Wednesday, September 2, 2009

AirPort Express Option (instead of Sonos)

In this previous post, I listed some options in lieu of spending relatively big money on a Sonos system.

Now I found another option.

If you have an Apple AirPort Express you can connect it to your AirPort Extreme Base Station. Now from your computer, you can control each of the AirPort Express devices and which music plays to each of them. Plus, there's an iPhone or iPod touch app (for free of course) that allows you to remotely access your iTunes library and control all AirPort Express devices. You can also simultaneously play the same music file through all speakers.

I think the only downside I see is that your computer needs to be on the entire time. With Sonos, your computer can be off because the files are on a network-attached drive.

At right around $100 each, you can fairly inexpensively "pipe" music into other rooms. There are no built-in speakers and you will need to connect the "Audio out" jack to some sort of amplifier/speaker system.

Just a brief search revealed that some have technical difficulties trying to connect their AirPort Express with non-Apple routers.


Click here to go to Apple's site for more information about AirTunes and this functionality.

Click here to view Apple's video tutorial on how to set this up with either a Mac OS or a Windows computer and also how to use iPod touch or iPhone as the remote.

No comments:

Post a Comment