Using Airport Express is an upgrade over MAudio

Weird, but true, to my ears at least! I am not using my i-book, airport express, Quad CDP99 and it sounds great. I bought the airport express primarily to move away from using cables so had no expectations sonically and my jaw dropped when i first plugged it in and started listening - far more detail. FYI I was using the MAudio as a digital through, ie digital out of MAudio to digial in on my Quad. The funny thing is that I was using a co-ax connection with the MAudio and Airport Express uses an optical input to the Quad and optical is meant to be an inferior connection type. Anyway i am sitting on my sofa, with no wires, typing this and selecting what music I want to listen to; bliss! ......and not a CD case in sight! Dominic

 

what exactly is your set-up?

 

i-Book/Airport Express/Quad CDP99/Quad909(power amp)/Sonus Faber EAII

i mostly listen to music from the i-Book and from the Quad cdp when buying new cds as I cannot wait the 3 minutes ut takes to rip a cd and have to listen straight away! The Quad cdp does sound better than the i-Book but the i-Book is very enjoyable to listen to both sonically and because I am now listening to far many more "cds" than I did before.

There are several routes to wireless and server-type implementations but I like my set-up because it is all works seemlessly, is upgradable and can be used for more than just music! Others here have taken different approaches and seem to be happy as well. On balance I felt that an i-Book was more cost effective than a so-called media-centre (pc) approach, and for internet browsing was less susseptable to viruses and hackers (generally attacking Microsoft products). Hope that this helps with the info and thinking behind it. Dominic

 

Yep, that's a nice answer, but you don't need a media centre to go the PC route. A squeezebox does very nicely, and probably other things like a Moku too