Multi-Room Airplay Network via Gen 2 Airport Express

For some reason APE 4 will only connect to APE 5 (likely because it is closer), which ideally I would like APE 6 to do as well because the distance from APE 5 to APE 6 is shorter than APE 1 to APE 6.

It is important to remember that Apple's "extend" feature works only on Wi-Fi signal strength. In order to "extend" the network, each extender.......APE 4, APE 5, and APE 6.....must all connect directly to the AirPort that is creating the network.....which is APE 1.

That would mean that APE 4, APE 5 and APE 6 must all be about the same distance from APE 1.....and.....APE 4, APE 5 and APE 6 must all be closer to APE 1 than they are to each other.

So, while the setting on the three Expresses might read "extend", they are not all extending the network. You can verify this by using AirPort Utility to display the network layout. If APE 4, 5, and 6 are really "extending" the network, each one of them will be connecting directly back to APE 1 via a dotted line.

Another way to say the same thing......all three Expresses, APE 4, 5, and 6 will be lined up side by side in the AirPort Utility display if they are all "extending" the network.

So, one question to you would be how important is it for APE 4, 5 and 6 to all "extend" the network?

Another thing to consider when "extending" a network is that an extender will cut the maximum potential speed of the Wi-Fi network in half.....and you will be using multiple Expresses to "extend" which will slow the network dramatically.

If your network goal is best performance and reliability, all of the Expresses in the network need to connect to each other via wired Ethernet cable connections. Is this a possibility?

So in theory, if I purchased a new wireless router of any brand and connected all airport devices to it (APE1, 2, and 3 via ethernet; APE 4, 5, and 6 via wireless) then I would have better performance than I am currently having?

I'm not LaPastenague, but the issues and difficulty trying to connect APE 4, 5, and 6 would still remain. Things would be simpler with the connection of APE 1, 2 and 3 though, since Ethernet is always the preferred connection over WiFi.

So I have the ability to connect APE 1, 2, and 3 together because they are in the same location but unfortunately I am not able to connect APE 4, 5, or 6 via ethernet, they will have to be wireless. I am hoping that since the network will only be for streaming audio that the drop in speed won't be a huge issue as long as music doesn't start cutting out.

If the network is only for streaming audio, then APE 4, 5 and 6 should be configured to "join" the network, not try to "extend" it.

If you cannot run the Ethernet cable from your main router location to APE 4, 5 and 6, then you might want to take a look at the possibility of using Ethernet over powerline adapters to send the signal over the existing AC powerlines in your home.

Ethernet over powerline is not as good a connection as a regular Ethernet cable, but it is generally much better than trying to use wireless to connect devices that will be located a room or more away from the main router.

Your screenshot indicates that APE4 and APE5 are not extending the network at all, regardless of how they might be set up. If APE4 and APE5 are extending the network, then they will be connecting directly back to APE1, not to any other AirPort.

Maybe it would help to clarify things to state things a different way. That would be that Apple does not allow a WiFi network to be extended two times. You can have multiple AirPorts all set up to extend the network, but each one of them must connect directly to the main router.....not to another AirPort that is already extending the network.

APE2, 3, and 6 may or may not be extending APE1 depending on how they are configured. If any of these devices are set up to "join" the network, they cannot extend it. Any of these devices that are set up to "extend" the network are doing so, because they are connected directly to the the main AirPort APE1.

In order for an AirPort to extend the network, it must receive a stronger signal from the "main" AirPort than any other AirPort.

Trying to set up multiple AirPorts to extend a network wirelessly is always a great challenge for must users simply because an "extending" AirPort must always connect to the "main" AirPort to extend the network. It cannot do that unless it receives a stronger signal from the main AirPort than any other AirPort.

I do have an idea that might work.....if....you are able to connect all of the AirPorts in Room 1, 2 and 3 to each other using an Ethernet connection.....but it will be more of an experiment than a sure thing. Post back if you are interested and have the time to try things.

I currently have three separate AE units in a closet where I have run three audio inputs for each of the three rooms.

So is the first unit you mentioned

Using one of the AE's I have created a dedicated wifi network without internet capability solely dedicated to streaming audio.

Is also the unit you describe here as creating the new network????

One of these units has created the new network, and the other two are set to join (not extend) that unit.

In the closet you mention 3 audio inputs..

are these ethernet cables to the rooms??

Now without fully comprehending everything..

The second idea I had was to purchase an AirPort Extreme device and host the network on it as opposed to the airport express unit, which would provide the capability of connecting each of the three airport express units in the closet to it via ethernet.

However we do this.. using extreme is a good idea.

Why not just connect each of the Express in the rooms to the Extreme without needing all the express in the closet??

You should be able to manage with just 3 express plus the Extreme.

Now assuming you have ethernet to the 3 rooms then you only need an old Gen5 Extreme.. but if you are using wireless it might be too old to work.. and inside closet is usually not a great place for wireless. So we might see if something else would be possible.

BTW a screenshot from your airport utility of the current setup would be very helpful.

Ok.. much clearer.. I understand what you are trying to do now.

It is interesting problem.. I am surprised it works at all.

On the Extreme a Gen5 might work fine and very cheap second hand.. although they are getting old now.. and it is actually not necessary to use Apple router although it makes it easier to manage with airport utility.

Certainly using Extreme will make it easier.

Tesserax has a bit more experience with these so he might give you some advice.

I will think about it.

This is a screenshot of how each of them is currently set up. Yesterday APE 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 were all in the same line connecting to APE 1, but today it switched and APE 4 and 5 extending off of APE 6. I have noticed no connection issues yet, frankly it is behaving better than it was yesterday. I guess my main question right now is whether connecting APE 2 and 3 to APE 1 via ethernet would make the network run more efficiently.

Strange.. it should not work at all when it is working from APE6.

Perhaps that does give you a clue about the different signal levels.

You could set this up differently.. how this affects other things I am not sure. It would be possible to setup more than one wireless network. Instead of having a single network you can setup 2 or 3 different networks. All the Express in cupboard could work independently instead. You would have to use 5ghz if at all possible to have enough non-overlapping channels.

It is really a pity you did not take the inputs to the room where they are required.. so speaker for room1 could have a termination point in room1 as well as the closet. How difficult is the wiring to get a connection down to the location of the device you wish to stream from. Or if you are just using wireless from a device then whatever device is conveniently placed.

I

I also just realized that having a third party router would not work because APE 4, 5, and 6 would not be able to extend the signal because it is not an apple product. Is this accurate?

Yes

But the issue is that I am using 4, 5, and 6 to extend the network into the rooms where the speakers are located so I am able to control the music over wifi. Because there is currently no wifi in those rooms that is why I have those units set to extend.

Here again, there are, and always have been issues with wireless "extend".

An AirPort can only "extend" the quality of signal that it receives. If there really is no WiFi in the rooms where the AE 4, 5 and 6 are located, then they are not going to help "extend" the network at all.

In other words, if you need more WiFi coverage in that area, an AirPort will need to be located about half way between the main AirPort and the area that needs more WiFi coverage. Then, there might be some improvement in the Wi-Fi signal quality in that given area.

Finally, we need to state again if you want an AirPort to "extend" the network, that AirPort must be located closer to the main router than any other AirPort that also might be trying to extend the network.

The only issue I am running into is that when walking between rooms while airplaying music via iPhone, the music cuts out as the phone will not connect to the strongest signal. I have tried setting the channels manually on the extreme to no avail.

We all have that problem. It is really difficult to fix because the design of the airport routers is fairly old and roaming has been much improved in later generation mesh products or using multiple wired AP's like ubiquiti system. There are new standards but even then roaming is still difficult and especially with some products like iOS devices.

Apple set the signal level for the phone to start searching for a new AP at -70dBm. So as you move from room to room if you want the phone to switch to a different AP it must drop to below -70dB signal. Even so the music will drop out as the change over cannot be instantaneous.

I think you are doing it the wrong way using the phone as source.

You are much better using the phone as a remote control over a Mac or player of some sort, which will be the source.

You can get software to do this.

https://www.airsquirrels.com/airparrot/remote

There are other remote control software .. so have a look around.