HTPC / Airplay issues with multiple speakers: My Experiments

[redzone]

Hello All,

I am trying to set up whole home audio on the cheap via itunes and airplay.

I live in a small 1 1/2 story with a finished basement. (1000sq above ground total)

I bought a Pioneer 1021 receiver which has airplay built in. This is on the main floor with A+B speakers in living room/ dining room respectively. This covers audio for the main floor of the house. There is also an HTPC hooked up to the receiver.

The upstairs has my main pc / server for all my audio/video files.

For the Downstairs and/or garage and/or patio - I planed to use either my laptop or android phone via AirBubble(or similar software) as a portable receiver/speaker.

My problem is when I airplay to my receiver and pc upstairs at the same time the audio is out of sync!(pc is 1/2 sec ahead of receiver creating nasty echo effect) This renders using airplay to multiple sources completely useless.

it seems to be either the PC's or airplay speakers that have issues. With Airbubble on android and the receiver playing at the same time there is no noticeable delay.

With pc speakers playing and the laptop playing (via airbubble) there's no notieable delay.

So annoying!

If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Ive read about something called airfoil so i might try that tonight but from the description im not sure it will help.

I will continue to update this thread with my ongoing experiments and hopefully the info will help others

[hugh]

Not sure if Airfoil will help. I encountered this in testing several years ago.

I believe there is a buffer of 50 to 500ms between iTunes and Airplay devices to deal with lost packets and latency issues.

Not sure what you can do except not use your main pc as speakers

With Airbubble on android and the receiver playing at the same time there is no noticeable delay.

That makes sense because Apple tries to ensure that all the clients will be in sync.

[redzone]

so maybe if i use airbubble on the PC upstairs and use the HTPC in the living room as the iTunes source i can get the delay to be the same to all "recievers"

i tried using airbubble on the same pc as the itunes server but there was no delay (ie if i selected airbubble vs pc speakers the output was the same, no delay)

[redzone]

So I installed a program called Shairport4w on my laptop and upstairs pc. It does the same thing as Airfoil Speaker and AirBubble but its opensource and free.

I found if I played music only to the reciever first via air play then added the pc speakers(via shairport) and laptop(via shairport) i could get them all in sync.

Not sure if its just coincidence but for now im happy as i can seem to get them all in sync. If i have further issues with it i will post then!

BUT for now i have 2 portable speakers (android phone and laptop) and 2 floors of the house with sync'd home audio.

Next test is to run a second itunes on my htpc a the same time so i can have 2 sources so i can play 2 different hings to 2 different rooms.

[redzone]

upon further inspection its still off a bit and can be noticeable at locations where the 2 different speakers overlap..
btw not sure if i mentioned all devices are hard wired but the laptop and android phone.

So Summary

Android(airbubble) + receiver + laptop(shairport) = sync
PC + Android or receiver = not in sync
PC(Shairport) + android/Reciever = not in sync but close!

So obviously its the PC upstairs.

I plan to try and run itunes from the HTPC downstairs so that itsplaying music to all devices but it self. hopefully that will sync everything up.

[hugh]

Good luck. Honestly, I don't think you'll ever get it perfect unless all your clients are airplay receivers.

I have encountered similar issues with Sonos and with some earlier audio streamers about 4 or 5 years ago.