[CUBE] Fill my house with good music...

[Chris Weiss]

atoa at krak.net wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 8 Aug 2004, Chris Weiss wrote:
>
>> atoa at krak.net wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 7 Aug 2004, Chris Weiss wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mark Plunkett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Sorry Guys I guess I just don't keep up with things. Thanks in 
>>>>> advance for the help.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> O.K. so I need Airport express...
>>>>>
>>>>> Plus and Airport Card for my cube.
>>>>>
>>>>> Plus an Airport card for my iBook 500G3
>>>>>
>>>>> Plus an airport card for my kids iMacDV 400G3 (runs OS9 though). 
>>>>> How do I max the RAM on this girl?
>>>>>
>>>>> Sounds Great. What model Airport Cards do I need?
>>>>>
>>>>> Should I call OWC?
>>>>>
>>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Actually, all you really _need_ to listen to music anywhere is the 
>>>> wireless card in whatever machine you want to control iTunes with 
>>>> and the Airport Express near the stereo you want to pipe the music to.
>>>> That said, an iBook without wifi is rather like a Sundae without 
>>>> chocolate - you're missing the best part of a laptop!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You don't even need that. You do need _some_ wireless transmitter 
>>> connected to the computer that you are streaming from, but it 
>>> doesn't need to be internal. You'll get better throughput with a 
>>> third-party 11g unit,
>>> and probably better range, as well. And for less money, if you shop 
>>> wisely.
>>>
>> Two caveats there:
>> With the Cube, you're pretty much stuck. All of the 802.11g USB 
>> adapters I've seen require USB 2.0. The Cube only has USB 1.0. I have 
>> yet to see a Firewire<->802.11g adapter.
>
>
> Why not just plug the WAP into the ethernet port? It works fine that 
> way with my original Airport Base Station, though I'm streaming to 
> another Mac, not an Airport Express.
>
When you say streaming to another Mac, do you mean you're sharing your 
iTunes library, or something else?

>> I'm pretty sure that the Airport Express plugin for iTunes only 
>> supports Apple's official 'Airport' solutions on the Mac. It _might_ 
>> work with a USB or PC-Card solution, but I wouldn't bet on it - shop 
>> for a liberal return policy as well as a good price :)
>>
> That I didn't know, if true. The Airport Express site gives one the 
> opposite impression:
>
> " Accessing the wireless network requires an AirPort or AirPort 
> Extreme enabled computer or Wi-Fi-certified 802.11b or 802.11g computer."
>
> I'd think they would need to go out of their way to make it work only 
> with Apple wireless devices.
>
This _IS_ Apple we're talking about :) I'd be very curious to see if 
people can get the plugin to work with non-internal airport hardware. 
That'd be great news.

>> I am disappointed that the iTunes plugin _requires_ wireless access 
>> to send the music signal. If anyone knows of a workaround for this, 
>> I'd love to hear it.
>>
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do, here. Streaming 
> to wiredly connected computer is easy.

My goal (like Mark, who started this whole thread) is to be able to play 
my iTunes library on my stereo systems in other parts of the house. 
Preferrably without having to hook up a computer next to the stereo 
system to do it. I already have Cat5 next to the stereo locations, so 
wireless is not a requirement, just a nice benefit. The Airport Express 
seemed like the perfect solution - very small, understands the iTunes 
format, supports digital out in case the onboard D/A converter is 
complete crap, is a wireless access point on the side, and does WDS 
(using multiple units to increase wifi coverage). Alas, my wifi 
reception is good enough for surfing and email, just not quite good 
enough for streaming (this is from an 802.11b Cube, not 802.11g), so the 
option to use wires to get around the bandwidth issues would have been 
really nice.

Of course, I'm just guessing it's a bandwidth issues - Some things I'm 
trying are getting the results I expected.