AE vs Apple TV

sonos beats both, don't know imac but apple are pretty good imo.

The *current* apple TV beats airport express. Both have analogue outs (3.5mm on the AE and 2 x RCA on the ATV) and digital out (3.5mm on the AE, normal toslink on the ATV), but the ability to use its storage to avoid having the Mac on is a definite boon.

The *new* Apple TV doesn't have analogue outs, but would be a better bet than the airport express because of its video functionality.

what JD said.  I have both as well as Sonos at home if I was looking to replace an AEX  it would probably be with a new ATV although the storage facility particularly if you go down one of the routes that allow an external drive is a big plus for the "old" ATV.

That being said it's hard to beat the ease of use of the Sonos system.  

Agreed, though at a cost...

Agreed on a cost-benefit basis it's hard to beat using AEX.  Even here where my house is built using poured concrete and re-bar instead of the usual wooden batten plaster board dividing walls in the UK I have very little if any problems with drop outs or glitches and the combination of an AEX (or two) with the addition of Airfoil gives me everything a Sonos system could at a fraction of the cost. 

Although "current" Apple TV is now showing as out of stock on the Apple website, only "new" Apple TV is available - will the old one ever return into stock is the question...

Doubt it. Loads on eBay though

Thanks for the comments

I bought the apple tv 2 a few days ago and so far so good.

For just music streaming the AE is much better suited than the ATV. It has an onboard DAC and also optical out for use with another DAC. The AE streams in Apple Lossless so if you rip your music in that format there are no issues. The ATV resamples everyting to 48 from 44.1. 

The AE has got another big advantage for travellers: it is a wireless Access Point. Great when travelling to set up a temporary network. At home you can use it to extend your Wifi network so you get better reception.