A limited alternative to AirPlay for Mac users

Hi everyone,

The reason I'd like to see AirPlay coming to the Naim streaming/playing devices is purely for convenience: listening to something on my Mac or iThing and sending it to the main rig to gain in scale and immersion. No other use for me, and not looking for a particular high quality streaming using AirPlay. Just quick and dirty.

Intrigued by an ad about Rogue Amoeba's 10th anniversary, I downloaded their Internet Radio streaming application called Nicecast. It creates a personal internet radio station on your Mac, to which you can redirect the sound from any other application. The initial setting is a piece of cake: just chose my browser of choice (Firefox) as the source application, noted the URL of the station, added it to my SqueezeBox, allowed the port in my Mac firewall settings, started the broadcast, pressed play on the SqueezeBox, and basically that's it. Anything that can produce some sound on my Mac can be redirected to the streamer. Certainely dirty, and quick enough. Nice for discovering new music on YouTube for instance, or listening to streaming podcasts.

The only downside til now is the few seconds lag, which can be annoying if you're watching someone talking or singing. Maybe it's less if you're Mac is newer and more powerful than mine.

Good news is that Nicecast can be used for free. Noise is added to the broadcast after one hour, which for me is more than enough; and as in my case I use it only for private use, not a problem to restart the broadcast would that happen. And Nicecast is on sale these day, should you choose to get a full license.

Similar products must certainly exist for Windows users, but I'm not aware of any in particular.

HTH and have a nice Sunday afternoon,

Maurice

Disclaimer: Just to be clear, I'm not affiliated to Rogue Amoeba in any way.