Questions & Answers for AirPort Express

No. Plugging a phone cable into the Ethernet Jack on the Airport Express will do nothing, they are not compatible, and making a dial-up connection or a DSL connection using phone cables requires a modem. The modem sends and receives audio signals over the phone wire and translates those into codes that are passed on digitally to other devices, like routers and computers. The Airport Express is a Router/Wireless Access Point, but it is not a modem.

• Answered by David H from Cotati
• 11 10, 16
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (is it possible to get Wifi if i used a telephone wire????)

No, it cannot. At this time, the AirPrint capability has to be preconfigured by the manufacturer of the printer.

• Answered by Colin O from Rochester
• 07 27, 12
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Can this new airport express drive offers AirPrint service to iPhone/iPad etc driving a non-airprint capable printer via USB port?)

I just got an ATV 3rd Gen and experimented with it's TOSLink audio out compared to the optical out of the Express. My Moon Simaudio amp indicates that it's receiving an input from the ATV at 48KHz compared to 44.1KHz from the Express. Given this is a higher sample rate, you might expect some benefit but as far as I'm aware, it'll depend on a number of factors such as the integrity of the digital signal (incl. error correction capability) from the source i.e your Mac, over your wireless network to when it enters the digital input (Toslink, SPDIF etc) of your amp. Then there is the issue of the quality of the DAC in your amp or separate DAC unit. After all, a high quality DAC will over sample sufficiently and deal with other digital artefacts to minimise noise etc etc and not suffer the effects of a steep LP filter.

If anyone else with an audio engineering/digital audio background can explain further then that would be great! I can't help but think that there is a lot of unnecessary myth and confusion created in the digital domain (esp optical) I.e applying techniques to preserve the integrity of analogue signals carried over copper/silver to those in the optical digital domain. Why? How is a digital optical signal adversely affected by electromagnetic interference and in any case, even if it were, aren't errors corrected?
Just a thought and would love to hear from others.

• Answered by Nick R
• 07 28, 12
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (is there audio quality difference between the airport extreme and Apple TV)

Yes you can do this. You can connect your video source to the Apple TV through HDMI. For the audio you send it to any AirPlay capable receiver. You'll find the option to change your audio output in General > Audio & Video. You'll see the current audio source as your Apple TV. Just select your AirPlay device and you're good to go.

• Answered by Larry G from Oakland
• 12 29, 15
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (can i send video to apple tv and audio to airport express?)

I bought Airport Express in Canada and wanted to use it in UK (220V). Neither the Documentation nor the Product itself has any rating on it, however, the power chord does have some fine print which says 2.5A 125 Volts ~. I called APPLE 24/7 Number at 1.800.692.7753. I was informed that the product will work with electrical system ranging from 100 Volts - 240 Volts.

• Answered by Naveed S from Toronto
• 10 3, 12
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Power Supply voltage question)

The existing modem settings do not need to be changed in any way by the user. Airport Express takes care of everything during setup. For me, the only issue I had was that initially I keep receiving a message that " an unexpected error occurred. Please try again". The solution was to power down the entire system, which was suggested in the written setup guide. Once the system came back up the setup was very easy and everything now works perfectly. In fact, I did network speed tests before and after and found a significant speed increase after adding Airport Express. The average download speed was 70% faster on what was already a good network. Airport Express is a very impressive little piece of equipment! It is well worth the price.

• Answered by Charlie C from Eden
• 07 29, 13
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Moden - centurylink zyxel C1000? Does the modem need to be in bridge mode or will the airport express take care of everything during setup?)

I'm faced with the same dilemma, as my 802.11g Airport Express suffers from many drop-outs due to multiple interference on the 2.4Ghz band by microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors and the like. Been kind of holding off till the new 802.11ac was implemented across the board by APPLE. More on that in a minute.

The APPLE tv obviously does a lot more in the entertainment arena thru it's ability to stream all your iTunes content to your TV, in addition to NETFLIX, VIMEO, YouTube, hockey and baseball games, etc, etc. But it does not support wireless printing; no USB port. To get the audio from your iTunes music library to your main Stereo, you'd either need an HDMI splitter, HDMI 1.4 with ARC (audio return channel), an HDMI AV receiver, or purchase a Toslink optical audio cable to go directly from the APPLE tv to your Stereo system.

The current version of the APPLE tv still uses 802.11n. While that is plenty for music streaming, the advantage of 802.11ac would be, no possible slowdown of the entire network by one slower link in the chain, as well as being ready for when 4k video streams become more commonplace.

I'm waiting to see if APPLE will update the Airport Express as well as the APPLE tv to the new ac standard. If not in the near future, I'll buy the Express, as at the moment I just want to be able to stream my iTunes library to my main Stereo, and I won't have to shell out for the optical cable. In addition, it'll buy more time to see where APPLE is headed with their APPLE tv "hobby". But for 99 bucks, you can't go wrong either way.

• Answered by Michael V from Barrie
• 06 18, 13
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Airport express or apple tv)

If the modem provides internet connection via a USB cable, this configuration will not unfortunately work. The Airport Express is only configured to receive connectivity to the internet via its ethernet WAN port.

• Answered by Jackson T from Peterborough
• 07 1, 12
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Can it(airport base station) convert a 3G USB modem to wifi?)