Airport Express issue

RobInONT

Active Member
I have an Airport Express connected to my stereo via 1/8" to rca cable that I use to stream from my Apple devices. I have an ipad air 2 and an iphone se and my wife also uses an iphone se. I recently noticed some distortion when playing certain songs and at first attributed it to the amplifier. The distortion mostly occurs on female vocals...kinda a cruchy, crackly overlay on certain frequencies. It happens on both channels, so that got me tjinking it's a source issue. I plugged some earphones into the AE and sure enough, thats where it's originating. Now the strange part, it only occurs when streaming from the iPad to the AE. If using either iphone to stream to the AE, no distortion. I plugged the headphones directly into the ipad and again, no distortion. Anyone have this isssue before?
 
I have never had the issue, but I would try to reset the network settings (just make sure you have your network password handy). It could be using the same network address as another device.
 
Do you have a DAC with optical input? You could use a mini toslink to toslink cable to connect the Airport Express to see if it's the internal DAC causing the symptom.
 
Hi,
I tried resetting the network settings, no dice...still get distotion from the ipad stream. I don't have an external dac to try but I do have another AE and I tried streaming to it, same issue from the ipad. One thing that might be a clue, the "distortion" isn't randomly generated. It's in exactly the same places with the exact same crackles everytime. I don't know if that points to anything specific. The phones and the ipad are all running the latest iOS and the AE firmware is up to date.
 
Ok it seems it's specific to my ipad. I borrowed another ipad air2 from a friend and it works fine with the AE.
 
Is it possible that your device's volume is @ 100% and the others are set lower? Check the volume on your iPad and try it at less than 75% and keep going down till it disappears. You are just lowering the volume in so you can still increase it at receiver or dac.
 
The distortion does sound almost like an overdriven signal, but it's present regardless of volume setting on the ipad. In fact it seems even more noticable at lower volume. I'm thinking something is screwy with my ipad. I tried a total reset and still no dice.
 
The distortion does sound almost like an overdriven signal, but it's present regardless of volume setting on the ipad. In fact it seems even more noticable at lower volume. I'm thinking something is screwy with my ipad. I tried a total reset and still no dice.
Are you streaming music or playing it from the hard (flash) drive? Also, when you did a "full reset", did you restore the iPad to its original state? I would probably try to restore it and only install the app (what app are you using?) I am using for music to see if another app on the device is causing the problem.
 
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Have you tried deleting and reloading some of the affected songs?
Are you using Sound Check on the iPad? Settings -> Music -> Sound Check
If On try Off or vice versa and see if it makes a difference
 
Nope, not using soundcheck or eq on it. The app I'm streaming from is the Spotify app. I'll try deleting it and reinstalling and see what happens.
 
ok now I feel pretty foolish...
That solved it. I thought that resetting the ipad would give me a fresh installation, Apparently, no it doesn't. Thanks for the help,
 
ok now I feel pretty foolish...
That solved it. I thought that resetting the ipad would give me a fresh installation, Apparently, no it doesn't. Thanks for the help,
Glad to hear that you were able to fix the issue!
 
ok now I feel pretty foolish...
That solved it. I thought that resetting the ipad would give me a fresh installation, Apparently, no it doesn't. Thanks for the help,
Strange than an app would influence sound quality in the manner it did. But I'm happy you figured that out.
 
Strange than an app would influence sound quality in the manner it did. But I'm happy you figured that out.

Yeah, that's got me a little paranoid now. I have no way to test distortion and never thought it was something I'd have to be concerned about. I just assumed that streamed music will get to the amp without any issues. Now I keep listening for it to return. :(
 
Yeah, that's got me a little paranoid now. I have no way to test distortion and never thought it was something I'd have to be concerned about. I just assumed that streamed music will get to the amp without any issues. Now I keep listening for it to return. :(
It isn't unusual to have to reinstall an app on occasion, I have had that issue, as well. The weird thing is that you had the same error in the same spot every time.
 
Yes, it was very repeatable...Sara Maclachlan's "Angel" was the easiest to hear it in, always in the same places the same way.
 
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