A few NAS questions

Posted by: JasonJackson on 11 October 2012

Hi

 

I'm thinking of upgrading my current NAS a Buffalo Livestation as the ruddy thing keeps duplicating tracks - not physically on the drive but when my SU receives them. However this issue can't justify the upgrade alone so my first question is around sound quality  - if I upgrade from this cheap as chips NAS to something like the Synology DS212j or the 

QNAP TS-119P II could I expect to hear a reasonable improvement in sound if nothing else in my current environment changes ie is the change in NAS alone enough to hear an improvement?


I currently have all my files ripped as lossless FLAC is there a benefit in transcoding them to WAV on the fly? Is the likely to affect the metadata that can be viewed on the SU on Nstream app? Or is this why people do this ie to retain the metadata from the FLAC file but have the (alleged) benefits of sound from a WAV file? Does the WAV file sound any better when it's being transcoded from a FLAC file?


Will there be any issues transferring my music collection from one NAS to another. I'm planning on backing up to my PC and then copying the files from there to the new NAS - should that work?


and finally - Are there any other NAS drives I should consider given that sound is my priority and a budget of around £400 to inc 2TB.


many many thanks


For those that are interested use homeplugs to connect my SU to the current NAS and a Cisco E4200 router without a switch.

Posted on: 11 October 2012 by Peter_RN

Hi Jason

 

Well, someone has to mention that your most likely source of sound degradation is going to be the Homeplugs, is there any chance of getting a cat5e/6 cable between router and SU? I can’t believe I am going to suggest that wireless may even be better.

 

As for NAS drives sounding different – they should all sound the same using UPnP, a more important consideration may be what server software they run and which suites your method of use best. How you select your music may influence your choice.

 

You ask about using WAV over flac, well I would say yes it’s worth it, an awful lot of others will say there is no difference in sound – you must try this yourself, only you can decide, if you don’t hear a difference then don’t worry anymore about it. If you do like WAV over flac you will need a server that can transcode on the fly or convert all flacs to WAV on the new NAS. I don’t know which NAS boxes can do this, but WHS running Asset certainly can.

 

If you just wish to transfer you files ‘as is’ between old and new NAS drives this can be done across the network without any problem, except possibly it may take a while with a large collection.

 

Something to think about,

 

Peter

Posted on: 11 October 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Changing the NAS will have no effect on sound quality unless your current NAS is faulty ... I use a Vortexbox, but other NASs should be just as capable. Of course, if the NAS is sharing mains with your SU then it might be polluting the mains. Some may pollute less than others. 

 

I cannot hear any benefit of FLAC over WAV or vice versa, but transcoding to WAV will certainly not make it sound worse so if your NAS can do that then might as well. My Vortexbox doesn't transcode. 

 

I can't see any issues transferring files between NASs, but I've only ever done it between Apple kit and Vortexbox for music. You should be able to get a 2TB Vortexbox for under £400 - especially if you build it yourself. 

 

The Cisco Linksys E4200 has switch ports so should be absolutely fine. It also has its own UPnP server, which you might want to try disabling in case it is confusing your SU in to thinking there are two UPnP servers both sending it the same music data. 


All the best, Guy 

Posted on: 12 October 2012 by Harry

I did a NAS switch to QNap for operational reasons and as expected I didn't detect a change in sound quality or musical enjoyment.

 

I'm in the "can hear a difference" camp between WAV and FLAC. It's difficult to explain but it makes no difference because storage is cheap and we can please ourselves. Maybe on the fly decoding adds baggage which is detectable to some ears/systems. Don't know. Don't care either.