Unitiserve interface - issues and observations

Posted by: PBenny1066 on 18 December 2010

Took delivery of U/S hardisk version a few weeks ago and am very happy with it, sound quality is excellent to my ears. The interface has given a few problems, which I thought might be of general interest. Keen to hear if others have had similar issues.

1) First off the desktop client interface only seems to be available for Windows not Mac. The user manual seems to indicate that the desktop client interface gives more functionality than the web interface I'm using, but it doesn't say what.

2) The ripping software gets a few things wrong (using the online look up with AMG), in terms of album titles and so on. Ended up manually correcting these.

3) A couple of albums just couldn't be renamed for some reason which I can't begin to fathom. Seems like if the renamed version contains the same word as the ripped version, it won't modify. Have given up on this.

4) Two albums (out of 500 rips) just will not rip at all. Just get ejected without any error message. Proper CD's, bought in UK, not dodgy copies of which there are many in my part of the world.

iTunes rips them both OK. So my workaround has been to rip in AIFF in Itunes then put on a USB stick to play in the U/S. Works fine, but what a pain. I won't be retiring the MacMini just yet after all.....

5) USB playback seems to require a restart of the U/S before it "sees" the device - can't just plug in a stick and play straight away.

All in all I'm happy with the U/S. Sonically excellent. And none of the issues with the interface are the end of the world. But nor is they world class......

Cheers, Paul
Posted on: 18 December 2010 by Tog
Hi there

Many of us have made this point about the UnitiServe.

See thread:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/ev...2903417/m/4672983637


It is a nice box- well built and great sounding but its internal UPnP server is closed and proprietary. However, the real weakness lies in its awkward control software n-serve/n-stream which would have been marvellous 18 months ago but feel antediluvian today.

There are better software solutions and as a one terabyte storage medium it is very expensive.

The fact that you can't add your own rips makes it an even more expensive UPnP server/bridge for your NAS.


Tog
Posted on: 19 December 2010 by PBenny1066
Hi Tog,

thanks for pointing out this thread, very interesting although didn't understand all of it, and some of the content was about features that I personally would have no interest in.

Basically I am happy with the interfaces provided - web, n-Serve for my iphone which works well, and VGA into my television which I used for initial set up.

If they worked as advertised, they would do all I want.

My point, is that certain features don't work as advertised.

My comment about the Desktop client for Mac is more out of curiousity - what functionality I am missing by not having it ?
Posted on: 19 December 2010 by Develyn
re #5. FYI-Mine see's the USB immediately. Haven't had any issues.
Posted on: 19 December 2010 by Develyn
re #4. Have you tried cleaning the cd's? I've ripped 300+ and have one that gets an error message in ripping status window. The CD is fairly scratched so I figured it was the CD.