Force airplay speaker to connect to express?

Hello folks!

I have an Airport Extreme and 2 Express's in my home. The Extreme is in the basement. The Expresses are right near/same room where I have my airplay speakers througout my house.

I have a Klipsch G-17 with an Airport Express right next to it. For some reason, the speaker will only connect (confirmed through the Airport Utility ios app) to the basement located Extreme! My iphone and ipad connect to the express just fine when near it, but the speaker which never moves and is literally feet away will not connect to it.

The result, my airplay experience from this speaker *****. It cuts out a lot. The signal shows "good" to the basement but it fluctuates through the floor and whether or not doors are open or closed etc. I bought the express for reliability of this speaker for this room.

Is there any way to force an airplay speaker to connect to a certain express on your network? Is there a way to tell my extreme that it cannot connect to this speaker? I've tried reboting the speaker, redoing the setup..etc.. it still grabs the main extreme from downstairs.

Thanks for any help!