Naim HDX + Mac

This is indeed very very stupid if Naim not supports the many many Macs out there.
And too scary for me to setup a network running WinXP via paralells or bootcamp.
Sorry Naim, you just missed something there
(BTW the sound quality is stunning when playing ripped CD´s!)

Hi

What format is the music in?

You are probably aware (but just in case) that the HDX will not support Apple Lossless.

It does support MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC or WAV

Cheers

Bob

The Find function gives you this....

Cheers

Jim

OK everyone back to your holes.

Knock Knock you need to do a couple of things in order to stream to HDX or any other PC driven device.

Goto system preferences and sharing. If you are in leopard goto file sharing and options bottom right. Turn on SMB.

If in 10.4 goto sharing and its in there somewhere!

Now the HDX will need to rescan the network, I guess you could force this by restarting the HDX. Your mac will now show up eventually select it and enter your user name and password for full access.

Another option is to turn that SMB on then simply select your music folder, right click it and get info. In here is an option to make it a shared folder.

HDX AFAIK does not see AIFF or apple lossless files right now. The options open to you if you music is encoded thusly is to convert them to MP3 or WAV.

One other thing, if you want to access the HDX from your mac, try putting in the HDX address as suggested but instead of the HDX name put in the net work IP address which will be in the HDX info somewhere.

Hi garyi

Wow, you really know your mac ;=) Now I can access the HDX from my browser, thanx! So much easier isn´t?
And I turned on File Sharing on my external disc, restartet the Naim but I cannot "see" my music.
Where do I look?

Cordially
KnockKnock

If your music resides on your mac harddrive then the simplest option is to select it. I will assume you use itunes. Goto your home folder>music>itunes> and in here is a folder called music. Right click it and get info. Then in the window that shows up turn on sharing for it. You may need to enter a password depending on your rights level.

Now go back to sharing and file sharing and you will see a 'shared folders' area on the right. It should have appear there, if not click the little plus button and navigate to it and select it.

The final option if all else fails is stick the itunes music folder into your public folder which is also in your home folder. In itunes goto preferences and advanced and where it shows you the location of music navigate to the public folder as the new location.

Setting it for sharing is best though as you can keep it where it is.

Remember that SMB has a habit of taking ages to show, a HDX restart may help. Also if you have GB of data this may take a long time to scan.

Garyi!

I ow you a big pint! The HDX is scanning my Mac now!

It was after I the second time went into Sharing>SharedFolders>MyExternDisc. Closed the Sharing window(important), (first time i chose Sharing on my ExterneDisc (under "Info") the Mac somehow did not remember it) and then went into my HDX system and voila ;=)

I hope not I am confusing the HDX because I have mixed files (WAV; Aiif, Losless) on my disc. I supposse though it´s only "seeing" the WAV types of files.

Again thanks alot. You are fab! And BTW people who say that the HDX is not Mac able now can be corrected I will say

Cordially
K.

Kudos to Gary
Isn't all this filed in a kind of manual . just in case us vinyl hopeless users jump into future..

No problem.

Probably wants a cheesy little website like my SBL one, but I am guessing on the HDX! I know SBLs.

hehe.

Gary

I Dont know what is SBL? But I am sure you know your Mac and the HDX streaming stuff

And I agry with perflemming: you have to put this in a kind of manual for the hdx, I have been on the web, and the hdx manual for several days - and NOBODY could tell me this you did tell me

Thanx again

KnockKnock

I would imagine that the dealers know this stuff as I would imagine a fair proportion of naim owners are also mac users.

Anyhow its not magic, just SMB sharing.

Have fun anyhow.

garyi

yes, actually now i am having fun with the hdx and my Mac - seems though that the hdx only sees very old files from a year or so back... anyway, now I have contact to the hdx and think I can manage on my own further on now

thanx again ;=)

Knock

Knock Knock just FYI if you goto itunes preferences and change the encoding option, on itune 8 this is in the genera setting. Change it to the highest quality MP3 or AAC 360 I think.

Now back in itunes along the bar where it says 'name', 'artist' etc should be one that says kind. If not right click that bar and select kind, then press it, this will organise all the tunes by the type of file they are.

Now select a goodly amount of the lossless or AIFF files. say 100, or 10 albums. One they are all selected right click them, you have an option now to convert them to MP3

The beauty of this is the original files remain. So you can have a little play. Convert them files.

Eventually the HDX will pick up these new MP3s and you can have a listen. You never know you may find you like it. Go in with an open mind.

360 MPS files are very good IMO, well worth a try.

Good stuff garyi !

Does anyone know if it's planned that the HDX will ever be able to read Apple Lossless ? I'm perhaps tempted by the HDX at some point in '09, depends on a few things, but the lack of Apple Lossless is something of a pain - everything I have is currently that way, and whilst I don't necessarily mind re-ripping everything on the HDX to gain an even better copy, it's then a pain going back the other way, as iTunes/iPod and AppleTV don't exactly like WAV and attached meta-data....Bit of a pain/farce to have to have 2/3 copies of everything no ?!

HI garyi

OK I will give this a try. Now my HDX sees my EksternHD many many times in the menu.... But cannot play the files, some of them it will play, some of them stop halfways, some of them play with a big noise after two seconds

Next step is to see if the HDX can see some Flac files located on a different disc?

K

Indeed, it sounds like your network is choking a bit, whats your router and are you connecting the HDX with ethernet or one of those home plug jobbies.

Garyi

Happy New Year. I have not chekked this site due to the Flu, damn....

I use a Cat6 cable from my MyBook 500GB and 1 TB discs and to the HDX, and now the streaming seems most of the time to work just fine, even though the HDX is VERY slow on recognising new files. If I want to play or compare some music files I now found out that the USB connection on the front does the job in seconds - not some 20 minuttes ;=)
But the sound is damn goooood.
A shame that the HDX cannot play AIFF files, as the most of my music is in that format. And Flac sounds not near as good as WAV files, unless i up-convert them from 16b/44kHz to 24b/48kHz.
But it´s a GREAT machine ;=)

What about converting your AIFF files to wav?

That´s an option, but I just recently converted 5-600GB to 24bit/48kHz AIIF
The reason for this was also to have the cover pics which iTunes not always displays if playing WAV files

Well I would just wait and see what naims new software update which is due out comes up with, perhaps it will play AIFF?

Converting to WAV is an option but a very untidy one. Do it from within itunes to maintain the tagging.

I think the HDX scans SMB shares but its not doing this constantly (you would probably have an issue with network hogging if that were the case)

So if you are adding new music then it will prbably check within an hour or so. As I said though there is a threat of new software coming from naim so perhaps this will address this issue, Lets be fair to naim its the .1 release

I didn't find this issue with my HDX when I added files to my NAS and then activated the NAS on the HDX to "share files" The music was recognized quickly and it was about 70 albums worth.

AIFF is the format the original cd is on though isn't it? If you browse a CD from a mac this is what pops up. I assume if you browse from a pc it also shows up as AIFF. If the original cd is in AIFF then the hdx should be able to play it but I suspect it would want to rip it first as I am not sure the ripping process is designed to be able to rip and play the cd in real time. Again I'd expect similar problems with trying to play it from an HD.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by KnockKnock:
Garyi

Happy New Year. I have not chekked this site due to the Flu, damn....

I use a Cat6 cable from my MyBook 500GB and 1 TB discs and to the HDX,

No router in your setup? is the Mac doing dhcp? I did not play music from external disks while I had the HDX so I do not know if the network is so unable to provide a stream, but since continuous syncronized streaming is a central idea in the Naimnet I suppose that this should not be a general problem.

Claus

quote:

Originally posted by teabelly:
AIFF is the format the original cd is on though isn't it? If you browse a CD from a mac this is what pops up....

Standard "Red Book" Audio CDs are , 2-channel signed 16-bit PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz.

WAVs, and AIFFs are ways to encode this information for use by computers.

Your computer "sees" this information as a AIFF becasue that is how the processor has be taught to handle the data.

Intel based machines will use WAV.