Apple Lossless Wirelessly

I've been experimenting with serving music stored on my iMac G4 in the study to iTunes running on a laptop (experimenting with a Dell, but eventually will get an iBook to handle this function) in the living room to an Airport Express that is cabled to my living room stereo system. I've been moving the music from iMac to laptop to Airport Express over my 802.11b wireless network.

So far, I've found that my 802.11b network can't adequately handle sending song files in Apple Lossless format from my iMac to iTunes on my laptop. There are breaks in the playback, especially when there is other traffic over the wireless connection. If the AL song files are on the laptop, there is no problem.

Since convenience is a big reason for this setup, I'd like to stick with a laptop as the control center and stay wireless if possible. I figure my two alternatives are: (1) upgrading my wireless network to 802.11g, and (2) buying Apple Remote Desktop so I can run iTunes on my iMac, where the song files are, while controlling it from the laptop.

Any comments on these options (and am I right about being able to use ARD this way)? Thanks!