Airport express

This may not help.

You may well have to configure your airport express in airport utility, but once up and running you can indeed use an optical cable into you uniti. 

I don't think you will be able to stream apple lossless directly, but I use songbird and airfoil to do this over wireless into my qute.

To be honest I'm new to this streaming lark and there are so many variations of what can be done.

Personally I use a Qnap NAS linked into my network and stream that way. Using the songbird/airfoil set up is good when working on my macbook air. Personally the Qnap network way of working sounds best to me.

Steve, welcome to the forum.

In Airport Utility on your mac you will have to configure AEnto join your wireless network. Dead easy using the wizard. AE is very versatile. You could connect via mini jack, in which case AE will output analogue sound - not very high quality because the digital to analogue conversion will be done by the AE, not recommended. The same socket will output digital sound if connect using an optical cable, mini Toslink. Much better quality. 

If you're using ITunes you could streamwirelessly from your Mac ( or iPhone, iPad) using Airplay. I think this will work with lossless, but am not absolutely sure. The Mac ( or iPhone, iPad) will be able to "see" the AE when you play in iTunes, and if you want to stream you select the AE you want. I have about 4 around the house.

If you connect Unitiserve using Ethernet, it will be like connecting the Unitiserve to the network directly. AE is said to be in "wireless bridge " mode. Not exactly sure what this would let you do - perhaps others will know.  Hope thishelps..

Paul

From memory, I think Airplay streams Apple Lossless from iTunes, transcoding MP3/WAV/AAC/whatever on the fly.  

Until Naim implement AirPlay in the Uniti, iTunes to Airport Express to Uniti (via Toslink) with Apple Lossless is likely to be the highest quality way to do Apple streaming without too much faff.

Simon

Thank's for the replies guys...will try the airport express this week andreport the results ! 

Hello again , epic failwith airport express..could not install..apple bofins think it's either too far from router or it will not accept wep security,they suggested altering security to more upto date Wpa ?...really don't want to mess with router as everything else works fine...so airport returned to shop.

All I want to achieve is streaming from the mac to the unity..tried twonky..it does not transcode apple lossless files....any ideas for an easy solution ? ...if I import cd's in say AAC to I tunes streaming works....am I looking at converting all my music ? What are your thoughts re the different file types quality wise .? P.s I am no computer expert so simple answers would be helpful ...thanks.

Hmm, I would have used a wired Ethernet patch lead from router switch port to the AE. Disable your wireless on your Router switch, and just use the AE wireless. If your router wireless access only supports WEP the chances are its very old or very low spec, and could be a potentialbottleneck for Apple or upnp streaming, specifically it must support multicast.

WEP is obsolete now, and offers no real protection or security, just a basic concept of privacy, kind of like a closed unlocked door, where as WPA (and its derivatives) is like a closed locked door, or a closed locked door where the lock keeps changing.

As far as file types, go for a lossless one. Different decoders seem to be optimised for different file types, arguably Naim sounds best with WAV but others on this forum swear that with  thier setup they can hear no difference between FLAC and WAV on thier Naim equipment. Only u can decide, but a live transcoding upnp server makes this a trivial tweak, which makes it less emotive.

If you go lossless then a good upnp server can transcode the media to optimise it for your particular network player. Asset ( and i understand there may be others) on MS operating systems does this. Therefore it moves the worry away of what format your media is in. 

In the Apple world I am not aware of a native equivalent upnp server that transcodes per network device for streaming audio.

BTW, at this time I don't think Asset supports real time transcoding of AAC 

Simon

After only just getting my Qute and Qnap NAS, I've been busily ripping CDs. The time of ripping varies a lot, and the transfer to my Qnap was fairly consistent at around 5 - 7 minutes.

On Wednesday this time extended to around an hour for each CD, clearly something was wrong.

I checked everything, BT Homehub 3, Airport express's, server, qute, power line adapters. Still it took ages.

I then swapped power line adapters and all went back to normal!!

After reading threads and reviews of the Airport Extreme, I yesterday took the plunge and got one. 

Wow what a difference in speed from transfer to internet.

I have cut down on power lines and network adapters, so now I have....

BT Homehub 3 acting as modem, this goes into the Extreme, which does go into power line adapters as my hub is in a different room to the qute and server. I then have two airport expresses extending the network. It all seems to work much better now and 1gb file transfer takes about 2 minutes, making my ripping much quicker..... 

I've had so many wireless routers over the years and they have all struggled in this house (20mtrs front to back not too wide Edwardian semi) and have always thought the AE expensive, but if it works well and reliably then its a result.