I searched the web and it seemed as if most people really didn't have success connecting the AX to their 655. After tinkering with it and even calling Apple support for 2 hours to try and get the devices to work together successfully, Apple gave up trying to help me, but I found the solution.
Plug your AX directly into a port on the 655 and open Airport Utility. You should eventually be able to see the device and start configuring it. Apple never even tried to suggest this, they told me to plug the AX directly into my PC, unfortunately though, the PC doesn't work like an Apple and I was never able to see the AX to configure it.
Go through auto config and just follow the steps, make sure your 655 is using the WPA/WPA2 setting, it seems the AX only works if it uses the same setting, there is no WAP option in the AX setup. At the end up the setup, the product will restart and try connecting to the network, if it works then great, just unplug it and place it around your house wherever you want. For me, the AX failed to connect to the wireless. It had me re-enter the connection settings, if you get here, just check the box that shows the problem with wireless. A new option came up saying configure new settings and bam, it connected. I don't know why it doesn't connect on the first try but every time I've tried after the first failure, the product seems to connect on the second.
Before disconnecting the AX make sure you go into your 655 firmware and reserve the DHCP of your apple device, it helps keep it connected so that you don't have to reconfigure it.
My wireless settings:
Enable Wireless: Always
Wireless Network Name: (whatever you want)
802.11 Mode: 802.11n only (If you have an ipod touch and want to use it as wireless remote, you can add whatever other connections you want, this setting helps strengthen the N connection)
Transmission Rate: automatic (I read setting this to a certain frequency may help with streaming lag - I have no trouble with automatic)
Channel Width: 20/40 MHz (I know the AX works on just 20, haven't played with 40, did both to be safe)
Security Mode: WPA-Personal
Make sure WPA Mode is set to WPA or WPA2 and cipher type is TKIP and AES.
You can use this in iTunes, but I was not very pleased with the quality of my music since it's mostly all Flac files and there are no plug in's for Flac in iTunes on windows. If you have high quality music you want to stream, download a copy of winamp (winamp.com) and a copy of airfoil (rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/). Make sure you download the correct codecs, I know most audio software doesn't have the ability to play high quality media formats. I use K-Lite, a pretty awesome codec pack in my opinion, you can search for it on google.
Just follow all of these instructions and you should have no problem playing high quality music over your network to your stereo receiver. My AX is located 1 floor down and about 120 feet over and I get a steady 70% connection with absolutely no hiccups! I highly recommend this setup, and I LOVE the dir-655. (I bought the dir-825 and returned it because the range just blew IMO)
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Topic: DIR-655 with Airport Express media receiver on windows [working] (Read 9083 times)