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The USB only supports a printer so no HDD can be hooked up. Definitely prefer a web based interface. There's a number of better and cheaper routers out there but they ain't Apple ;) It works OK and has the nice Airtunes feature (allows you to stream audio from your Mac gadget to the router which has an headphones jack) which however only works with iTunes. Also the setup utility is a bit cumbersome.
All three music sources (the computer and the two Airport Express-connected speaker systems) are always in sync and drop outs have been very rare. Our CD collection was upstairs, though some of it was on the computer in the office. On the plus side, the AirPort Utility works well under Windows; I don't think you need a Mac to get the most out of this.Those minor hassles aside, this is the most impressive computing/home entertainment product that I've seen in a long time- it's somewhat expensive, but you get a lot of features for your money. For security reasons, I do not broadcast the SSID on my wireless network. And we spent most of our time in other parts of the house. Then we moved to a larger house, and it seemed like the music stopped. So, in my experience, these do work with non-Apple access points, but they work much better with an Apple base station. I don't stream music through this one; I use it as a wireless bridge to allow an old iMac without a wireless card to access my network.
I was hooked, and immediately copied the rest of our CDs to the computer.After a few weeks, I bought another AirPort Express to stream the music to a pair of powered speakers upstairs (Creative Labs GigaWorks T40 Premium 2.0 Multimedia Speaker System with BasXPort Technology). Music used to be a huge part of my life; I almost always had something playing on the stereo. That wasn't that big of deal, but it took me at least 30 minutes to figure it out and it's not how it should work. These units also had a tendency to drop out of the AirPort utility software when they connected via this access point.When I got the third one, I bought an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A to use as my main access point (these can't act as a bridge on a non-Apple wireless network). I could also stream music through this one if I had another pair of speakers to connect to it.Although I think this is an amazing product, I almost docked it one star because the setup and interoperability with non-Apple hardware isn't as seamless as it should be.I connected my first two Airport Expresses to a non-Apple Wireless G access point (a 2WIRE DSL router).
This one performs flawlessly; you set it up and forget it. I had no problems joining the AirPort Expresses to the Apple base station, even with the SSID broadcast turned off. Highly Recommended. After the factory reset, it was easy as pie, though. It's really quite amazing; you can walk throughout the house and hear the same music everywhere. I set this up as Wireless-N only, I still use the old access point for B/G.The third AirPort Express also had setup problems- the AirPort Utility software couldn't communicate with it until I did a factory reset. Our nicest stereo was in the living room.
I could not get the AirPort Expresses to join my network with the SSID broadcast off (even though I typed in the network name); I had to broadcast the SSID, join them to the network, then stop broadcasting the SSID. The whole setup is just so cool.I recently bought a third Airport Express. It's long been a dream of mine to play the same music throughout the house; with the Airport Express, this dream became a reality, and I'm listening to music all of the time again.I bought one to give it a try; this let me stream music from my Vista PC to the living room stereo on the same floor (while still playing via the PC speakers). Of course you want to be able to control the music from where you are in the house, so I bought an Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) to use as a remote (the iPhone works as well).
It's easy to use, much less expensive than a Sonos system, and these units are great to travel with if you need to make a quick wireless network. If you are a Mac/iTunes user and want a way to "party-up" your house with continuous music from room to room, this is the way to go. I have 3 Airport Expresses in my home with which I stream my music to multiple speakers through iTunes. This is one of the main features of the Airport Express and it works flawlessly.
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. But it's not necessarily so. I could probably go on for a long time about the Airport Express. Originally I thought it was either signal strength or interference causing the problem. One day perhaps with updates everything will be as it should, as it is with the wireless connection for my laptop, which works first time every time, never intermittent. As I've been going on with Apple Support. I use the AX to stream iTunes wirelessly to powered speakers.
and connect one at a time, or any combination of all of them AT THE SAME TIME to your iTunes session. anywhere in my WLAN range, and the music never faulters.Best thing is, you can use more than one of these. I power up iTunes on my laptop and take it outside, upstairs.
I use it primarily for connecting iTunes to my home stereo system, but a side-perk is the RJ45 jack in the unit which ALSO allows me to connect my X-BOX (in the same cabinet) to my wireless network. Most likely due to it actually sending signals over the WLAN, which allows for buffering, rather than just sending a radio signal.If you're worried about 'range', don't be. While it DID take 2 tries to get the configuration set up for this little gem, once I did, it's worked absolutely PERFECTLY for me.
it's part of your WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network), so as long as it's plugged in within range, and other computers are within range, it'll be fine. pumping music through ALL your stereos.Highly recommend this little gem. BONUS.I used to have an RF transmitter/receiver designed specifically for MusicMatch, but when they were bought up (and subsequently destroyed) by Yahoo., I switched to iTunes.
The sound quality and consistency with this unit is unmatched.
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