport menu as a "base station".

 

The internet connection to my macmini is ethernet wired from the Cable Modem (there are spare outputs on the modem, IIRC).

 

I have just acquired and iPod touch and wish to use the "remote" application to pilot iTunes from the potato patch.

 

Last night I found I couldn't share the internet connection on the mac mini with the ipod touch, and stream iTunes to the airport express.

 

The mac is in the study, the airport express is in the lounge. The cable modem is in the study with the mac.

 

How can I setup the computer rig, so that I can share the internet connection and stream iTunes simultaneously ?

 

thanks

 

Peter

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Peter - If I understand you correctly this is a pretty easy thing to accomplish. The terminology used may cause a little confusion, but we'll get it figured out.

 

First, you don't need to share an Internet connection to use the Remote application.

 

I am guessing your Mini is really connected to two networks at the same time. The wired Ethernet connection goes to your cable modem and to the Internet with a public IP address. Your wireless card in the Mini is connected to the Airport Express with a private IP address. This is a little less than ideal, but let's make it work anyway.

 

You need to connect your iPod Touch via wireless to your Airport Express. So, the Mac Mini and the iPod Touch will be on the same network via wireless. Never mind the wired Ethernet connection for now. Your AE should be a DHCP server and hand out IP addresses. Once the Touch and the Mini are connected to the AE via wireless everything will work fine.

 

Have you enabled the Remote application to control the library? Connect the Touch to the Mini and be sure to fill out the little code when you click on the Remote icon in iTunes on the left side under Devices.

 

Let me know if this only confuses the situation. I'll be happy to help.

 

[user34]

Chris,

 

Thanks for the explanation, forgetting about internet, the remote application on the touch worked like a dream. I used it for the first time last night. Only thing I didn't like was, I couldn't get back to Party Shuffle after manually shifting to another artist.

 

I also figured out that I couldn't use the mac Mini as a base station, to allow the iPod touch to access the internet, and then have the mac Mini connect to another base station, the airport express, to have airtunes stream from the mac to the AE. I believe if my internet connection came into the AE then I'd have no problem, but physically that's not possible in my house, as yet.

 

regards

 

Peter

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Great to hear Peter.

 

All you need now is a cheap wireless router between your Mac Mini and your Internet connection. Then you'll be able to access the Internet from your iPod Touch.

 

 

 

[user34]

problem solved. I'm changing the cable modem for a cable modem/router from the ISP.

 

Thanks for all the help.

 

Now how to figure out how to set up a NAS with all that, I'm planning to use a mac mini, headless, on the main rig.

 

regards

 

Peter

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"Will the appleTV output a bit stream at higher than 44.1khz/16 bit resoltion ?"

 

So far my Apply TV is downsampling everything to 44.1 kHz, but it is playing native 16/44.1 tracks bit perfect. The sound is another thing altogether. Apple TV is not my favorite compared to the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC / Lynx combination :-)

 

[user34]

I think there's a 15x difference in price, that might accont for something ?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"I think there's a 15x difference in price, that might accont for something ?"

 

I love the comment!

 

[user34]

With respect to Drew's original query. The basic set up of iTunes/wifi/Airport Express/toslink/DAC/interconnect/audio system is a good one. I think that the choice of DAC is important. My experience is limited to the Beresford TC-7510 mk6/3. But I have reas much about the importance of reclocking the Airport Express output, it is not reputed for its jitter free output.

 

My audio rig is based on mid level Naim. I invested 150€ for the DAC/Toslink cable and about 60€ in the airport express. The CD player, at new prices, would cost about 8000€. From the first notes I was very impressed with the streaming solution. In isolation, I would not know which one is playing, although I'm sure, if I could be bothered, I could hear differences in A/B/A comparisons.

 

The Airport Express won't support a NAS, but an airport extreme or time capsule would., this is an additional expense. I think for getting the wrinkles out of the streaming solution the NAS is an unnecessary complication, better to use a hard drive attached directly to your mac.

 

The remote application is very nice on the iPod touch and has just gained in functionality in its 2.1 version. The iPod touch is a flexibel little beast :-)

 

Let us know how you get on.

 

Regards

 

Peter

 

[starcat]

Agreed on everything, except for AppleTV - the only reason why I would anytime prefer a MacMini instead of AppleTV is

1. being able to attach a firewire or USB externail digital I/O which is waaay better than the builtin optical

2. being able to play any HD audio files running any application (like Play and not only iTunes). However this would require a laptop running Remote Desktop to the playing Mini for control. Otherwise Remote is a must for controling regular iTunes (and it even can play HD media in the AIFF format).