Airport Express: Optical out: Itunes 8 skips, 7 works, Airfoil still skips

Thank you for saving me the hassle of unpacking my Airport Express N to try it. I wonder what it is in the iTunes software that can affect the behaviour of the optical out. There's someone at Apple that knows. Convinced it is iTunes as so many people that downgrade to 7.x report complete resolution of the problem. Very disappointing.

iTunes 10 has now killed my Airport Express (802.11g) reporting network connection issues despite being able to connect with the setup utility. It seems whenever any slight thing changes with the software the Airport Express 'dies' in some way.

The following is a bit technical but someone might have the background to understand this as the following deals with the airtunes protocol and how it syncs playback.

http://blog.technologeek.org/airtunes-v2

I sent a question to Rogue Amoeba regarding this issue and got the same standardized answer everybody seems to get, i.e. "use analog"...

I would love to run my AE through a DAC. Besides the hiccups I felt the DacMagic really improved the sound. Does anybody have any experience of running newer AEs through other brands of DAC?

Having very similar issue here with Airport Express pausing - very annoying come on Apple please sort this out.

Problem for me too. Only with Airfoil - iTunes 10 is fine with optical out of the AE but everything else skips and pauses.

I am running two AX's for audio streaming (both N). I have been streaming (mostly successfully) via the analog output and decided to connect up one AX to my high end hifi via my Linn Numerik DAC. Half a dozen cables/adaptors later I made the connection. The sound quality is much better. However, I got the problem everyone is describing, i.e. continual skipping/dropouts to the point that it is unlistenable, which is a crying shame. FYI, I previously had a streaming problem on analog I attributed to iTunes 10.1 (error message) because downgrading to 10.0 fixed it. Has anybody else recently tried the downgrade to 7.0 - because, I will be happy to try it if it might work?

I should add that I am running Windows 7 and am not sure that this compatible with iTunes 7

I have found an ariticle on the apple site indicating 64 bit windows needs iTunes 7.6 or later. Has anyone tried the AXn optical output with 7.6?

After quite a few tests I finally have a setup with hardly any dropouts.

I connected the AE by a 5m ethernet cable to our router (FritzBox 7170). I switched off the wireless part in the AE. The dropouts only occur when I'm doing something in Safari (very weird).
In Spotify I set disk usage to 'automatic'.

I switched the time server off in the AE.

According to the Activity Monitor Airfoil uses about 6% of the CPU, Spotify anything between 15 and 35%.

I hope Apple comes up with a firmware update for the AE very soon.

This dropout via optcal problem still exists via the new airplay feature with the iphone ipod or the iphone spotify app.
Could this be a hardware issue? I'm thinking of taking my AEX back to exchange for a new one. (late 2008 model purchased July this year)

I have had many problems with drop outs. I use 802.11n airport express (refurb bought 3 wks ago) to zeppelin via optical out. Dropouts occur via airtunes from itunes 10.1, airfoil from spotify and airplay from an iphone 4. No problem with drop outs just using analogue cable.

Tried a few things but the only way I have been able to improve is by turning off the airport's automatic time update. After approx an hour of listenting to itunes "only" had about 5 drops but no discernible improvement for airfoil on spotify or airplay from the iphone.

Beginning to think the only way to get this to work on all the music sources it should, is to just use an analogue cable and put up with the poorer quality. My uncompressed collection is beginning to look like a bit waste of time now 😟.

I've pinged email to B&W as integration was one of the big selling points for the zepp (that and the sound obviously) also have appointment with a "genius"...will update on responses.

Might have to re-consider apple in the future...i have a phone that is barely able to make calls, had to upgrade from OS X tiger to be able to sync the thing and now have been sold equipment on features that don't work.

Poor poor show apple.

Message was edited by: rubble63

I just purchased an Airport 802.11n to replace my 802.11g version, so that I could use the 5ghz band on my new dual band router. I connect via TOSLink to a Musical Fidelity DAC.

The prior version had occasional dropouts, but, on the whole, worked acceptably with both the old and new routers. The new one immediately stuttered and was impossible to use on the 5ghz n-band, so I put it on the 2.4ghz g-band. It continued to exhibit the same behavior. I therefore pulled it out of my system and reverted to the 802.11g model. It again worked perfectly, although it obviously can connect only to the slower band.

I haven't tried analog cables since it's only the DAC that makes the sound bearable to me. I wish I'd looked for this thread before I purchased the new version, obviously, since I would not have bothered to buy if I'd known there would be issues. From the length of time this has gone unanswered, I have to assume that there's no real fix.

This morning updated to firmware 7.5.2 (DL1106) released on 16 Dec. I have been listening through optical 806.11n to zeppelin via Spotify app on IPhone 4 on air play for about 2 hours and not had a single drop. Approx 30min on Itunes on the Mac and 10mins on Spotify on the Mac via Airfoil, not a single drop.

Could the problem be fixed!!!

Further update...not had single drop out all day (literally) and the quality of sound is awesome. Now really glad I decided a long time ago to use uncompressed formats for the music I own (even spotify at 392kbps sounds good).

Couple more zeppelins for the dining room and kitchen, update to the main hifi coupled with few more airport expresses me thinks...