Naim .Wav question

Firstly the files ripped by the Unitiserve are not specially coded and can be viewed/played outside of the Unitiserve environment.

With regard to being able to play them direct from your streamer, does your NAS have Upnp available and enabled.?

Yes, Upnp is enabled.

Scot

Figured it out. it was a matter of not looking under artists, but rather the general "folder" directory. I guess the Naim Rips are not tagged, thus, my streamer was unable to "see" them.

Sometimes tinkering helps. Gerry I appreciate the reply.

Scot

Pleased it's sorted.

Gerry

You can tag .wav files using a free program like Media Monkey

"You" can, but Naim kit (such as the UnitiServe SSD that the o.p. used to make his rips) does not.  Nor can (or should) said Naim rips be modified, as they are in read-only folders.

"Anyone" can, I think.  

My main kit is an HDX SSD but I have Sonos as a temporary solution in other parts of the house.  I found that Sonos could not see CDs ripped on the HDX so I used Media Monkey to tag them.  I did some experiments first and it solved the problem for Sonos without causing any problem for the HDX so I have since done it across the board. 

Media Monkey was also the solution for ripped vinyl - it was the only way I could make either the HDX or Sonos play tracks in the correct order, see album art, etc.

Interesting, thanks !

I 'm wondering, if MM can re-tag them, then would it be possible for it to transcode to FLAC and tag the new files using the original folders and files names, leaving the original Naim WAV rips intact ?

I have also used Media Monkey to convert files from .flac to .wav and vice versa.  Admittedly I have never tried this with files created by my HDX; only with with files downloaded from other sources such as HD Tracks, and files ripped from vinyl. 

Most of this was experimentation.  The conversion process is simple - you just select the track(s) or album(s) that you want to convert and select Tools then Convert.  You can do as many at a time as you like though many can take a while.   

HD Tracks downloads in .flac only, or at least not in .wav.  I have only got a couple of albums from them and initially converted them to .wav because all my other music is in that format.  Also, my NAS (Buffalo Terastation) has a remote access function that I use occasionally which, because it relies on an iPhone or iPad app, won't play .flac files.  For the HDX it made no difference whether the files were in .wav or .flac but for some reason Sonos couldn't see the files after they had been converted to .wav, so I converted them back to .flac with no ill effects at all.  Of course, Sonos can't play HD files just now but maybe one day they will.

When I started ripping vinyl, I was using Audactity to do the ripping and saving as .wav but I found that neither the HDX nor Sonos could index the files properly or see the artwork.  (Actually the problem may only have been with Sonos - I seem to recall that the HDX was OK).  I initially solved the problem by saving as .flac but then I worked out how to use Media Monkey to tag .wav files so I started doing that and batch-converted all the existing .flac files to .wav.

Conversion back and forth between .flac and .wav has caused no problems at all, though admittedly the one thing I have never tried (and would never try) is converting a file ripped via my HDX.

Media Monkey is a great little program in my opinion.  It's free (there's a gold version that is not free but I have never felt the need to upgrade) and I believe that these days there is als a wineskin version (whatever that is) for Mac.  

That could be quite useful -- .wav files that are both fully useable by the Naim device and that are more 'user friendly' by being tagged.  I don't own an SSD server, only an internal HD server (uServe) -- were the HDX ssd rips fully editable in the folder in which the HDX had ripped them to?  Or did you copy them to a new location and then use MM to tag them and then scan their new location?

I didn't create a copy of the HDX SSD rips - I just used MM to "scan" the rips in question.  MM goes to the folder in question and displays the file details in its own window.  You then select the tracks you want to tag, go to Properties in MM and then (carefully) adjust as necessary.  MM will only do a limited amount of tagging for .wav files.  You can amend track names, album names and artist names, and attach album art, but that's about it.  You can do a lot more for .flac files.

To be honest I don't know how MM works - just that it does, and that it doesn't seem to cause any problem for the HDX.  My guess is that the HDX and MM have completely different approaches to meta data that don't interfere with each other - the HDX seems to have a separate data file in each album folder while MM somehow tags the tracks themselves.

I'd hesitate to use MM on files stored internally on the HDX, rather than separately on the NAS as mine are.  It probably wouldn't be any different (just another storage location) but I'd start, as I did, by experimenting with a couple of albums that you could re-rip if something went wrong.

I think it's academic re rips stored on an internal drive, as those folders are "read only" and I doubt that MM could alter the files.

It's not much of an issue for me, based on how I use my UnitiServe (which is much like the HDX for the purposes of this discussion).  For new cd's I use the uServe to rip to the internal drive.  For downloads, I purchase these as .flac and put them on a share that the uServe can access.  Given that they are .flac I take full advantage of the tags.

But for album art, as far as I can tell, the uServe still needs the file to be named as "folder.jpg"  I don't THINK it recognizes any other form, but I am not 100% sure.

The HDX will recognise album art in .png format, as well as .jpg.  Possibly other formats as well but I have not investigated.  It still has to be named folder.jpg (or folder.png etc). 

When I ripped my vinyl collection I got a lot of album art from the internet and inadvertently saved a lot of it as .png.  This was no problem for the HDX but my secondary Sonos system couldn't see it as it only sees .jpg.  I found a good free program called IrfanView with which I was able to batch convert all the .png images to .jpg and I can now see the album art on both systems.

In my view there is no sonic difference between .wav and .flac (others in this forum will disagree strongly and it may just be my aged ears).  Media Monkey will tag both and you can add a lot more data to .flac.  Naim advocate .wav for their systems and that's one reason I have gone for it.  The other is that I use my iPod to access my Buffalo NAS remotely and Apple products will not play .flac files.

I know that there are still many folks around who claim that wav would sound better than flac. I will not argue against this, even though I cannot confirm it. I hear absolutely no difference between the two. So for me flac is the format of choice. It gives me so much more flexibility with regard to tagging. It also saves a bit of disc space. Also I don't give away anything by storing everything in flac format. It is lossless and I can always convert to any other format including wav without any compromises.

I also wouldn't falter to retag rips made by a Naim machine. There isn't any magic involved. The rip is the same as the one made on a 200€ notebook.

When it comes to iOS devices I simply convert to AAC with a reduced bitrate. This way I can store a lot more on it than if they were wav files.

I have seen not seen any one say PCM WAV files sound different to FLAC files, however what I do see from others and I have heard is playback devices can sound slightly different when playing back WAV or FLAC... Which is quite a different matter.

The only advantage I have expierienced with FLAC is of  a smaller file size compared to a PCM equivalent.

I leave some hidef downloads as FLAC and transcode on the fly, but rip to WAV. For me Naim equipment sounds its best with WAV. Luckily my upnp can transcode on the fly, and I have cycled through a few formats for transcode and settled on WAV out of sonic preference... But if it was FLAC or AIF I would have settled to transcode to that (however I don't really hear much difference between AIF and WAV)

Simon