SuperUniti streaming with Apple kit

I thought I would post this in case anyone with Apple kit is considering a similar setup and wants to know if it will work.

Our system is built around OSX Lion iMacs and an Apple Airport wifi network, hung off a BT Homehub 3 which provides the IP addresses. The Homehub wifi won't cover the entire house, so we use a Time Machine to create a wifi network at one end of the house and then extend it to the other end using an Airport Extreme, via the "extend network" option in Airport utility. This gives us five bar coverage everywhere except in the living room, and only two bars in the corner where the audio system lives. Bummer.

I have just installed a SuperUniti (great piece of kit) and can report that it works like a dream with a slight modification of this arrangement. After a bit of experimentation I have settled on Yazsoft's Playback to provide uPNP support on the iMacs and it works very well with n-stream, allowing for the need to reboot both machines once after installation. Playback needs hardly any setting up and you can completely forget it after running it the first time, since it will automatically load at login unless you tell it otherwise.

I tried a mains network to the SuperUniti for a while, but gave up out of frustration because of frequent drop-outs on internet radio at higher bit rates. For some reason mains networking works badly in the living room, although it works fine elsewhere in the house - this accounts for the drop-outs. I got around the problem by sticking an Airport Express on the shelf under the SuperUniti, which boosted the wifi reception up to five bars - so I unplugged the SU from the mains network and have run it on wifi ever since.

Naim appear to advise against sticking Unitis on the end of multi-leg wifi networks, but the result is totally reliable on the Airport system we have here, even if the SuperUniti is dangling at the end of a three leg wifi relay. I think the strong wifi signal at the Uniti has a lot to do with it, but I never get any drop-outs now and n-stream has behaved itself perfectly, despite all the dire warnings about the app in the iTunes site reviews. As described the system will stream anything from 128 kps all the way up to Apple Lossless without a hitch.

Just to see if it could be done, I connected the Airport Express up to one of the optical inputs on the SuperUniti, which means that I can use Airplay to stream to the SU from anywhere in the house and my daughter can play direct off her iPod. The only snag with this approach is (I believe - this may be wrong) that adjusting the volume using the iPod slider calls the iPod DAC into the loop and drops the quality, but hey, it works, which is little short of a miracle.

The only thing that would make this setup perfect would be if Naim added in Airplay support to the SuperUniti, in which case they are guaranteed a Christmas card from me every year until I die.

Anyway, if you are wondering if you can stream from iTunes on an iMac running OSX Lion, the answer is that you can and that Yazsoft's Playback works. I would suspect that Playback would also run on Snow Leopard, but I haven't tried it. Maybe someone who has can add to this thread.

Andrew