The new Apple Airport Express

Posted by: 0rangutan on 20 June 2012

I bought one of the new model Apple Airport Expresses and thought it might be worth sharing a few thoughts for anyone considering using one in their audio setup:

The size and appearance are very similar to the current AppleTV, only in white and with a green LED. The LED is much smaller and more subtle than the giant one used on previous models.
Like the Apple TV, it uses a figure of 8 connector and power lead - you no longer plug it directly into a power socket. This changes the design rather a lot, but does mean you can more easily place it on or near to the rest of your equipment more easily. While you could disconnect the plug on older models to achieve the same, this looks a lot neater.
It now has two ethernet sockets. These are marked as WAN and LAN for routing purposes, but the reality is that you can bridge from wireless to both ports simultaneously. Ie. if you previously used an Airport Express to get off-board wireless and achieve decent range 802.11n wireless for your Naim devices, you can now do this for two devices at once.
AirPlay support seems to be unchanged and after testing the optical output to my Bel Canto DAC, this is 16/44.1. While this won't support hires audio, it does have a big advatage over the Apple TV as a streamer in that it does not re-sample all output to 16/48.

Overall, not a massive change, but if you are looking to add off-board wireless and/or AirPlay to your Naim setup and don't care about movies and all the other Apple TV features, the Airport Express is the better option of the two. Unless you need all your boxes to be black of course...

Posted on: 20 June 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Thanks OT very useful write-up

Posted on: 21 June 2012 by MediaMatt

Very useful report, Orangutan, thanks. It's interesting to see that the new AE can now be positioned away from the mains socket & closer to any audio kit, if wanted.

It would be interesting to know what the digital output capabilities really are though. It not that far fetched to imagine that Apple may release a firmware update to unlock 24/96 capabilities. It might give more substance to this rumour

It's nice to dream!

Posted on: 22 June 2012 by realhifi

Originally Posted by MediaMatt:

Very useful report, Orangutan, thanks. It's interesting to see that the new AE can now be positioned away from the mains socket & closer to any audio kit, if wanted.

It's nice to dream!

It would certainly make AirPlay more relevant to a lot of folks.

Posted on: 23 June 2012 by Vikas

Thanks, very useful. I'm having so much trouble getting Playback to work over the last couple of days that I may switch to an AirPort express. I mostly need audio anyway.

Originally Posted by 0rangutan:

I bought one of the new model Apple Airport Expresses and thought it might be worth sharing a few thoughts for anyone considering using one in their audio setup:

Posted on: 24 June 2012 by nitrous

Just my opinion, but I think this is a retrograde step. I like the old plug in design. It sits on a socket (hidden) and is plugged via optical 700mm cable in to nDac. No shelf required, easy for background Internet radio streaming. I think I will be hanging on to my existing one for now.

But thanks for heads up, I didn't realise Apple had upgraded this item.