AIFF with Naim streamers...

Posted by: Scaramuccia on 02 March 2010

Hi!

I am thinking about replacing my CD3.5 / NAIT5 combo with a Uniti and two important questions keep me awake in the night:

1. is Naim planning to support AIFF with their streamers in the future? I have a well-formed iTunes library consisting of AIFF files now and don't want to change that.
2. can I use a flatcapped Stageline through the DIN-socket on the Uniti? Or do I have to use a 4-pin-to-cinch-cable into one of the RCA-sockets? Does such a cable exist?

Cheers
Scaramucce

Posted on: 09 March 2010 by pcstockton

quote:
Originally posted by Scaramucce:

The lowest common denominators are lossy MP3 and AAC.

I could not find a single combination of audio files, UPnP-server and the Uniti that made me happy

The lowest common denominator in you situation is the Mac and iTunes. I am hazarding a guess that if you moved to a PC with any number of media players/renderers/access points or whatever you call them, this would work seamlessly.

Get away from iTunes. It has no place here.

Posted on: 09 March 2010 by noname

quote:
Originally posted by pcstockton:
quote:
Originally posted by Scaramucce:

The lowest common denominators are lossy MP3 and AAC.

I could not find a single combination of audio files, UPnP-server and the Uniti that made me happy

The lowest common denominator in you situation is the Mac and iTunes. I am hazarding a guess that if you moved to a PC with any number of media players/renderers/access points or whatever you call them, this would work seamlessly.
Get away from iTunes. It has no place here.

And if the Uniti accepted AIFF it would work seamlessly.

How you see which has the limitation - Mac or Uniti - depends on your point of view. For me, it is the Uniti that has the limitation - it is not a fundamental issue with the Mac or iTunes, and there is no way I would consider moving to a Windows PC because of it. I will be by-passing UPnP altogether and using the Squeezebox Touch - the server runs great on the Mac, works with iTunes playlists, supports 24/96 AIFF and allows synchronization between multiple units.

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by Scaramuccia

The Mac/PC question is also none for me. My home is 100% Microsoft free and will ever be.

I am also eagerly awaiting the Squeezebox Touch. Curious how it will sound, especially with an external DAC. Is it already available somewhere?! Not in Germany...

Another serious option for me would be a Linn Sneaky. It supports AIFF, sounds marvellous, and it can be placed outside my rack where it does not interfere with the armada of green lights

Cheers
Scaramucce

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by noname

quote:
Originally posted by Scaramucce:
The Mac/PC question is also none for me. My home is 100% Microsoft free and will ever be.

I am also eagerly awaiting the Squeezebox Touch. Curious how it will sound, especially with an external DAC. Is it already available somewhere?! Not in Germany...

Another serious option for me would be a Linn Sneaky. It supports AIFF, sounds marvellous, and it can be placed outside my rack where it does not interfere with the armada of green lights

Cheers
Scaramucce

The latest information on the Squeezebox forums is April/May for the Touch release.

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by David Dever

Seriously–if you must use an untagged, uncompressed file format, use WAV. Otherwise, you're simply making things more complicated than they need to be–there's no benefit to AIFF over WAV for this application.

Likewise–there's hardly any argument for using Apple Lossless (ALAC) within iTunes, inasmuch as you can still load up an iPod with WAV files (and there IS a minor sonic improvement, BTW).

The same logic applies to WMA Lossless fles, by the way.

WAV / FLAC / MP3 should do the trick for 99% of anything you'll need. Seriously.

The HDX will play all of the above, including WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless, AIFF, FLAC, etc. But I can see no sensible reason to bother with anything other than WAV unless you plan on tagging the files for NAS storage (where a simple UPnP server should be able to serve up FLACs without issue).

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by noname

quote:
Originally posted by David Dever:
Seriously–if you must use an untagged, uncompressed file format, use WAV. Otherwise, you're simply making things more complicated than they need to be–there's no benefit to AIFF over WAV for this application.

Likewise–there's hardly any argument for using Apple Lossless (ALAC) within iTunes, inasmuch as you can still load up an iPod with WAV files (and there IS a minor sonic improvement, BTW).

The same logic applies to WMA Lossless fles, by the way.

WAV / FLAC / MP3 should do the trick for 99% of anything you'll need. Seriously.

The HDX will play all of the above, including WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless, AIFF, FLAC, etc. But I can see no sensible reason to bother with anything other than WAV unless you plan on tagging the files for NAS storage (where a simple UPnP server should be able to serve up FLACs without issue).

Thanks David, but I use AIFF instead of WAV precisely because it *can* be tagged.

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by David Dever

AIFF tags are not universally supported-why waste your time on a format that would fail for archiving purposes?

Posted on: 10 March 2010 by pcstockton

quote:
Originally posted by Scaramucce:
The Mac/PC question is also none for me. My home is 100% Microsoft free and will ever be.

Given that extreme position, you will happily deal with any and all future issues with format compatibility.

I still do not understand why Mac users always equate a PC with a "Windows" machine. It is too bad, and quite ignorant.

Posted on: 11 March 2010 by David Dever

quote:
Originally posted by pcstockton:
I still do not understand why Mac users always equate a PC with a "Windows" machine. It is too bad, and quite ignorant.

...especially when a Mac can also be a "Windows" machine, either virtually (VMware Fusion / Parallels) or actually (Boot Camp).

Posted on: 12 March 2010 by Scaramuccia

quote:
Originally posted by pcstockton:

Given that extreme position, you will happily deal with any and all future issues with format compatibility.

I still do not understand why Mac users always equate a PC with a "Windows" machine. It is too bad, and quite ignorant.

I did not encounter any seroius format incompatibilies with OSX so far. File interchange with my PC at work or my friends' PCs works seamlessly. And the AIFF 'incompatibility' is not really one. I can happily live with that.

Sorry, it was not my intention to start another OSX / Windows skirmish here. I just wanted to state that I will not move to Windows because of the Uniti (or any other music streamer). I don't accuse Naim for not supporting AIFF, and I don't accuse Apple for not supporting the rest. I'm just wondering...

I can understand everybody who does not like iTunes. No question. But it's the centre of the OSX media world. It's very convenient to control everything with one application (music, movies, iPod, audio books, etc.). And that's why I'm using it.