Is there a way to use two airport express units for audio?

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Is there a way to use two airport express units for audio?

I have a unique situation and I'm wondering if the following is possible.

Currently, I have a media closet. In this closet I have a receiver wired to built-in speakers throughout my house. I have an airport express in here which connects to my iTunes setup. Works great.

Now, I also have a turntable and some vintage speakers I'd like to set up in a specific room. I don't want to have to store my turntable and record collection in the media closet, I'd prefer to have it out in this room.

My question is, is there a way (assuming I purchase a 2nd airport express) to have my turntable setup send the audio to the other airport, which can then pipe the music through the house? Perhaps there is a more efficient way to do this?

Thanks!

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), i7, SSD, RadeonHD 6970M, 16GB RAM

Posted on Apr 22, 2014 2:09 PM

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Tesserax

Level 10

148,447 points

Apr 22, 2014 6:34 PM in response to sixteenbits

My question is, is there a way (assuming I purchase a 2nd airport express) to have my turntable setup send the audio to the other airport, which can then pipe the music through the house? Perhaps there is a more efficient way to do this?

Most likely not. The AirPort Express is just one part of the AirPlay streaming process. This process basically requires three things:

An iTunes "server." Typically this server would be either a dedicated iTunes server or an iTunes client that is hosted on a Mac, PC, or iOS device.
A wired or wireless network.
An AirPlay "speaker." This speaker can be an AirPort Express, Apple TV, or an AirPlay-ready device provided by another manufacturer.

For the turntable setup, you would be missing item 1. That is, you would need some means to package and stream the turntable's audio output over a network. The Express is expecting an audio stream via AirPlay as an input. It will then output that stream via its combination analog/digital audio port.

As you know, normally you would physically connect the turntable to your audio receiver using an appropriate pair of phono patch cables. There is no direct method to do the same between the turntable and the network.

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