Airport Express with AirTunes
Nothing but Problems - It just does not work! Airport Express


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2004 Aug 11th..   I just bought an Airport Express with AirTunes, and connected it to my existing 802.11g wireless network.    My home network uses WPA encryption and the main wireless access point is a LinkSys WAP54G (firmware: v1.08, Aug 05, 2003)

I ran into the same problem with audio-dropouts, which some users of 802.11b equipment were reporting here , although I use interference robustness

I also noticed a couple of other problems with the Airport Express..

  1. The Apple running iTunes has to be on the same subnet as the the "remote apple speakers" (aka the Airport Express)   If your Apple is on a separate subnet,  you can not see the "remote speakers"  ... duh!

  2. On the bottom right of the iTunes window you can make the selection if you want to play the songs on your computer or on some remote speakers..  but not both at the same time, nor can you drive multiple Airport Extreme's at the same time with the same audio content... duh!
    They really need to enhance this, to make it more usable..

  3. In the setup utility it wasn't straight forward to join a WPA encrypted network which doesn't broadcast it's SSID, nor could I figure out how to extend the network in this case.
    The only option seems to be to set up the Airport Express with the Airport Admin Utility, which doesn't give the option to "extend" the network..
    I looked in the manual and there it says that the functionality for extending the network is not supported if one uses WPA encryption... it only works with WEP or no encryption... duh!
    The installer and the Airport Admin Utility need fixing/enhancements.. I would love to login to the Airport Extreme instead and do everything in UNIX! ;-)

  4. Apparently Apple uses it's own format to compress and stream the audio from iTunes to the Airport Express... this means you can't play a song from your LINUX box, and as my Powerbook has to be on the same wireless network to access the Airport Express "speakers" , I waste bandwidth.. e.g.: 
        Apple Powerbook -->  BaseStation --> Airport Express --> Speakers
    ... whereas I would sometimes rather connect my Powerbook to the ethernet..

  5. Another thing i noticed in the setup is that I can connect wirelesly to my existing 802.11g network, but then I don't have any options in the Airport Admin Utility on how to use the built-in ethernet port.. e.g. if I want to connect other equipment there or not.. Have to play more with that..

  6. Last not least I had a real issue with my PowerBook loosing the wireless connection after a couple of minutes.. that was very annoying, and in the beginning I wasn't sure if it was the combination of the 802.11g equipment.. but after a reboot the problem subsided..

I tried a couple of things to get this to work:

  1. I disconnected and powered-off my cordless phone .. just a slight improvement.. still a lot of drop-outs!  and my PowerBook lost the wireless connection again..

  2. I set my LinkSys WAP54G to 802.11g only .. and it didn't change a thing!!  still plenty of drop-outs.. ! 

  3. Finally, after one final reboot® of my PowerBook,  it worked much better.. but there are still some audio drop-outs..

The main issue was that my LinkSys WAP54G was set to "mixed" 802.11g/802.11b mode... but it still doesn't work correctly...

 

CONCLUSION: It just does not work!

Main Problems:

What is the real problem here? What does the user want to do?

The user wants to listen and enjoy his/her music on some remote speakers.. and the only way to do this in an enjoyable way is if there are no interruptions!

Apparently the Airport with Airtunes is not fit for solving this problem! Apple doesn't seem to care if users already have existing 802.11 basestations, and if they want to keep using them... Well, after some more trying and experimenting, I finally brought back the Airport Express..

IMHO streaming audio over the limited bandwidth of a 802.11 network is just not the smartest thing to do.. especially as the continuous transmission of packets is critical to the functionality, and the RAM-buffer in the Airport Express seems just too limited/small to guarantee un-interrupted audio playback.. Connecting an iPod to the stereo and remote-controlling it might be the better solution..

Other solutions to this problem which would work better include:

Any of the above would work to play the music without interruption... but Airpot Express with Airtunes does not solve the problem!