Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with airtunes

Finicky Airport Devices

fantasticninety — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:10:37 -0800

Airtunes filter – Why are my iTunes speakers connected via Airport sometimes not recognised? I'm running iTunes 7 on OSX 10.4.11 and whenever I load iTunes it randomly chooses which speakers connected remotely to find.

I have four sets of speakers, all via airports, and it's just random how many it finds.

I'd love to find a fix to this which avoids upgrading to Leopard or getting iTunes 8 or whatever it is now.

Thanks so much!

Reverting to a previous version of iTunes?

rose selavy — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:49:25 -0800

How do I revert to a previous version of iTunes? Or just make the goddamn thing work with my Airport Express the way it did before one of their recent updates? Since upgrading to the newest version of iTunes, it will only play music wirelessly via my airport express at a practically inaudible level, to the extent that to make it the volume I would like demands turning my stereo up and creating terrible sound distortion.

Apparently others have been experiencing this problem too, but Apple aren't in too much of a hurry to fix it. I have tried downloading an old version of iTunes but when I try to install it I get: "You cannot install iTunes on this volume. A newer version of iTunes is already installed."

I'm a bit wary of messing too much with things for the sake of the music library, so please, someone who knows what they're talking about - how do I ditch the new iTunes update?

will an airport express g work for me?

SECONDHANDSMOTE — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:45:51 -0800

Ok, since apple has released the new 802.11n revision of the Airport Express, and ebay is getting some decent deals on the 802.11g models, are there any strong reasons to get the n version if I just want to stream music from itunes? Basically I just don't want to be tethered to my stereo. I might want to have a printer eventually but I haven't owned a printer in a long while.
I'll be using either a time capsule or an airport extreme (n) for my routing and you know... stuff. I plan on using AirFoil to connect to audio from movies and FLAC (until itunes supports it if ever).

Is there anything about the 802.11g version of the Express that would eventually piss me off over the n version? I listen to a lot of high bitrate music (320 cbr and FLAC) so that's a concern for me.

What's playing on Airtunes?

aladfar — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:06:30 -0800

What's playing on Airtunes? At my office, anyone can play music through a little Airport Express box we've got hooked up to a stereo. Is there any way to monitor what's being played (title & track info) and who's playing it? I want to know who to yell at about this god awful hair metal that's disturbing me as I type this . . . We're all running iTunes, obviously, but users are on both Windows and OS X platforms. If there's no off the shelf solution available, what would be involved in rolling some kind of web-based (intranet?) solution?

Mac is chafing me.

catfishjohn — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 23:27:15 -0800

Why does my mac (G4) refuse to play some of the songs that I've downloaded from legitimate music sites on the internet? These songs such as "Beat Up Cars" by Moonlight Towers, which I downloaded from their website into a quicktime file, will play directly from my computer's speakers, but won't transfer to my ipod or play over airtunes. In the middle of a mix my computer (playing through airtunes) will switch to the computer's speakers instead of playing through my stereo via wifi. It's extremely frustrating. Is this some kind of licensiing thing?

Is my only option to get the songs into my ipod and over airtunes to burn thems to a CD then re-upload them to my itunes. Seems crazy, no?

AirTunes vs Squeezebox

Kemayo — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:28:40 -0800

How does the AirTunes feature of Apple's Airport Express compare to the Squeezebox for home music listening? (More about my needs behind the cut.) We have a home network consisting of two desktops, a small Linux server machine, and a varying number of laptops.

We currently listen to music exclusively on our computers, but we're thinking of buying a home stereo system to put in our living room so we can better listen to music out there.

The actual playing of audio CDs is not a concern. All music would still be kept on the computers. The arrangement of our living space dictates that whatever music-streaming solution we choose must be wireless.

The Squeezebox looks nice, but is twice the price of an Airport Express. I can see where the server model is useful, but I'm not particularly opposed to either playing through iTunes or buying Airfoil so I can keep using foobar2000.

For my needs, does it sound like Squeezebox is worth paying 2x as much? (Is its sound quality vastly better, for instance?)

(A recent ask.metafilter was quite enthusiastic about the potential of a modded XBox as a full-on media center. But I'm fairly sure that would wind up costing more than the Squeezebox. Streaming video content from the computers would be nice, though.)

AirTunes, anyone?

dance — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:36:13 -0800

Suggestions for AirTunes Fun / Hacks, please! I've just ordered an Apple Airport Express w/ AirTunes from an eBay seller. I'm very much looking forward to receiving it and playing with it. I'm looking for some tips, fun tricks/hacks and advice from owners. Ideally I'd like to use it to:

1. Extend the range of an existing unencrypted WLAN
2. Stream audio to my hi-fi.
3. Share a HP1200 with a Mac and a PC

Possible complications:
1. The WLAN AP is a WRT54G (so supposedly compatible) but it isn't mine. My neighbour very kindly shares his internet with all in range, but I very much doubt he'd be willing to allow me access to its settings to configure it if that's necessary?
2. I had wanted to use this setup for DVDs too, in conjunction with AirFoil, but I've read that delays are prohibitive.
3. The printer should ideally stay in the office, not move to the living room to be next to the AirPort Express and Hi-Fi - I guess for this I'd need two AirPorts!

So - it's up to you if you'd like to comment on the above, but what I'd also really appreciate are thoughts, experiences, hacks anecdotes from existing owners.

Thanks!

Help me rock out wirelessly

unSane — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:02:47 -0800

How do I listen to last.fm via airtunes? I want to listen to last.fm on my hi fi. I can listen to iTunes just fine via airtunes, but I can't figure out how to listen to a live stream from the last.fm player. I have Audio Hijack and can record the stream and play it later, but I want to be able to divert the audio stream straight to airtunes. Any clues?

airtunes vs. tivoli deathmatch

luriete — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:33:06 -0800

i just bought a tivoli system (kloss model 2, extra speaker and cd) and have it on the bookshelf but some questions: The Tivoli staffperson I emailed said it had an aux in and would work fine with my airtunes setup. However, there's an aux in (for the CD player, I think?) and a "mix in" which is also a single (mono?) mini rca. My old stereo went mini RCA (airtunes) > full size right and left stereo jacks (stereo), so now I've run a single mini RCA cable (on both ends) from airtunes to the "mix in" jack and it sounds just OK. Not as good as the cheapie sony boombox we used to have. Is this because before I had stereo sound coming in and now I just have mono? Is there a better way to hook this stuff together? I really like the warm sound of the Kloss speakers and it looks very pretty, and I like the big knobs ... I assume there must be some way to make the music from my powerbook sound better than it does on my crummy powerbook speakers; right now they sound about the same.