Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Playing iTunes through my Denon 4308...best way??

Right it's the protected ones causing the biggest headaches. If you're running another instance of iTunes (like on a HTPC), it's no big deal. You just authorize your itunes account, and share away.

Reading more about it, I was incorrect about the Airport Express. I was thinking it was a more basic form of their Airport router (which in a certain way, it is). However, I hadn't read about setting it up as a remote itunes node. That could possibly help you, but as was mentioned before you'd be limited by controlling it from your base PC or your iphone app connected to it.

I was thinking you wanted to use the wireless music playback portion on your receiver itself, which is where the protected content breakdown for me started.

+1 on the AppleTV idea.

I have a 160GB one. It's a fantastic device if you live in an iTunes world and want to listen to your collection on your home theater system. And we've been quite impressed with the movie rental features as well - it's completely replaced trips to the movie rental shop, and gives the instant gratification of "hey, let's watch a movie tonight" that Netflix can't (for a price, of course). Plus it's controllable from an iPhone or iPod Touch on the same network. Quite handy to pick & choose music from anywhere in the house.

It will sync itself to your iTunes library if you wish, and acts as a stand-alone player. If you don't want that or your collection exceeds the size of the AppleTV's HD (40GB or 160GB), it can stream audio from an iTunes server as well, as seamlessly as if it were stored locally.

What about a Squeezebox?. People seem to love them. I don't know that it is a better or cheaper solution than AppleTV, though.

It seems to me that the main problem here is that all the files are converted to AAC. Instead of treating the symptom, could you restructure the digital library? Doesn't the Denon do FLAC natively, for instance?

If you could convert your music to FLAC files (and then use Amazon to buy 256Mps MP3's instead of buying DRM-protected files from iTunes in the future), you might not actually need any new equipment.

Like me, Dean (Grunt) is a big fan of the AudialsOne software for a number of reasons. I bought it initially because it will convert DRM protected iTunes files into MP3. There are probably other tools out there as well that might do a fine job if you don't have the DRM issues.

I suppose it depends on your listening habits (both at home and on portables) and the size of your library. I just thought I'd throw it out there.

But either the Squeezebox or AppleTV are probably the best approach.

I am thinking I need to convert back to mp3 files. Is there any advantage to keeping them aac? 99.9% of my music is not gotten from the itunes store so its not protected...just converted. Actually now that I think about it most of the music I have that I have not imported yet is in mp3 format still. I am just getting into the no CD thing and having it on a ipod and such. When its all said and done ill have probably 150 gigs of music. I might just get a program to convert anything back to MP3's and I still will be able to use itunes and the ipod and dock a 120gig ipod in my car and let my denon grab the mp3 files from the computer. Its just kinda slow going through the denon....

Run 2 sets of libraries one for the Denon and one for the portable device. I run FLAC files directly off the computer through my 3808 and it works like a charm.

Yes, you will lose quality converting from AAC to MP3.

I did more reading and it seems maybe the air express will actually work. I think I am going to try one...