After purchasing the WD MyWorld edition I’ve tried different ways to stream my music library on my network.
The first solution I’ve found was to use PlugPlayer to play music using the iPhone but the solution worked great but had a big problem: it required to connect the iPhone to my stereo to listen it, so if you play music you cannot, at the same time… well… make a call!
So I moved to another solution, I purchased an Airport Express device, connected it via WiFi to work as a remote speaker and connected it to my main stereo (a Marantz amplifier connected to a pair of Indiana Line speaker). This way you can stream music from your Mac to the main stereo.
Last piece of the puzzle was to install the Apple Remote application on the iPhone so that I can control the iTunes running on the Mac via the iPhone.
Now I’ve what I consider a very well engineered and polished solution: the Mac runs iTunes connecting to the WD music library, stream music on the AirPort Express to play it on the main stereo with a very good quality (thanks to Indiana Line speakers, that are very, very good and not too expensive) and I can control everything from every room of the house using my iPhone.
sabin gheordunescu on July 15th, 2011 at 12:15 says:
I am also planning to by a Marantz amp (PM7004) and I would also want to link it to an Airport Express so I do have a quick question, please.
How did you connect the Airport to the amplifier ? Optical audio jack > Toslink > DAC > amplif ? Or USB > DAC > amplif ? Because amplif’s only inputs are RCS audio… (no USB, no optical, no wireless)
The best way (but I can not afford for now) is to use the NA7004 as the core.
Thank you in advance !
sabin
phillo on July 15th, 2011 at 14:25 says:
Actually the connection is made using a standard jack 3.5 to analog audio input, because I’ve simply connected an old amplifier I had at home that do not have any kind of digital input. So a simple analog cable does its job… the DAC converter inside the AirPort express should be the same included in iPods and quality it’s quite good for the money.
If you plan to purchase a new amplifier there are some model from Denon (I believe) that directly accepts AirPort connections but are quite expensive.