Review: Stream live audio Mac to Mac or iPhone
Hi,
I just wanted to share two fantastic pieces of free software that users of OS X may appreciate.
The first is AirPhones. This is an Intel-only application for 10.4-10.6 and a networked iPhone/iPod touch. All it does is stream all audio produced on the server Mac to a networked iPhone/iPod touch running the AirPhones receiver app (links to iTunes Store). Received audio is output through the built-in speaker, the headphone socket and the dock connector. There are no audio quality settings, and the Lite version of the app (the one linked to) offers only 15 or so minutes of streaming, but in that time I have to admit I was impressed with the quality. I was watching Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake through EyeTV, and was immediately impressed with the amount of echo decay I could hear when they were standing talking in the mall. The latency was barely, if at all, noticeable. I haven't yet tried this with my iTunes library, but will post feedback when I do.
The only drawback to the app is a small amount of stuttering in the stream occasionally. In the short time I tested the app it was not a big problem though, and easily ignored. Either way, I'm sure this'll improve in time as the app is updated.
To watch a proper demo of what this app can do, check out the video on the website.
For streaming live audio Mac to Mac, you should use Soundfly (10.4 "Tiger" or later, Universal binary), another free app, though this time with no restrictions. It's very simple to set up: install the audio sender portion of the app on the server Mac, and the receiver portion on the client, launch both and violà: all audio on the source Mac is streamed to the second. By design, all audio output from any hardware attached to the server Mac will cease; however, using Rogue Amoeba's LineIn you can get round this. See here.
Soundfly does offer sound quality settings, and can stream ACC, Apple Lossless and full PCM, amongst others. By default, it uses 16-bit Apple Lossless (it also offers 24-bit), and this seems to work fine. However, I glanced up at my EyeTV broadcast (still Dawn of the Dead…) after about fifteen minutes of streaming (to my MacBook Pro) and noticed the audio was out of sync by at least half a second. Currently, I have Ocean Twelve on, and am yet to notice the same problem despite at least fifteen minutes of playback---it's possible the broadcast itself was at fault.
I should mention that Soundfly relies on Soundflower to do its job, and installs it at the same time (though only on the server Mac).
EDIT: the lag fault is a recognized bug in the Soundflower software, it turns out.
I hope someone finds this useful. I'm always impressed by the solutions available for the Mac, how easy they are to implement and how flexible they are. For example, if you have an iPhone and a Mac you now have a very unobtrusive (though probably less-hifi) replacement for an Airport Express, as well as (and this is what I use it for) a wireless headphone adapter. With a VPN, you could even listen from anywhere across the globe…
