Music from hard drive better than CD?

While any Quicktime compatible file may be played over AirPort Express, all audio is streamed as Apple Lossless because of WiFi bandwidth limitiations.

Dylans4bass, thanks for the info. I dug through the Apple website and found confirmation about the conversion to Apple Lossless with Airport Express. It was buried midway within a 31 page tech document. What confuses me is where the conversion actually takes place. Is it in the computer running iTunes/AirTunes or is it in the Airport Express. I would assume it's in the computer, but when I run the Activity Monitor I do not see any additional CPU or disk activity when playing music through Airport Express vs. the internal computer speaker.

BTW, what does your webname signify?

Fom the Tact hackers group:

--- In TacTHackers@yahoogroups.com, "kana4813" wrote:

Not cheap, but for those who don't want to use their PC, here's another approach:
http://www.qsonix.com/Public/Default.aspx

I realize that the topic is pointing towards a Single PC serving to a Single Dac on a Main System...
But Can a Single PC Serve Music over a Network, to Other DACs and Amplifiers, Simultaneously to Create Multi-Room listening...
Or to state it differently... The Same Music is being Played on Different Systems Throughout the House, over the Network, Being Sourced from a Single PC/Harddrive.

Also Does Anyone Have any OtherLinks to CHAT on this subject trough Audio Asylum or ???

Jmesarch-

You may want to look at the Roku Soundbridge products, the Slimp3, and the CD30. They are network audio devices, and I think they are all "server-push" so they will allow you to run multiple remotes off a single computer. Don't know whether they will permit multiple remotes to play the same exact music, however, since the network is running a point-to-point protocol. You might look into using the computer to create a stream like the netradio stations and using the remotes to access that if playing the same thing from multiple places is important. I think most of these things have digital outputs as well as analog. I suspect the analog outs are pretty suspect for audiophiles, but if you are just looking for ambient background music, probably works...

Dig around in the digital forums here. There is a bunch of info on folk's server based systems.