I have a ton of music stored in various copies of iTunes scattered among various Macbooks, iPhones and iPads around the house. I would like to consolidate all of this material and be able to easily access it from any device and be able to play it through various systems (Airplay speaker, vintage stereo system, etc) that we have in different locations in the house. I'm not sure how to go about this.

I previously had a setup using an old Airport Express that I was using to stream from my Macbook to the vintage stereo but I'm not sure if the AE works anymore, and I don't know if newer Macs work with it.

Any advice would be appreciated. Straighforward and inexpensive would be best. If there is some way to also integrate a backup drive or NAS in such a system, so much the better. It also needs to be usable by my technology-challenged S.O.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

I actually added another AE a couple of weeks ago and hooked it up to my headphone amp.

I used Sierra to set up the network. Easy Peasy!


[forums.macresource.com]

I repurposed an original airport express a couple of times over the years when my wifi network changed. There is an older version of airport utility I used both times to join my original AE to the new wireless network. Just looked on the laptop, and I used version 5.6.1, and the hack found in "version 5.6.1 launcher." I use that for a printer, not for music, but you could recreate the vintage stereo set up like that.

For streaming stereo in one room, I use wifi to an original iPad Air, an Apple USB 3 camera kit, external DAC into a stereo amp. I stream Amazon HD music and it works well for me.

I saw some boxes ~ $400 - 500, that will distribute streaming music around the house to compatible devices in different locations. IIRC, it was a bit to unstandardized (but getting there), with not enough options, for me to commit to that solution at the time. Beyond the single stereo room, I have custom monitors and amp, as well as good headphones and DAC, for revisiting the higher quality music path. (Don't get me wrong, the streaming stereo sounds very good, just not pro.

If you need more help looking for those distribution boxes, let me know and I'll find the names. I also have the airport utility 5.6.1 stuff if you need it and can't locate it. Best of luck, davester!

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“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in."

This can be complicated. I haven’t found a perfect solution but I can tell you what I use.

2013 iMac running High Sierra
iTunes 12.8
Synology NAS for storage
Airfoil to airplay music as Apple seems to have broken it
iTunes Alarm which allows me to start playlist on a schedule which I enjoy in the morning.

This works well for pushing music around the house which we do a lot. All other playback is via Plex client. We can access our music from anywhere that has an internet connection. Far superior to anything iTunes offers. In my case I run the Plex server on the Synology box which makes it almost effortless. We can download music and movies and TV shows from anywhere.

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Ukulele music I couldn't find anywhere else.
I’ve added some recipes and spiritual thoughts as well.
[colquhoun.info]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2021 08:13PM by davemchine.

Sign up for iTunes Match, still only $35/ year
[support.apple.com]

or included with AppleMusic for $10/m

Log in to all your devices & iTunes library, and select "Sync Library"

If the song is a available, they will show up on ALL library's as 256KPS MP4

if not the the songs will be uploaded to the cloud as 'up to' 256KPS MP4s.

A great deal unless you are all lossless.

Afterwards, decide where you want you music to live and download all to that library.

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San Antonio, TX (in the old city)


"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
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"Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise" - Barry Goldwater