Please a little help with Apple.

Airport express does not do hi res regardless of how you set it up.

apples airport extreme is a very poor router, do not waste your money, get a router from a company that knows what its doing such as asus or draytek.

setting up is reasonably straight forward, plug it in, you then need airport utility on mac pc or ios to find and set it up, you just want it to connect via bridged mode to your current network. Then hook up a digital spdif lead between it and the uniti

The SuperUniti works far better wired. Run an Ethernet cable from your router to an Ethernet switch. Connect the SU and NAS to the switch. Connect the AE to the switch and use that point to take the commands from NStream. Fix the IP addresses on the SU and NAS.

i agree with Gary, get a really good router. I have a Draytek and it's excellent.

Sorry I thought the op wanted to use the express to stream audio, if the plan was to extend a wireless network then its likely to be a bit flaky, once you can get a decent wireless/router then that may resolve it somewhat. 

However an ethernet cable is the best bet.

Agree with the ohers, airport is not a great option, better to use good component such as Dreytek

I think what the OP is looking for is to run an ethernet cable from the airport express to the Super Uniti.  This is entirely possible.  You want to set the the airport express to "Join a wireless network." You should then be able to connect an ethernet cable from the airport to your SU.  I'm not sure if this is better than using your SU's wireless antenna, but will let you use all of the streaming functions of the SU, and not use the airport for audio out.

If you want to connect an apple device to the SU using airplay, you can also use a toslink cable between the airport and the SU into the SU's SPDIF input.  This is not recommended as the primary way to stream.  Naims streamer built into the SU is miles and miles better. However, I do use an airport > toslink > NaimDAC to stream MOG (like Spotify) and other apps from my iPhone to the NDAC just for kicks.

I have found the Airport Extreme to be fantastic for wifi.  I do not use it for DNS; I use my ISP's home router for that.  I'm not sure what the Apple Airport Extreme is so bad with; it seems just fine as a gigabit switch and wifi router.  All I can think of is that it prefers the 10.2.x.x ip addresses instead of the 192.168.x.x

Bart, the airport extreme is poor. I can confirm this to you today because last week i bought a 2013 timecapsule on a whim.

wireless is poor. Infact of the latest batch of ac routers it consistently the slowest in online tests and confirms my findings. It comes in at around half the speed of my asus rtn66u which is far cheaper.

Apples decision to dumb it down means that the basics arn't even there, it does not even have the ability any more to use ddns, a basic staple of routers.

this is an expensive device. What it does it does in a mediocre fashion, and there is far far better out there.

its not even an excuse if your needs are basic, really good cheaper routers do the basics, and are faster.

the ip range is neither here nor there, as its one element apple still let you change.

anyhow, thank god for online 14 day returns policy because its packaged up ready for return, it basically confirms my general experience of airports, slow, unconfigerable, expensive. I had three now, each time believing they would surely have it sorted, but no.

Looks nice though.

Wat the fact you don't use it as a router does not mean its not a router.

It is. Its a Wireless Router, with gigibit ethernet for wired routing and a wireless adaptor. You can set DHCP ranges etc within the software so it is a router.

And its not the best out there, or even towards the top. I am not trolling here, I urge you to take a look on line at recent performance tests/reviews by peoples far more capable than me. Especially note the wireless capability. In essence its good over distance but is around half the speed of its peers.

If all you want to do is extend your wireless network, which is what you have done there is no need what so ever to purchase an extreme.

I recommend to anyone looking at a router the following models, I have direct experience of them and they outperform an extreme in all areas that matter, and are in general far far cheaper:

Asus RTN66u

Draytek Vigor 2820N

Asus RTN56U

I have argued on here many times that people are happy to spend big money on naim streamers then hook it up to cheap nasty routers. I take this line because I am a bit of a geek with routers, I like to have the latest models hence why I took a dip on a time capsule. Just wish I had read the reviews before I dived in

The extreme is not cheap and nasty, its very reliable and it looks great. If however you need to do anything of interest, such as DDNS then you are stuffed. Apple have tried to make set up easy, but then again so is the asus, which sets up a temporary adhoc wireless network, you hook onto it and it takes you straight to a basic set up page.

All I am saying is, if someone is looking to buy a router, I wouldn't go for Apple, in my opinion its one area they are not particularly strong in.

Thank you, garyi.  Good information.

I have an Extreme in my basement-corner office.  Coverage was poor upstairs except in the living room directly above, and half of the kitchen.  As a temporary solution, I added a second Extreme in the kitchen and got it working wirelessly, expanding connectivity through the rest of the house.  I had tried this before with pair of Linksys pieces once before, unsuccessfully.

I realize running the second Extreme wireless in and out may adversely affect network performance, but it is a temp solution, and gives me control of the HiFi wherever I need it.

Cheers.

Nick

Well, I agree its probably not a fully fledged router, however what ever it is, it can take the place of a fully fledged router. i.e. I replaced it into my network and something was doing the routing, and it was the airport!

The new asus RT AC68u is on order for me now, as I say I cannot help myself Apparently the Netgear r7000 is top of the pile at the minute, but I never got on with netgear routers.

FWIW I have a lot of devices clogging up the house and the network became a bit of a hobby/project. In the loft I have a 24 port gigabit managed switch, which feeds ethernet ports throughout the house, garage and shed. I believe the switch is the biggest factor in a successful network. With a decent wireless router on one of those ports and you should be set for the long term.

You can easily replace the homehubs, I have done it for people, you just have to phone them for your user name and password.

This is what I've done with my 3 floor home and has allowed me to use wifi for hi res 192/24:

1.  AirportExtreme [new one] on floor 1 attached to iMac running jRiver

2.  AirportExtreme on floor 2 attached via ethernet cable to my ND5

3.  AirportExtreme [new one] on floor 3 attached via ethernet cable to my UnitiLite

I consistently get 300 mb/s connections anywhere in my home.  Never had a significant problem streaming.  Small investment really considering the performance.

  You can configure each to either extend the network or join the network.  I have 2 & 3 set to join network.  If 2 were set to extend network then 3 might connect to 2 to get to 1.

The new AirportExtremes are much more powerful than the older versions.  I'd buy a new Extreme and hook it up to the nd5 and set it to join the old Extreme's network.  [Which is a mirror image of what I've done (since you probably do not want a noisy time capsule near your nd5)]  I'd be really surprised if you had problems streaming 192/24 with that setup.

I was looking at one of those bad boys to replace my Airport Extreme when we get BT Infinity in two weeks.  Would be interested in your feedback.

It's hard to beat a DrayTek.

Rich, i'll let you know.

asus have been rock solid for me with plenty of options and custom firmware if required so i have high hopes! 

With a 2013 macbook air with wireless ac as well i should be able to give it a good run.

Cheers garyi, although the BT HH5 that comes with my Infinity package is supposed to be dual band 802.11ac so I will give it a whirl first.  To be honest going from 1.5 meg broadband to 80 meg Infinity will be such a relief that the wireless may just be the icing on the cake!

Gary I have not tried the 2013 Airport models with the ac capabilities.  I should have been more specific -- I have 2011 generation Airport Extreme and Time Capsule, and I'm finding the wifi to be excellent in my very tall and narrow townhome.  This is a layout that often is tough for wifi.  I pay for 50Mb/s download and this is via wifi.  It might not prove anything but I'm happy with it.

Hi, Wat,

I believe that is the very thing that defines a router:  The AE can do NAT, and create its own subnet, unless you decide to set it to Bridged mode, which may be the default setup -- I forget.

I think garyi's comments are uncontroversial:  I am a satisfied Extreme and Express user, but there are certainly options missing.  I will say that the way wireless network extension works in the Apple ecosystem is a beautiful thing.  

That said, I am very glad to know about the Asus advantages.  I may pursue them, after all.

Nick 

Hi bart, my comments with apple concern its wifi capability the speed of wan is neither here nor there as 60Mb/s should be handled by even the cheapest routers.

i like your upload speed though, i hope you are taking advantage of it, for instance running plex server so your entire music collection is available to you when out and about

Gary you motivated me to turn on Plex server on my Synology!  But I can't seem to access it on my work PC from my office.  I suspect it's a firewall issue here on our work network and/or this pc.  I've not yet tried on my iPhone as I was looking for a free alternative to the Plex app which right now is $4.99.  I am cheap!  But I'll probably buy it.

I think its fantastic. I sometimes have to stay away in a hotel, just fire up the ipadand there is all my stuff.

To make it work you need to sign up to myplex, which is free you then simply sign on on what ever devcies you running the client from and on the server on your nas. It all then talks to each other.

But if you are using a Synology NAS then Audio Station works just fine. And DS Audio on a mobile phone is very nice as well.

Yea but how is that dishing up my tv shows and movies?