Airplay Issues with Marantz MCR603

HAve you thought about upgrading your broadband  to a faster speed, cured most of my problems and even got it for a cheaper price, there are some quite good deals around.

I was under the impression my broadband speed wouldn't make a difference as all my media is stored on a laptop within a few metres of the hifi.

I'm only planning on using the Home Hub to connect my laptop to the CR603 (preferably using wifi), not to download any content.

If upgrading my broadband or even upgrading my hub to something else would make a difference I'll look into it.

Cheers

Chris

I bought a new Onkyo DS-A5 a week ago to try out Airplay. I fed an optic cable from my dock into the amp's bulit-in dac. Sound quality with Airplay is excellent, but you can hear some static sounds in the background when playing music. I wanted to play files through the internet and JRiver by using a software called Airfoil. At first, I got everything working perfectly, but when I restart my computer Airfoil would not connect with my dock through Airplay. After many frustrating attempts to get Airfoil to connect with my dock, I eventually gave up and returned the dock. Lesson learned here: stick with simpler setups!

Further info for those that might find it useful or interesting...

I spoke to Marantz tech support earlier and ran through a few things with them. They admitted my issues were strange (I've know that for years!), but, that it did sound like it was just Airplay that was having issues. They asked me what modem/router I was using and when i replied BT Home Hub, they pretty much said that that's what the problem will be and that I'd be best changing it for something else. They've highlighted such issues to BT on numerous occassions and to Pace, who manufacture the hubs and nothing's been about the issues as far as they're aware. Apparently the BT hubs are renowned for not playing nice when it comes to Bonjour, which is required for Airplaying. A quick google of this and you'll see dozens of discussions about such things.

Anyway, we did a factory reset anyway on the CR603 and played about with my Home Hubs settings (channel; set a dedicated channel (1) rather than letting the hub pick what it wanted / security type; set to WPA) and I then spent an enjoyable hour or so listening to various tracks over Airplay, until it cut out again.

I've since been onto Amazon and ordered an Apple Airport Extreme 802.1n (5th Gen) to take over the wifi router duties and last night I upgraded to BT Infinity (though it won't be installed for a few weeks) so I'll get a new box from BT to handle the modem duties.

With the Airport Express hopefully I won't have any more issues with Airplay. I'll let you know either way!

Had similar problems with a VirginMedia SuperHub, so switched it into modem-only mode, added an Airport Extreme to handle the wiffery, and all is now stable and sorted. Still use wired networking and a couple of eight-port Netgear switches to handle all the music-streaming stuff, though...

Well, first impressions are good!

Just got the Airport Extreme connected up for router duties, with wifi disabled on my Home Hub and after a fairly painless setup process the Airplay symbol is now always there in iTunes and everything seems to be working fine. It seems that was my problem! I'll have an extended listen and see if I encounter any issues... fingers crossed!

Just going back to this...

I remember that I was having issues with our Virgin SuperHub; switched the wifi off on it so it's a modem only; connected the Netgear N300 router back up and switched wifi off on my MacBook Pro (it's hardwired into the network) and hey presto.

Not had AirPlay drop out since...!

No drop outs now after 5 hours listening, the airplay symbol is always there and it just works. Glad I spent my money on the Airport Extreme!

Will leave this discussion here now as all is well. If anyone else is suffering with similar problems and you've tried everything else I recommend you look to your router.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

They're good aren't they?

Our 'Extreme' is over 5 years old and never missed a beat.

The BT homehub will not support Airplay / Bonjour / Airprint due to MultiCast Protocol / uPnP Discovery and WMM support not being a part of the BT homehubs specification.