Airport Express "local clock" issue?

It seems your DAC is "slow to lift mute" from a no signal condition. To determine if it's your DAC or if it's the AE/Mac combo moving betwee songs, enable crossfading or whatever it's called. This way the "song" never ends, it fades in to the next song.

If the music never stops, then it's your DAC. If the music pauses between songs anyway, then it's the AE/Mac combo not being able to move from one song to the next, but that's highly unlikely.

Good excuse to grab a new DAC!

It is definitely the dac. I have had this problem with more than just the AE. Using my blu-Ray player as a transport results in the same delay. I am very interested in the Cambridge dacmagic as a solution, because I would like the two switchable inputs. Any other dac I should be considering that has two optical inputs?

Personally, I use a Benchmark DAC1 and I'm pretty happy with it. It doesn't have the local clock issue and plays the AE perfectly. That's actually the way I listen to music most of the time.

This is late, but try this download from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL973

I found this in the mac users forum for problems relating to pauses, skips, fadeouts relating to using the optical out from the AE to a DAC using Airfoil. I have not tried it yet, but have downloaded and ran the program.

Vinny

Several questions:
Does the upgrade for the AE help its clocking?
What is Airfoil?
I just use whatever my Imac comes with to talk to the AE. When trying this, I don't know if you'd call it a dropout or not, but the music would get very 'glassy' and harsh. just for a few seconds, and not regularly. My DAC was losing lock, according to what I could find out.

Is the upgrade for me? The idea of all my CDs on confuser, wireless to stereo and a decent DAC is too good to give up!