Streaming from iTunes on a Mac
Posted by: Regowen on 16 October 2013
Hi, I have picked up my first Naim - the Unitilite - today and the dealer advised I purchase either an Apple TV or a NAS drive in order for the Unitilite to stream from my Mac. Forgive my ignorance as I am new to Naim but is there a clear preference for either of those options ?
Hi regowan,
Have a look at his thread, it might help you: https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...94#30428924495635394
To be honest I think it is a bit unacceptable your dealer gave you so little advise. You bought an excellent machine that cost a lot of money. I would expect that as part of the service, your dealer would have elaborated on the difference choices you have. I would avoid Apple TV since it prefends you from streaming high resolution if you want too. Indeed a NAs is a very good option.
please let us know if you still need help
cheers, Iver
Hi Regowen,
is it a problem if your mac runs all the time - e.g. when you are listening to music?
My MacBook Pro (with a very neat iTunes library on it) is either on or in Hibernate, so that i can hear music all the time without any switching on or off ...
Everything what you need is a UPNP-Server - like Twonky.
You install it on your mac - that's it!
Your iTunes library will be find by n-Stream or on the Unitilite with the classical remote!
Enjoy!
Don't install Twonky. It's awful. Playback from Yazsoft will stream your iTunes library from your mac to your streamer. It's a very good UPnP server.
Hi Regowen,
is it a problem if your mac runs all the time - e.g. when you are listening to music?
My MacBook Pro (with a very neat iTunes library on it) is either on or in Hibernate, so that i can hear music all the time without any switching on or off ...
Everything what you need is a UPNP-Server - like Twonky.
You install it on your mac - that's it!
Your iTunes library will be find by n-Stream or on the Unitilite with the classical remote!
Enjoy!
I am Apple user through and through, some say my cottage is Apple shaped and hardly ever touch a non-Apple computer, but buying an Apple TV to stream in to a UnitiLite is not good advice. For one thing you are buying an extra box you don't, for another thing it will degrade the sound you can achieve without it (i can explain why in detail if you are interested - it is measurable not my subjective view in this instance) and thirdly it'll be a pain to keep up to date without a screen.
Apple TV is great little box, but this is not a good place to use it.
You'd achieve much better results by just connecting a good quality optical cable between your Mac and UnitiLite. This is dead easy to setup and can give fine results.
Alternatively as already suggested you could use Yazsoft Playback on your Mac to make it act as a UPnP server. You'll need to run nStream to control it. This should get the best results without using a USB to S/PDiF convertor, which adds to the costs and if you were going to do that then the DAC V1 would have been more appropriate.
Good luck with this and i am sure you'll achieve very fine sound for your systems. have a go with the try before buy Yazsoft stuff and see how you get on. Twonky is not very good on a Mac so I'd avoid it.
Wat
hi regowen,
i totally agree with toobin_zoo: all you need is a UPNP server to start with.
i don't agree too much with james_n: actually i(!) really like twonky :-)
BUT - there are many UPNP server for OS X. tested several of these (some are free/shareware/donationware or do at least have a demo option that will give you an impression on what YOU like). would recommend to test a few...
below a list of the servers apps that i have tested: green are the ones I constantly use, orange was so not-my-cup-of-coffee and red didn't work out for me. the grey section shows apps that are not streamer apps but might come in handy when playing highres files on a mac (eg complementing iTunes).
just a starting point to save some time googling around :-)
cheers, lorenz
Playback is a UPnP server for the Mac and works very well. You need to connect your Mac and Uniti to the same switch and use nStream to control it.
I use a DAC which i prefer to a streamer. As the DAC has no asynchronous USB interface, i use aa April Music Stello U3 to connect my Mac to the DAC. I do not recommend this with a Uniti as my thoughts are if you wanted to go that way you'd by a DAC such as the V1. However it would give superb results If you decided not to use the Uniti streaming capability.
Audrivana mentioned above runs on a Mac and is a player rather than UPnP server, but it is my favourite player and i have yet to hear a better way to play music from Mac to DAC. It is optimised for USB 2 audio, but will work with an optical cable.
Nice summary Wat ! ... This question is asked quite often, we could re-use your answer !
Hello regowen - congratulations on the Unitilite. Definitely a disappointment you did not get good advice from your dealer - the AppleTV recommendation is a terrible idea as wat says. Fortunately you will get lots of good suggestions from this forum - it certainly helped me out when I got into streaming.
Playback will be a good place for you to start. Just to set your expectations though, you will probably find you have a few glitches along the way with the setup stopping working properly. These are usually not to do with the Naim product, but with either your home network or the uPnP server software. So you may find over time that you want to move to a different solution - lots of people on here have dedicated music servers of one form or another (a NAS is such a device in this context) to make things more robust.
David
Hello regowen - congratulations on the Unitilite. Definitely a disappointment you did not get good advice from your dealer - the AppleTV recommendation is a terrible idea as wat says. Fortunately you will get lots of good suggestions from this forum - it certainly helped me out when I got into streaming.
Playback will be a good place for you to start. Just to set your expectations though, you will probably find you have a few glitches along the way with the setup stopping working properly. These are usually not to do with the Naim product, but with either your home network or the uPnP server software. So you may find over time that you want to move to a different solution - lots of people on here have dedicated music servers of one form or another (a NAS is such a device in this context) to make things more robust.
David
hi regowen,
as you seem to have a tendency towards PlayBack I would recommend that you simply install it on your mac. Adding a NAS might have many, many benefits (like RAID options, stand alone operation or some sort of UPNP-server options). BUT this will add extra boxes to your setup, cost some money, will need some extra patience and administration.
Nowadays the same UPNP server (e.g. Twonky) running on your mac will be as robust as the same UPNP server(eg againTwonky) running on a NAS. As far as I know Playback is not available as a NAS application – therefore you would have to copy files to the NAS, then link iTunes and(or the copied files to PlayPack and have both machines up and running.
Well – I would start the easy way. App on the Mac and GO :-)
Cheers,
Lorenz
PS I have two Twonky installations – one on a Mac and one on my NAS – never, ever had any realiability issues.
The issue i have with most other OSX UPnP servers is their inability to just use the iTunes library. When i had my Linn DS, Chorus used it and so does Playback. Others i've tried seem to spend ages scanning the library which seems pointless. For me, Playback works and also delivers artwork correctly to nStream. A couple of minor issues were solved by sending debug information back to the developers. It works so i now leave well alone. I keep my Music stored on a NAS but use a headless mac mini as the iTunes / UPnP server.
James
@james n – NOT trying to steal the thread but...
when you talk about playback and cover artwork: what is the first place cover art is provided to you when using n-stream? first time i will see it is with an individual album. not within albums, genres, artists or anything at higher level. what is so cute about MinimServer or Twonky is the ability to provide cover art at this level already. definitely prefer to scroll/flip thru hundreds of covers much more than thru grey folder icons.
but - chances are that i simply miss an option/setting which enabled playback to behave the same way.
btw - itunes integration would be the killer benefit over Twonky, MinimServer & Co. Allegro Music Server (AMS - as often mentioned in Naim's manuals) oder Elgato EyeConnect used to have nice options - but unfortunately both products are no longer on the market or up to a current OS.
cheers, lorenz
All your advice is much appreciated. I will start with the wireless option and then it seems to be a case of Twonky or Playback from the excellent advice offered.
Hi Regowen,
perfekt choice!
I started the same way and enjoy it everyday since 2 years now.
When you like it - before you buy a NAS, I would recommend you to buy a iPod touch or something like that, because the controlling by n-stream is a dream (n-stream is actually only available for apple gadgets (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad ... ).
In my opinion I heart no difference between the WLAN- and the LAN-solution (Uniti1).
A big advantage from having no NAS is that you have only one library to care - the iTunes library on your Mac. No copying, syncing ... just one library where you can concentrate on. Read your CDs with iTunes, manage your library with iTunes ... - one tip - when you read in your CDs into iTunes take a premium music format (ALAC; AIFF ...) - because this difference (e.g. 192 kbit mp3 vs. ALAC) you will hear immediately.
Yes, I use Twonky - and I'm very happy with. That doesn't mean that there are other better or equal good UPNP-servers on the market. Test it - mostly they are for free or very cheap.
Have a good time!
"A big advantage from having no NAS is that you have only one library to care - the iTunes library on your Mac. No copying, syncing ... just one library where you can concentrate on " ...... ??? If you set up iTunes in such a way that its library is physically on the NAS, there is only one library to maintain. I work in that way, and works perfectly fine
cheers,
iver
Hi Iver van de Zand,
learning never stops 
I didn't know that this is going this way - very interesting!
You have one library - and these is on the NAS - administered from iTunes. Cool!
Thanks!
Hey Toobin,
it took me quite some time to really optimize the wayrI wanted to work with my library: what format, how to deal with album art, how to deal with tagging, what if my NAS needs to be updated, how to control my library, how to work with playlist, what tool to use for tagging etc etc .... Apart from all the tips I could gather here, I also learnt a lot from the stuff on the iLounge website. Have a look at it, it is great info.
cheers,
Iver
Hi Iver van de Zand,
I will do so - thanks!
Have a nice evening!