Apple TV as Audio Only Streamer

[jazzhands]

Hi, I was thinking of getting an Airport Express to stream audio from my Ipad and iTunes to the hifi, however rumour has it that a new AE is out some time in the future (no dates available) and stocks of the current model are limited.
An alternative would be to get an Apple TV (not much price increase over AE) and just use that for streaming the audio - though I would need an external DAC or some kind of break out cable to take the audio from the HDMI out - don't even know if you can get one of these?
I don't have a HD TV so the TV features aren't much use yet but the missus says I can get one next year so not a wasted investment.
Does anybody use their Apple TV for audio only or know if what I am suggesting is possible?

 

[K1W1]

Apple TV will interface with a shared iTunes library on the network so it will play songs natively through the TV and entertainment system it's connected to. No need to stream from the iPad unless you have music on the iPad that you don't have in iTunes. If you do it works fine.

 

[jazzhands]

Thanks for that. Any idea how I can break out the audio from HDMI to connect to my amp via RCS connectors?

 

[DefBref]

Probably easier to do it from the optical output than the HDMI output.

Using something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-Digi...XG5E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320058201&sr=8-1