Would you explain how one specifies that iTunes output to multiple speakers?

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You need to have your AirPort Express updated to version 6.3 before you can use the multiple speakers functionality. After that a "Multiple Speakers" option will show up in the speaker selection dropdown in iTunes.

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Righty, and those of you looking for the firmware update for Airport Express can find it here: Apple web page for Airport Support

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I've tried tons of things to get the AirTunes skipping on my setup to work. I tried it with multiple speakers a while ago and did not notice any improvement.
The only thing I've been able to do to make it work consistently is move my PowerBook to within a few feet of the Airport Express base station.
I think the submitters experience is just a fluke.

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I read here on OS X Hints that turning off IPv6 in the network preferences speeds up the network. Maybe this also helps with AirTunes. At least I did not have any drop outs since then.

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I notcied *exactly* the same thing. I had horrible dropouts on remote speakers, but, very consistantly, I could resolve them by selecting "multiple speakers", and checking "Computer" along with whatever other speakers I wanted to use.

No explanation for this, just verification...


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I experience occasional dropouts from my Airport Express too. I finally determined the two sources of the problem:
- my microwave - whenever it is in use, AirTunes cuts out
- my neighbor's 2.4GHz phone... but fortunately he has discarded that unit

That, and changing channels on my 802.11b router (a NetGear MR314) eliminated all of my AirTunes skips.

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An interesting aside: I had to move my wireless router in my office because when the staff used the microwave, the signal cut off entirely. Microwaves are very nasty around base stations of any type.

---
-frick

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This adds little, but the same fix works for selecting multiple Airport Expresses as well. I get far fewer dropouts when streaming to two Expresses than to just one.



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I found that increasing the multicast rate (I jacked it to 11, which seemed appropriate somehow) pretty much completely got rid of the dropout problems with my Airport Express.

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I would try changing the channel that your airport express works at - try channel 1, 6 and 11 and see if there's any difference.
Also I've found NetMonitor is great to actually see what's going on - it's quick to see if the network is stuttering or not.
http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html

I've made a diagram of streaming to my Airports showing the connection quality difference between streaming normal, with the multiple speaker option, and finally to 2 airports.
http://pear.co.nz/public/airport_express_graphs.gif
Interesting the normal streaming method with 1 airport is not nearly as solid and clean as using the multiple speakers option, even to only 1 express.

My guess it must use a different streaming method, to keep them all in Sync. I think it's amazing it can synchronise the computer sound to the airports at all!

I'm also guessing they're working their way to synchronising video with the sound output - it's only one more step away! Quicktime just needs the ability to delay a video and we'll be there.

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I read someplace recently that if you change your Airport Base Station to do either 802.11b OR g that it'll be a fix for the iTunes dropouts. I think the default is to allow b AND g.

I switched to 802.11b only (for compatibility reasons)

It worked flawlessly on my 2.16 MBPro



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I use a D-Link G router as a base station and two Airport Expresses and I also get dropouts. I tried the trick suggested here of setting iTunes to send music to not just the Airport Expresses but to the computer speaker as well. That did not help. I set the Network preferences to disable IPv6 with no result. Rebooting the computer helps when dropouts become frequent (every few seconds) but does not completely prevent reaccurances of dropouts. I also noted dropouts when the microwave oven was in use. I then used Airport Admin Utility to enable Interference Robustness on each Airport Express, and this seems to help. So far no more dropouts at all. This option isn't available through the Airport Setup Assistant, as far as I can tell. Maybe it was the combination of all of the above, but the interference robustness setting finally did the trick.

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Still had some dropouts after the steps above, despite the early results. I then changed the channel that the router broadcasts on, first using iStumbler to check which channels were in use by others around me first in order to avoid one of those. This last step has seemed to help reduce dropouts further.

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My "fix" for this problem is just as effective, and bizzarre, as yours - I open the Airport Admin tool (I don't have my mac in front of me at the moment, so not sure of the app name). That's it. However, I'm going to try the other suggestions as my solution is just plain silly.

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I recently purchased one of these, using it with my Windows XP laptop. I've been extremely impressed with the ease of setup, but also ran into trouble with intermittent dropouts of network service.

Since reviewing some comments here and testing a few things, I seem to have eliminated the network problems. I took the following steps:

1. I was originally using a WEP network because I was unsure about the compatibility with Win XP. Since it was listed as being "more compatible", I used it for my first stap. I have since switched to a WPA2 Personal network with no problems. Don't know whether this improves stability or not.

2. Since I was having significant trouble with iTunes, I upgraded to the latest point release. I doubt this was this issue, however. The network drops affected all software, not just the music streaming to my stereo.

3. There is an "interference robustness" setting that I though might help, and was mentioned here previously. I actually tried that first with no luck. Since the network stability has improved, I decided to turn that off, hoping that my range will improve (not that I'm taking advantage of that).

4. I got rid of my wireless telephone. My suspicion is that this phone was the culprit. Since I rarely use it, I replaced it with a regular corded phone -- and have freed up a power socket in the process!

So far so good. My suggestion to anyone with similar problems would be to look for wireless phones close to your network hub, first. That will probably resolve your issues.

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Same here, I tried some many things on the dropout AEX issue...
- Firmware Update
- Using Airfoil instead of Itunes
- Changing wlan channel
- Using network robustness
- Moving microwaves and wireless phones around
- Disabling stateful packet inspection on the router
- Playing around with MTU and Packet acks
- Upgraded the network from 802.11b to 802.11g
- etc.

Yesterday, I needed to downgrade my WLAN security from WPA to WEP128 because of a wintel laptop from work joining the wireless home network - and......NO MORE DROPOUTS SO FAR...

Hope this helps

Georg

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I use my Airport express as a wireless hub, connected to a cable modem via the ethernet port on the Airport express. I used to connect my mac directly to the cable modem -- I would get a lot of traffic to my machine which was merely "trolls" looking for something juicy to attack. The airport acts as a bit of a filter. Which brings me to my point: sometimes I have the problem with intermittent dropouts. When I disconnect the airport from the internet (unplug the ethernet cable), no more dropouts... I assumed the airport was having to deal with so much traffic that the poor little CPU inside couldn't handle decoding the m4a (I think it's m4a) stream as well.

Could be as indicental as most of the other suggestions...

DRM

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Wow. Thanks for this hint. I've struggled with Airtunes dropouts for a long, long time. This idea of switching to multiple speakers instantly solved it.

So it's NOT A FLUKE. Such a simple fix after noise sampling, firmware upgrades, etc etc.

Apple engineering, are you taking note?



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Hi everyone. The "odd fix" doesn't work. Tried it on my Windows Desktop. It's also annoying. Here's what DOES work...

After much frustration trying to keep Airtunes connections working, I discovered a simple way to keep Airtunes running 100% of the time!!

I have an Airport Extreme (2007 Wireless-N), and an Airport Express. I run a Windows XP desktop PC with a WIRED connection to the Extreme. The Express is wirelessly connected across the room to my hi-fi. The Extreme and Express are about 50' apart.

I received the Airport utility version 5.0 with the Extreme. Not sure if this will work with version 4.2, which is the only version you can currently download at Apple.com.

Here's how I fixed the connection cutting out...

I leave the Airport Utility program OPEN. It's that simple. By not closing the Utility program while running my computer I get 100% connection all the time, and play Airtunes all day if I want.

Minimize, but don't close the program. It seems to keep the connection alive.

My only beef with iTunes right now is that sharing libraries and running music off a network is unintuitive and SLOWS the computer down terribly. If Apple could make iTunes more lean and mean for networking, it would be the killer app for music it wants to be.

K

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this was an awesome find. i found it worked perfectly.

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Weird, but the multiple speakers option worked for me as well as having the Airport Utility open. FYI, I have a AX connected wirelessly to a D-Link DIR-655 and wirelessly stream music from a MacBook C2D 2GHz. Thanks for the info! :)

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Hi all

Just reset my MBP and AirPort Express with Interference Robustness *on* and all seems well... either interference robustness has been improved mightily since this thread first appeared or those bizarre tweaks didn't actually work, really.

So just enable robustness on your machine and your wireless network nodes and you should be fine...

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Read through all the posts, however no luck...
If you have the Wii console, turn it off.
Now I have no dropping.
Hope that help.

best wishes

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I tried everything and nothing worked. In my environment, I use the airport and plug it into my receiver and I use an audioengine aw1 so that my subwoofer can also be wireless. It is the AW1 that is causing the interference as it uses 802.11 to send the bass signals. Switching channels seems to help, but occasionally, probably when there are other apartment networks in use, it still drops out.

The search continues.

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This may be obvious but I haven't seen it mentioned here. In iTunes goto Preferences > Advanced, and make sure you set the Streaming Buffer Size to "Large". I think the default is "Medium". This will help eliminate any dropouts caused to short connection interruptions.

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Nope, doesn't help.

---
ing. G.E.A. Vansteelant, MSc, BSc
Lead Assessor

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I believe this refers to buffers for downloading streams from Internet radio, not for sending streaming music to an Airport.

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