Airport Express (square) skips unbearably with Airplay

Also! Ich glaube das du musst den sendermodus verändern.

See the attached jpg. If changing to 8011n doesn't make the additional channesl show up, then you might want to take the battle to the EU regulating bodies.

Everyone should try this. The skipping that people here are talking about has all the hallmarks of interference in the 2.4 GHz range. It need not be coming from inside your house, either. It could be coming from a neighbor's cheap cordless phone, or any number of wirless devices.

Try a few different ways of the wirless mode (sendermodus).

Viel glück.

Hello Everyone,

So after many headaches and unneeded frustration I was directed to this link by an Apple Genius at the store. My situation is similar to everyone elses. I have my AirportExpress second gen as my WiFi router in my apartment and it is hooked through an optical connection to my B&W Zeppelin. The problem has been the unbearable skipping of music played from my late 2008 MBP, two iPhone 5 and an iPad Mini through Airplay. The weird part is that if I use an analog connection there is no skipping. I would keep it like that, however the music quality to my B&W Zeppelin through analog doesnt take potential of the great sound it can produce.

I've tried a million different settings on the AE. Nothing has helped. I thought that the lates firmware would fix the issue but didn't.

Also, I have no wireless phones in my apartment and have disconnected my microwave oven during testing.

This is rediculous and Apple should do something. Specially since its something they so strongly advertise as one of the AE capabilities. If anyone has found a solution with their AE connected to a B&W Zeppelin please let me know... I'm dying here!!!!!

Sorry man. If you read through my posts, it's a lost cause.

Yes I have. Plus a million other pages and websites. Wanted to add my input on the issue. Hopefully its mentioned enough that Apple finally decides to do something. SMH!

There are two issues on this thread: network quality and jitter. Changing network settings to n only 5gHz and going to ethernet connections solved my skipping problems on analog out. I could not find any help for the jitter problem on any site.

I found this detailed analysis of the 2nd- and 3rd-(puck)-gen AEx. The jitter is much higher on the newer unit.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/466-measurements-first-and-second-gene ration-apple-airport-express/

It is disappointing that Apple upgrades us to inferior functionality.

I hope someone at Apple is listening. I bought and unpacked my new AEx 802.11n unit yesterday (and updated the firmware), plugged it in (my base station is an Asus RT-N66U running at 802.11ac). Set up the AEx to do AirPlay and printing (not to extend the network), and encountered the same skipping problem everyone else describes with one noticeable difference: I do not notice the skipping with my iPad Air, or with many songs. The ones I notice it with are those, and at points where, they have diminished volume. It does not matter what the source of the content is— iTunes, Amazon, ripped off CD, and it occurs with some songs and not other in the same CD/album. It also dropps out between tracks. I also do not notice skipping with the radio stattions I have streamed so far.)

I am using a mid-2011 27" iMac and a mid-2012 MacBook Air 12".

Thank all for putting their comments out there and letting me know I am not alone

Apple: ARE YOU LISTENING?

I had terrible drop outs with my aTV and Airport Express. Read and tried everything for days, but nothing helped. Annoying as my wifi network has worked perfectly until now and I had a Squeezebox system setup that worked flawlessly for years.

Anyway, eventually came across this http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120108083136856 and it worked! Changed my router from AES/TKIP to just AES and now it's working perfectly, even when both APE and iphone/ipad on right on the edge of wifi signal. Happy days.

Might not help everyone, but worth trying. Laptops, tablets and phones are great. But Apple wifi gear is, erm, interesting...

i'm not sure if this has been raised yet as a possible fix for some, but for me, it was a couple of completely unrelated external USB hard drives sitting next to my wifi modem/router that was dramatically reducing the wifi range quality. When I turned the USB hard drives off, my wifi speed literally went up by a factor of 10. After discovering this I found out its a known thing:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/usb-3.0-hard-drives-can-cause-wi-fi-inter ference

http://blog.macsales.com/15990-shielding-resolves-usb-3-0-conflict-with-bluetoot h (talks about bluetooth, but also affects wifi)

I say this because I figure many music lovers may be housing their music collections on external hard drives, and it may be worth turning them off, and re-trying airplay to see if it helps.

Pete

I've looked through this whole thread and still can't get AirPlay to work via 5GHz. It works fine on 2.4 GHz. I summarized my situation and everything I've tried here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5558285

Strange that it all works just fine on the old gen Airport Express but not the new one. I might have to just return the new one and get a refurbished old one...

I have found one workaround for my problem at 5 Ghz:

In NetGear wireless setup, set your 5GHz network mode to "Up to 54 Mbps". Using "Up to 145 Mbps" or "Up to 300 Mbps" causes stuttering. :\

Same problem here with AE 3th gen. and BW Zeppelin, optical has dropouts and analog works fine.

My AE is connected via Ethernet to my time capsule and my server (Mac mini) is connected to the time capsule via Ethernet and when I play music in iTunes from that server I have dropouts even this goes over Ethernet. So this is for sure no problem with the wireless network. Tested with firmware 7.6.2 - 7.6.4

Thought I may had found a solution for the Toslink to DAC (in my case, the DacMagic 100) issues mentioned here!!

After a tedious, yet thorough reading of the entire 9 pages here, I thought of a possible solution...

I acquired a Toslink to Coaxial converter and was running that from the AEX (latest generation) to the Cambridge

Verdict?

Nope.

Dropouts all the same. ****.

The APX is a heap of bullocks.

I not only have dropouts with Mavericks, but it often corresponds to a general glacial system. Can't get to a web site, can't move files around in the Finder. I am streaming to an Airport Express and a Pioneer speaker.

I have a TEAC UD-H01 - And same issue with the optical out port. No problems with analog for the last 8 months, so I upgraded to a pricey DAC (which is amazing by the way!) and the optical keep skipping. I hear downgrading to firmware 7.6.1 works, but I've not been successful at that yet. Apple doesn't make things easy for us!

Cambridge Audio DAC, with AirportExpress connected via TOSLink drops out every few secs rendering it completely unuseable. The DAC registers an incoming sample rate of of 44.1kHz, bit it doesn't stay locked, its LED will wink showing a problem with the incoming signal.

Changed the AirportExpress for an AppleTV. Now the DAC shows an incoming sample rate of 48kHz, remains locked fast and everything is working tickety-boo.

No idea what Apple are doing to the output signal on the Airport Express. Go for the AppleTV over the AirportExpress if you're looking for Airplay optical audio out to a converter.