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Level 1

12 points

Noise during Airplay music playback

The noise I hear during iTunes 10.1 playback through AppleTV (2nd Gen) resembles static or old LP "pops" and it ranges from very occasional to almost constant. I've confirmed it happens on music from 256AAC selections purchased on the iTunes store or Apple Lossless or AIFF (lossless) cuts ripped from CDs but there may be other formats affected as well.

The Apple TV is hooked up via HDMI to a Pioneer VSX-1020-K receiver. My computers (happens on both) are either a Macbook Pro 2.33Ghz (circa 2007) running Snow Leopard or a Mac Pro early 2008 running Snow Leopard. I can either connect via ethernet or WiFi and the problem still exists. I can run the library and music files from an internal drive or an external drive and the problem still exists. I have an Apple Airport Extreme (2008) Wireless N router running the latest firmware (7.4.2). I have power cycled the router many times.

Any ideas?

Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz 17", Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Nov 17, 2010 2:58 PM

78 replies

tparry

Level 1

13 points

Oct 29, 2014 9:45 PM in response to jrdub

I've been using Channel 2 on my router for quite some time, and rarely get any audio pops. The video doesn't lag at all!

As you can see, there's so many other neighbours using the 2.4G network in my location.

Then last night, I tried to use AirPlay Mirroring. It was so bad, the video wasn't even moving, let alone get clear audio!

When I re-scanned the networks in my area, I found that someone turned on a device called "Starhome72", which is using the same 2.4G channel as I was.

So I reconfigured my router to use Channel 5, and it was perfect again! No more video lag, and no audio pops 🙂

May 5, 2015 8:32 AM in response to jrdub

Hey, I thought I'd post my experience here. I was using AirPlay with an Airport Express (roughly 2013 model) and a Micromega MyDAC (a great, low-cost DAC, by the way), with both my iPhone and my Macbook Pro with Airfoil and got constant pops, no matter what I did with network settings, 5G or not, whatever.

So, finally, I just purchased a new AppleTV (MD199LL/A) and it works perfectly. No pops, no cracking sounds, it just works. Can use it to pump data into my DAC with the TV turned off.

May 27, 2015 9:41 PM in response to syntheticzero

But ATV upsamples redbook to 48KHz, which is not suitable in a HiFi setup.

5 years elapsed, still there the static noise. I use:

Arcam airDac, or
Yamaha CD N301

feed a DCS Debussy. The noise is easy heard when playing a 315Hz sine wave.

So poor AirPlay experience.

Noise during Airplay music playback