Many thanks to this forum for Unifi AC Lite

Posted by: Andrew Lea on 04 February 2018

I’ve been pretty much a lurker here since I bought my Uniti 2 about 5 years ago and a Muso Qb more recently. But I read others’ postings avidly because they’ve helped me enormously. From this forum I’ve learnt the advantages of direct Ethernet cables and switches and I bought an Apple TV so I could stream Qobuz to my Uniti 2 via AirPlay.

My latest acquisition thanks to this forum is a Ubiquiti Unifi AC Lite wireless access point (my ISP supplied router from Gigaclear is a Genexis Live which has appalling WiFi). This little unit has totally solved connection and drop-out problems to my kitchen Muso Qb which I didn’t want to hard wire. It even plays now while the microwave oven is working! It’s also given much more stability to Airplay streaming via my iPad. AFAIR the AC Lite was recommended by Phil Harris and Simon-in-Suffolk (and probably others). So many thanks to you all.

Although I do have a technical background it is more chemical and biological than hard physical. So I don’t follow all the ins and outs of the more arcane stuff here. But I’m very grateful to those tecchies who post and from whom the rest of us can pick up useful crumbs!

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by DomTomLondon

Hey Andrew, could I ask how are you using AirPlay from your AppleTV to the Uniti2? I also have an AppleTV. But my SuperUniti and the Uniti2 do not support AirPlay, at least as far as I am aware. So was curious how you got it to work?

Thanks.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by ChrisSU

DomTomLondon posted:
Hey Andrew, could I ask how are you using AirPlay from your AppleTV to the Uniti2? I also have an AppleTV. But my SuperUniti and the Uniti2 do not support AirPlay, at least as far as I am aware. So was curious how you got it to work?

You need an optical connection from ATV to streamer. I seem to recall that some ATV don’t have optical out, so you would need to check this

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by Andrew Lea

The digital optical out from the Apple TV unit goes to one of the digital optical inputs on the Uniti 2. The Uniti 2 in itself does not support AirPlay so the Apple TV unit (which does) acts as an intermediary. Hope that helps.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by Andrew Lea

Yes I have just checked and it seems the latest version of Apple TV lacks the optical output. That’s very sad because it shuts off that route to Airplay. Maybe there is another workaround? Perhaps via an Apple Airport?

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by NickSeattle

Andrew Lea posted:
Yes I have just checked and it seems the latest version of Apple TV lacks the optical output. That’s very sad because it shuts off that route to Airplay. Maybe there is another workaround? Perhaps via an Apple Airport?

In that case, you could take optical out of your TV. If there is no TV, then AirPort Express has the optical port you are looking for.

Nick

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by ChrisSU

Yes, Airport Express has the required optical out (but not Airport Extreme.) Used ones are cheap on ebay these days.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by DomTomLondon

Thanks guys, Yes unfortunately my AppleTV is the 4th Gen which does not have an optical out, and my TV screen does not have optical out.

I have tried a few HDMI to HDMI/Optical splitter boxes with very poor results. So I was intrigued how you where using AirPlay. I have not tried the Airport express route yet, but it might be the only way to go, at this stage.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by ChrisSU

I’ve found the AE/optical route to be very useful as long as your WiFi is robust, and it gives you more flexibility than optical direct from a computer or USB from an iOS device. I’ve found that there can be a sacrifice in sound quality with Airplay compared to a direct connection, though.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by Filipe

Andrew Lea posted:
Yes I have just checked and it seems the latest version of Apple TV lacks the optical output. That’s very sad because it shuts off that route to Airplay. Maybe there is another workaround? Perhaps via an Apple Airport?

Many TVs have optical out and HDMI in. So if Apple TV still has HDMI out it gets closer. My ATV is just over 3 years old. The sound via the optical from the Panasonic Viera TV sounds amazing through my system. The TV even has a media server which allows me to play music from my NAS. The SQ comes close to my CDX2 via the same nDAC + XPSDR. It just lacks a bit of texture on the instrument notes.

Phil

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by Andrew Lea

ChrisSU posted:
I’ve found the AE/optical route to be very useful as long as your WiFi is robust, and it gives you more flexibility than optical direct from a computer or USB from an iOS device. I’ve found that there can be a sacrifice in sound quality with Airplay compared to a direct connection, though.

Yes that was kind of the point of my original post. The Unifi AC Lite has given just that robustness to my Wifi and Airplay which was lacking before. I have tried a direct connection iPad to USB port on the Uniti 2 but I'm not convinced it's better for sound quality. I also tried Chromecast Audio via an optical link but that's a bit flaky from an iPad, not gapless, and to my ears poorer sound quality than Airplay.

Posted on: 05 February 2018 by DomTomLondon

From what I have read you can use Airport express over ethernet and I also have my AppleTV set up over ethernet. So in theory Airplay should go though the wired network and not over WiFi, so sound quality should not suffer at all. (obviously being limited to 16/44.1) Anyone know if this is correct?