Stream any Audio to your AirPortExpress (AirPlay)

Using an AirPortExpress to connect speakers is a convient way to avoid wires or connect several Macs to the same speakers. By default you can only stream music via iTunes which is not a satisfying situation.
My goal was to stream all sounds no matter what source and the solution was simpler than i thought.


What you will need:

Soundflower (Free)

• Version for Snow Leopard 
• Version for Lion

AirFoil (25$)

A VideoPlayer which allows you to modify the audio sync, like VLC.

Download Soundflower (if you are using Snow Leopard just install it) extract it, open a terminal and run

$ cd /sound_flower_lion_1.5.3/Tools
$ ./build.rb --dep

Restart your mac, open "System Settings" "Audio" and change the default Output to "Soundflower (2ch)".

Open AirPlay and open the Preferences and set the "Play Local Audio Through" to "Soundflower (2ch)".

In the AirPlay main window select "Soundflower (2ch)" and activate your AirPortExpress.

All sound output will now be streamed to your AirPortExpress.

Since the AirPlay protokoll has a 2seconds delay by design you need to change the audio synch if you wanna play videos and stream the sound to a wireless speaker.

In VLC for example you can modify the audio synch with the keys "f" and "g". Set a delay of -2000ms and video and audio will be in sync.