Greetings,

I am looking for info on streaming audio from my desktop Itunes to my stereo systems. Currently I have a wifi system consisting of an Airport Extreme and two Airport Express's, one each feeding my two separate systems. The Express's are connected to the preamps by RCA cables. My Itunes libray is all ripped in lossless format.

My question is am I sending that lossless data all the way to the stereo, or is it being degraded somewhere along the way? And assuming that it is being degraded, what opitons do I have to prevent that?

Thanks in advance.

If you've got lossless content in iTunes, you'll get lossless content at the Airport Express.

Check out Tesserax's detailed response to a similar question here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3931443

Thanks for that link.

If you've got lossless content in iTunes, you'll get lossless content at the Airport Express.

So, as I understand it, with my current set-up of having the Airport Express connected to the pre-amp with RCA cables, the digital to analog conversion is happening in the AE? Does this affect the lossless data file or does the AE send lossless data over the RCA cables also?

If I connect the AE to the pre-amp with an optical cable, then the conversion will be done by the DAC in the pre-amp, correct? I assume that would be a better option?

OK, after further research, it looks like my Rotel RC1070 preamp does not have an optical input. In fact I don't think it even has an internal DAC. (I assume my CD player has the DAC?)

So, that means the Airport Express is doing the digital to analog conversion? Is that a capable DAC or should I be looking at upgrades? I assume that would require a DAC at each AE? probably not in the budget...

I wouldn't sweat it.

Bob, the DACs in nearly all current audio equipment are excellent and entirely sufficient for audibly flawless conversion. This includes Airport Express and isn't a cause for concern.

I stream flac files to my denon 3803 with TVersity media server with no issues over wifi.