[Codifus]

On Mar 17, 6:45*am, Greg Wormald wrote:
G'day all,

Just as my Airport Express arrived so that I could run iTunes to the
stereo as a music server, my CD player died!

As I was planning on using the optical link to the CD player's DAC
(which I really like) that evaluation had to wait. While it was being
repaired (under warranty), iTunes and the Express were piped into the
pre-amp directly.

This was pretty good, at least as good as the iMic and the 18 metre
interconnect in sound quality, and it allowed me to get rid of the
interconnect snaking 3/4 the length of the house. Much neater, and the
sound in both the computer room and living room remained synchronised.

The CD transport was finally fixed, (with parts from Denmark!), and
re-installed in the main hi-fi today. The toslink connector was plugged
into the Express and the Harman Kardon, the optical input was selected,
and the whole system turned on. Hooray! sound immediately.

I was a bit disappointed that the computer and the hi-fi were no longer
synchronised--I guess the processing time in the HK DAC couldn't be
compensated. Even Airfoil couldn't cope with that.

HOWEVER, the quality of the music coming from the hi-fi increased by
what seems to be an order of magnitude. There was an immediate lift in
'reality', the bass goes much deeper, the cymbals regained the shimmer
that first endeared me to the HK, and I just had to sit down and listen!

Thanks for the encouragement to 'go wireless'. The enjoyment of my
computer-based music collection will, I am sure, more than make up for
the cost.

Greg
(Fast iMac running iTunes 8.1, Airport Express, Harman Kardon HD 970, ME
15/850, Linn Kabers)

Congrats on your new setup! As you've discovered, the optical out on
the ax express really let's the genie out of the bottle so you can
really enjoy your iTunes library.

CD