PC or NAS for streaming to NDX

If you are happy ripping with a PC, just get a Synology NAS. It sounds like you are clued up IT wise, so it should be. Easiest of all is the UnitiServe. You can still connect the other bits into the NDX; the serve is just the server and ripper. You'd still need a NAS though, and £2,000.........

Hi

Thanks for the feedback. The problem I see with the HDX or Unitiserve is that I believe they both have bits I don't really need with the NDX. So I'm not sure the £2000 for the Unitiserve is justified, but I was tempted by the ease of rippling.

Are the Synology NAS units easily available in UK? Never seen one in a shop so I assume on-line is the normal route.

Cheers

Steve

The Serve had nothing you don't need if you have an NDX, other than the ability to play Internet radio.

Have a look on Amazon for Synology. Buy the enclosure, and add WD Red drives. You download the server software from Synology for free, and off you go.

Hmm thanks. I will have to look at the Serve specs again. There is some 'synergy' I think in having an all Naim system! 

Thanks for the pointers on the NAS, that is really useful. The next thing is to get the Demo NDX in my hands and see how it compares with the CDX2 in my system...

Cheers

Steve

I would install dbpoweramp's Asset upnp on your PC as the upnp server. I find it superior to the built in media server available with the synology NAS.

Hi

Thats good to know. I will hopefully have the NDX on demo in the near future. I have dBPoweramp anyway so have installed asset already. This will be my main route for the demo, then if the NDX is comparable to the CDX2 (or hopefully better) then I may see how a NAS compares. 

Cheers

Steve

For the demo, use the following configuration if you can:

PC -> Cat 7 cable -> Router or switch.

NDX -> Cat 7 cable -> Router or switch.

if using switch in the first two lines,

Switch -> cable -> internet router.

Make sure you have a high quality Router/Switch.

Also, ensure that you only have hifi related stuff in the powerstrip. Don't put the router's or PC's power supply cables in the same powerstrip as the hifi stuff.

Enjoy!

Just skip the NAS.  It doesn't add much and appears to complicate the process.  Just get a external hard drive large enough for your music.  Stream direct form computer.

I sort of agree - and don't consider the RAID configuration in the NAS as a backup. Mine fell of the shelf and both drives broke at the same time. I should have geo-distributed it atleast across rooms. ;-)

Hello Steve,

Your laptop with Assett as UpnP server to your NDX will be an excellent solution. Ideally your laptop is wired to your network so you never have hick-ups when streaming.

You write you have a laptop with SSD. Normally these SSD's are not so big. If you want to store all your music on your laptop, I assume you have not too much (1000+) albums otherwise it would not fit on the SSD. To solve you could go for an external HD that you hook-up to your laptop via USB. This is cheap and works very easy. Even better (and especially if you also have quite some photos, videos, documents etc) I'd still buy a NAS. It works so easily and all (!) your data can be accessed. You wont have storage problems, and your data is safe.

iver

Excellent thanks

"PC -> Cat 7 cable -> Router or switch.

NDX -> Cat 7 cable -> Router or switch.

if using switch in the first two lines,

Switch -> cable -> internet router."

As I'm likely to use the latter, I understand this as;

Internet Router to dedicated switch (ideally), this switch connects to PC and NDX only (ideally).

As I don't use that PC very often, my feeling is to just leave it ON and just run ASSET.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Iver

Actually the PC with SSD is a desktop I5 machine. It has two SSDs (about 150G each) one for the OS and the other storage. 

I also have another It or so in it but in HDD. I only have 200 or CDs at present so I think it's big enough for a while. I will probably switch to the internal HDD if starts to get too full. After that though, an external, but hopefully that is a bit further away yet!

Cheers

Steve

For long-term backup I use Amazon AWS Glacier its very inexpensive.

I recently performed a little test on my system at home, pc running asset with a western digital NAS and compared that to running asset on a raspberry pi instead. There is significantly less noise in playback when using the raspberry pi instead of the PC. I put this down to the fact that the raspberry pi is a completely solid state device, and is only running one application.

So my suggestion would be NAS/Raspberry Pi running asset with DBPoweramp for ripping.

Or just get rid of the NAS.

Hi There,

I use a laptop in a spare room plugged into the router Running Asset Upnp. Laptop runs DBpoweramp and rips Cd`s to the external 1 TB USB drive. Asset points to this drive for streaming. I back up the external to the internal every time a have a ripping session to ensure the music file directory is upto date. It runs silently and uses little power if left on. Also if I want to switch the laptop off and not stream, I can plug the USB drive directly into the USB on the front of the Superuniti. Didnt cost too much to set up, 2nd hand decent spec laptop £120 e-bay ( even has a 1TB drive), 1TB USB drive i had lying around and DB poweramp and Asset approx £40 full licence. works a treat and has been running sweetly.

May not be the perfect replacement for a nicely integrated Unitiserve.. but it does me till i decide on a more elegant solution.

Regards

Keith

PS i faffed about with a brand new Qnap NAS running twonky for 2 weeks and sold it.. you have been warned

Hi everyone

My plan for the moment is PC with asset as the NDX is only on demo (hopefully tomorrow). I will also be trying a Unitiserve just to see if this gives a difference in sound from the PC.

Does anyone have any idea how the sound differs between CDX2+XPS2 and NDX+XPS2? If I go with the NDX I will be losing my CDX2 - could be a difficult decision!

Steve,

I suspect either way you will need NAS at some point. I have a QNAP NAS and currently run Asset on a laptop that points to the QNAP. However, there is a beta version of Asset availale that will run on the QNAP now so you can do away with the laptop - that would be my recommendation. If you go this route make sure you buy one of the Intel based QNAPs as I have an Atom based unit and its definitely slower than my laptop set up. 

There are some other threads on the forum re. the beta version of Aseet

In the forums a lot of people still mention using a computer for playback, be it raspeberry/mac/pc/laptop/whatever, but to me this defeats the whole purpose of buying a (network) streamer and you might as well invest solely in the DAC + mac / PC combo. Or am I wrong?

Therefore really curious to know: does anyone actually uses the n-stream app for playing music from a nas via their naim streaming device? 

I do, and I'd imagine most others with a digital streamer and compatible i(whatever) would too. It's just a really fancy remote control after all...

Hi

I use a PC with asset for the flexibility. I have a desktop with I5 processor and streaming isn't affected by it being in use for other things. The main additional benefit I get though is that I can also redirect any audio received to the network player. Using my mac air in screenshare mode, I can keep my PC in another room and control my PC from my armchair and stream spottily, Quobuz or youtube (for example) or select the streamer inputs.

I'm not sure that this can really be done using a NAS streamer.

By the way, after starting the thread I listened to an NDX. Very good it was, but not really better than my CDX2. I then made the mistake (!) of listening to an NDS. It was a revelation. The NDS is happily sitting with the rest of my kit.

The NDS should come with a wallet warning!

Cheers

Steve

I've tried just about every upnp software I could find and settled for Asset on my PC. I've just ordered an Asset Nas Which arrives on Tuesday, mainly because it also run Asset and stops me hving to hve my PC on all the time whilst letting me use my PC and hard drives to back up. Was £419 for 2tb which I thought was pretty reasonable.  I'm also UK based

NDS rules indeed. I did not tried the NDX but the comparison between the HDX and the CDX2 led me to wait until I could afford the NDS.