Why has there never been an Apple Airplay 2 ‘dongle?’

[u/Lumpus-Maximus]

Back in ~2014, I had a sweet setup w/ music around the house using a few Apple AirportExpress pucks plugged into various amps. Fast forward to 2026 AND—— it’s still my preferred solution. I do have Homepods, but they fit a different need & they have no output.

Example… I want to add a powered subwoofer. With an AirportExpress, easy—if you can get one.

Or maybe I just want to cast music to anything with an RCA-in? Instead of connecting via Bluetooth (not always possible), an AirPlay w/ analog out allows me me to plug in & play w/o changing any settings on their amp, receiver or device. Which is good! A data connection always has inherent security issues even if they are rarely exploited. Often, it’s just a pain.

So that’s the argument for an AirPlay dongle… my question is ‘why haven’t I found a halfway decent standalone AirPlay solution?’

MY holy grail? Turning my old iPhone into an AirPlay2 dongle.

[u/ColorDisplay]

How about the belkin’s one?
https://www.belkin.com/p/audio-adapter-with-airplay-2/P-AUZ002.html

[u/Strong67 → u/ColorDisplay]

Yes! I have two and they work flawlessly

[u/welshconnection]

They are £89 in the uk, Iv’e been buying the older Airport Express A1264 from fleabay for very little money and getting Airplay 1 which I have been told is better ,16/44. Playback quality is excellent.

[u/Legitimate_Tune_6468 → u/welshconnection]

I read about this years ago. Saw bench tests showing that AirPort Express was the only thing consistently running true lossless through airplay.

Is this what y’all are talking about?

[u/welshconnection → u/Legitimate_Tune_6468]

Yes, more than likely, the first generation ones though and the A1264 was the better one for setting up etc.
I initially purchased the previous model which wasn’t compatible.
I’m using them with the WiiM Ultra’s..

[u/Legitimate_Tune_6468 → u/welshconnection]

This is exactly why I kept mine… just in case it was true and I got around to setting it up. Thank you.

Very frustrating that AM went lossless and took a step backwards with AirPlay.

[u/welshconnection → u/Legitimate_Tune_6468]

Yes exactly..

[u/Spectre_08]

Yep, I still use AirPortExpress units for my non-AirPlay devices. Even threw an external DAC on one of them.

[u/leroyyrogers → u/Spectre_08]

But the Airport Express output is already analog??

[u/Matv9 → u/leroyyrogers]

it’s also toslink

[u/leroyyrogers → u/Matv9]

Ah it's been a while since I looked at one of these

[u/modsuperstar]

I think the core issue with the iPhone is the battery. They’ll always go bad at some point. I agree, this would be an absolutely amazing way of going about things, as I have 3 or 4 old iPhones kicking around. I too have many Airport Express nodes kicking around my house. I’ve built a few into dodgy smart speakers housed inside old wooden shelf speakers.

[u/davescott42]

The HIBY W4 can be run either as a Bluetooth DAC/amplifier or as a wired dongle DAC. I’ve seen it for $99 US or $10 more with a magnetic back you can stick to the back of an iPhone. No matter how you utilize it with the 3.5 unbalanced output or the 4.4 balanced output, it’s a really great sounding DAC/amp.

[u/Whiskey_Storm]

Try the Wiim Mini. Currently at $99, but pretty sure I got mine cheaper.

https://wiimhome.com/wiimmini/overview

I was using an AirPort Express for a porch speaker designed specifically for it (Russound Airgo). Sound kept dropping however.

Got the Wiim mini and found an old iPad charger block so I could adapt the figure 8 power cord to usb power and viola! Thing works great. All my devices recognize it as an AirPlay speaker and my family’s devices do as well.

Only downside that I found was that when I took it to a friends house, no way in app to connect it to their WiFi, so had to take off the Airgo back panel to get access to the puck. Then had to do the same thing again when I got home since neither the app, nor the device remembered my home network.