Quote
Originally posted by guynextdoor:
I don't believe noise does anyting to digital transmissions. They are either "on" or "off", they lock or they don't lock.

You'd think so.

Digital streams, and in particular, PCM, are very susceptible to jitter. Any noise, whether from the device's power supply, RFI, EMI, or another device connected by a conductive interconnect can cause jitter. And jitter degrades digital sound quality...

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/jitter1_e.html

Typically, anything that can be done to improve jitter performance brings sonic benefits. Meridian's on MHR protocol, for instance, claims to do this...

As you say yourself, digital *should* be perfect - so you need to ask yourself why something much simpler than your CD player (with all it's moving parts and potential for errors), eg a hard-drive rip being served digitally sounds worse than your CD player.

If jitter isn't the culprit then there is either something wrong with your rips (eg they contain errors) or with the Airport Express (perhaps it's jitter-prone).

My experience with wireless is that it either works and is stable or it doesn't. Some juggling may be required to get a stable signal, but once achieved it should be fine. Many people are serving WAV/FLAC over 802.11g without issue.

Cheers,

Mark

My Music : My Cinema