>What's the best way to stream audio (say an Internet radio station)
>from my iMac Intel 20" to an amplifier -- I have an Onkyo -- and
>speaker system for my home entertainment system? One audio guy
>suggested just running an audio cable from the speaker plug out of
>the iMac to an input on the Onkyo.
This will be by far the easiest and cheapest way to go *and* least
likely to drop any audio. The downside is that it will play all of
your computer sounds through your Onkyo, not just the radio station
you want. You can change this with a piece of software called
"Detour" -
<
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20128>
- but alas! No Intel compatible version is available. Nor will there
ever be one:
<
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/News/detour-retirement-2005-10-14-10-00>
> Another suggested Airport Extreme connected to the amplifier to do
>it wirelessly. Not sure how this last idea would work.
You need "Airport Express", not "Airport Extreme". Airport Express
will set you back by just under $100 these days, so this option is
much more expensive than simply getting a cable to run directly from
your computer. But you can't overlook the coolness factor of
wirelessly streaming music- that's worth something, right? Oh, and
you'll still need to get that cable anyway, to connect the AE to your
Onkyo. If your Onkyo is a recent model and has optical digital input,
you may use that instead if you like, but I doubt you'll notice much
better quality for your purposes; the incoming signal from the
internet radio station is certainly going to be the weakest link in
this particular chain, and your nice home system will probably make
its shortcomings far more obvious than your computer speakers do
regardless of the inputs used.
But I digress. Here's how the Airport Express works: set the base
station up, add it to your existing network (it can also stand alone
as its own network, replacing your existing router, but you probably
don't need that), then check out the 'music' tab in the setup
utility. It's very straightforward.
The next issue you'll have is that you may only stream audio to the
Airport Express via iTunes, so if your desired station does not
stream over iTunes, you might think that you're out of luck. Do not
despair! It is possible to stream other audio sources to the Airport
Express using an app called "Airfoil".
<
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/>
And, if you have room around your stereo gear for a USB printer (and
if you can ignore the cognitive dissonance that comes from pairing a
printer with your fine audio kit), you can plug that into the AE as
well and have a networked printer.
I've not seen *any* other manufacturer come close to touching the
functionality of Apple's Airport Express at a price point anywhere
close. And nothing at all that I've encountered compares in any way
to its ease of setup and use. This is just a great little piece of
hardware. The only frustration with mine is that the effective range
for streaming audio from my 12" Powerbook isn't quite enough to allow
me to leave my 'book in the upstairs master bedroom and still get
audio to the living room without dropouts. Grrrr. But that's more to
do with the metal casing of the Powerbook, from what I understand. My
wife's older iBook G3 has a much longer usable range.
>
>I ask because Apple TV apparently will NOT do streaming audio from
>the Internet, only iTunes.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Airfoil or a similar piece of software
correcting this little problem in the very near future. But if all
you want to do is audio, Don't bother with Apple TV at all.
Greg Sigman
mac.com> wrote:
![[F]](/Images/i7/site.gif){kind=small}
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