Airtunes dropouts with Mac mini to Airport Express

7 Wireless Router Problems And How To Solve Them

Notable quote:

Most routers work on the 2.5GHz band. So do Microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, baby monitors, and some other electronic devices. Have you added anything to the environment recently that works on the 2.5GHz band -- just about when the problem started? If so, turn it off and see if there's an improvement.

If that's not an issue, keep in mind that the 2.5GHz band has only three real channels (1, 6, 11) despite pretending to have eleven (the others overlap with each other).

Correction, I use the mini-Toslink to a PS Audio DL3 Dac, not the mini-jack (analog).

Edo_musica,
When you run itunes for your main audio system or office system, can somebody use the computer (mac) for movies with sound coming thru the computer? Therefore the mac would be real multitasking.

If I run ethernet from my mac mini to my airport express, i can hook the toslink from the airport to the DAC. Will this work?

I have been using an AE for a couple of years now linked with my netgear wireless router...... I do get an occasional drop-out but nothing major probably once a month or so........ I also think it is a great device especially for internet radio for background listening....... have considered buying a DAC and by-passing the AE DAC ...... not sure how much improvement I would realize ....... might try a PS Audio DAC as thay provide a 30 day free trial......

04-26-09: Jeanluc07
Edo_musica,
When you run itunes for your main audio system or office system, can somebody use the computer (mac) for movies with sound coming thru the computer? Therefore the mac would be real multitasking.

Sure you can run anything you want along with itunes playing. The processing resources are there. but you cannot dicate where the audio is sent for each app. All audio goes to the same output. For instance, I can have iTunes running and Pandora running and the audio from both overlap one another. I don't know of a way to send Browser or DVD player audio to output A and iTunes audio to output B. It would be awesome to be able to route the audio to different outputs!

04-26-09: Jeanluc07
If I run ethernet from my mac mini to my airport express, i can hook the toslink from the airport to the DAC. Will this work?

I haven't seen that done.

BTW, I also have a 9ft Toslink cable from my computer to my AVR receiver as a alternative/backup. Sounds OK, but obviously using the AVR's DAC.

Update:
I changed my router channel to an un-used channel. So far for 2 hour, no dropouts yet. This is an improvement but I dont know how long it will last since wireless is a trickery thing. Mean while I will continue to work (or think about) making the set-up wired (instead of wireless).

Dropouts are UN-ACCEPTABLE for serious listening (for me).
Cheers,