Airport Extreme to DAC

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What Sfar said, but you could use a Mac Mini in the rack and if you wish run it without a monitor or keyboard once you get it set up. You can control it from another computer, iPad, iPhone, etc. You can store your music files on a drive to the extreme or the one upstairs and the Mini can access them wirelessly. Of course you could hook the drive directly to the mini but drives do make a bit of noise.

Google "headless mac mini" and you will get a ton of info.

I run mine with a monitor and keyboard that sit on the opposite side of the room from my rack. I use a 50' HDMI cable with booster for the monitor and a sting of 15 foot powered USB extenders for the keyboard.

Get Pure Music or Amarra too.

Apple TV has no output to feed the Ayre.

Good luck, have fun.
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Most people advocate an SSD drive and maximum memory of the newest versions. Older Minis were limited to I think 3 GB but newer ones go to 8. You can order it that way from Apple but it is cheaper to get the extra stuff elsewhere and install it yourself.

I would get the cheapest one and upgrade it myself. Or watch the website and wait for a refurb to come up.

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you sure about that iMatch lossless thing?

I think it converts everything to 256K AAC compressed format.

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I glanced at the article and it incorrectly says

Macs can natively support up to 24/96, played through iTunes or other software. However, without a couple settings tweaks, audio files with resolution higher than 16-bit/44.1kHz will automatically be downsampled to that resolution.

They can support higher resolutions if your hardware can.
The However is correct. Unless you use software that automatically adjusts the resolution (like Pure Music) iTunes does convert everything to whatever you have Audio/Midi set to.

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Don't know about those two programs but get one that adjusts playback rates on the fly. Some, like iTunes, are stuck at whatever Audio Midi was set to when they started. So if AM was set to 16/44.1 when iTunes starts it will down sample a 24/96 file to that rate. If you then set it to 24/96 iTunes will still down sample but AM will then up sample. To get it right you have to restart iTunes.

Programs like Pure Music take care of it in the background.

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