Ask S&V

Q I have an old Harman Kardon receiver that has served me well for several years and would like to continue using it. Do you have any suggestions for a way I could stream audio from my computer (primarily from iTunes and Spotify) to my receiver over Wi-Fi? —Doug Burton / via e-mail

A The easiest way to upgrade your old Harman Kardon for music streaming via Wi-Fi would be to add a media receiver to the system. There are plenty of options out there, but since your music player of choice is iTunes, I’d recommend using an Apple Airport Express ($99). The Airport Express has an optical digital audio output to connect to your receiver, and once you link it up with your Wi-Fi network, you can easily stream audio to it from within iTunes using AirPlay—if your computer is a recent-model (post-2011) Mac, that is.

If you’re using an older Mac or a PC, you’ll have to first download additional software to route sound from iTunes or Spotify over your network. I’ve tested out Porthole (Mac only) and Airfoil (PC/Mac), and both apps work fine with Airport Express.