It was time to update my patio music set up. Volumio [1] is the best software to run on a Raspberry Pi and HifiBerry [2] has some pretty good DAC/AMP hat hardware but my house is entirely Apple ecosphere. I can AirPlay to Volumio but it isn’t AirPlay 2 compatible so it just isn’t the same. I bought a used second generation Apple Airport Express [3] (model number A1392) and a new PYLE PFA200 [4] power amp to replace the old setup. The PFA200 actually has some really good midrange and bass.
Configuring the Airport Express is pretty easy.
- Boot up the Airport Express
- On an iPhone or iPad connect to the Wi-Fi net it creates
- Launch the Airport Utility on your device (you may need to install it)
- The Airport Express firmware needs to be at least 7.8 so if an update is available, do it
- Once the Airport Express reboots, go to the Wi-Fi settings on your iOS device and select “Setup New Airport Base Station”
- Select “Add to an Existing Network”
- Connect it to you existing home network
- Set a name that makes sense
- I found a nice short 3.5mm headphone cable to connect the Airport Express to the PFA200
NOTE: While I was waiting for the Airport Express to arrive, I got a bit nervous about the sound quality coming out of an earphone jack. Don’t worry, it is excellent. - Connect your speaker wires to the PFA200 and power it up
- Launch the Home app on your iOS device and add an accessory
- I turned the PFA200 all the way down and streamed some music to the new set up setting the volume in the Home app to mid range
- Slowly turn up on the volume on the PFA200 till it sounds about right; you may have to fiddle with it a bit
- I pushed the TONE/DIRECT button so I could adjust the tone and found that I could actually overdrive the bass in my Klipsh AW-400s but I found a nice balance
So now I can tell Siri “Play Fleetwood Mac Rumors everywhere in the house” and it is seamless from the living room to the patio. My concern is that the operating temperature [3] for the Airport Express is to 95º F and here in the desert it gets over 100º during the summer quite often. Since the Airport Express is in the garage, I’m sure it will get hotter than that. I bought a outlet strip with some USB ports on it so I could reuse my USB-powered fan [5] and hopefully keep it cool. I won’t be able to control the fan [6] like I did with the Raspberry Pi but I’m working on some possibilities to do that. Might employ the old Raspberry Pi for that since I already know how to control it.