Big Bill's newish system

There are some good discussions about VortexBox, RaspberryPi servers on the forum: https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...raspberry-pi-and-ndx

There's a growing market in unix box streamers from several companies, such as Aurender.

So no, building a unix box streamer totally makes sense.  I'd check computer audiophile, there's a lot of people there discussing various set ups.

I think i read somewhere that Jriver can act as a streamer. Not sure if that's just the windows version or if the mac version can as well.

Yes, it can, but you need a PC or a Mac (both versions work) directly connected to a DAC.  It can also work as a UPNP server. Take a look here for some basics on streaming set ups: http://www.computeraudiophile....-dlna-network-audio/

Thank you guys some really useful information, I will get browsing.

Cheers.

Big Bill,

you want to set up a box running a program that A) reads data which are stored on your NAS and B) sends (some of those) data to a DAC which is connected via USB or SPDIF to the box.

Is this correct ? If so then you have, as far as I know, two possibilities:

#1 You run a UPnP server on the NAS (which you probably already do) and a UPnP client on the box.

#2 You run a file server on the NAS (which you probably already do) and a music player on the box.

The two solutions are similar but not identical. In case #1, for instance, the UPnP client running on the box will "see" your music files as they are presented by the UPnP server. This means that the way you can browse your music collection will be constrained by the server running on your NAS.

In case #2, the music player running on the box just sees directories and files. The way you can browse these files (composer, genre, etc.) will depend on the music player, not on a program running on your NAS ! Similarly, in case #1 your metadata are going to be managed by your UPnP server. In #2 the metadata are managed by the music player.

This implies that, depending on whether you go for #1 or #2, you will compare different kinds of programs and functionalities: UPnP clients in case of #1 and music players in case of #2. There are, of course, music player which are also UPnP clients, for instance VLC. But it is important to keep distinct notions distinct.

You will probably have to carefully think about what you exactly want to (be able to) do with your box and then make a decision. An issue which, in my view, is particularly important, is how you control the program running on the box. This, of course, also depends on the program itself. I would not want, for instance, to have to logon to the box to be able to select a different radio channel.

I have no experience with solution #1.  What I can say is that, if you go for #2 and for a linux box, then MPD is probably a music player you want to consider (but there are, of course, many others). As I mentioned in a previous post, MPD is a very flexible client-server application. The server runs in the background and can be controlled by clients. There are MPD clients for linux, windows, symbian, android, ios, etc.

If I were in your situation, I would try different options. If you have a linux machine,  you can install the MPD server (mpd) and a MPD client (gmpc, for instance) in a few seconds. Setting up the server is almost trivial. You can than play a bit around with some local music data, get an idea if this is something for you and compare to other options.

You can use the USB out from the newer Synology NAS' straight into a DAC. I think that Naim have something called a V1. And I read somewhere that Chord make one that might be quite good.

Silent unix box about the size of a kitchen box of matches... I love my Raspberry Pi... And I can power via a USB powersupply. Ok somewhat horse power and memory limited, but better than many NAS CPUs I have come across, and can effortlessly stream  as a UPnP server right up to 192/24 whilst FLAC to WAV transcoding.. It can also do asynchronous USB now so I read, but I have not tried this.

Simon

nbpf

Could you give some examples of each please for both windows and mac. This really confuses the hell out of me as i don't really get what the difference is. maybe some examples of actual software may help. Thanks

Graeme

OK

I have QNAP 412 with four 2TB hard disks configured as RAID 0+1 so I actually only see 4TB.

On this I run MinimServer, which I love.  It is a upnp server running in a Java VM and has the most amazing mechanism for configuring its decision tree.

I have a WD Live Hub which does all sorts of things.  It has a 1TB Hard Disk which is quite noisy but as I don't really use the HD and it turns itself into sleep mode.  This was the first Music streamer I used and I plugged its optical digital out into a MicroMega duo DAC.  But this did not sound brilliant on my old system  Not sure what the issues were but I think my old speakers (Ruark Crusader II) had had their day.  The sounded poor on my new system - see below.  I still use the WD because it can do BBC iPlayer and I use it to view my photo collection.  So it still has a useful life.

Earlier this year I bought a UnitiLite and a pair of KEF R700's and this system sounds brilliant, it is the first time I have really enjoyed digital.  No Kidding, if I really liked something I would try and get it on 180g Vinyl and that to me on my TT just sounded great but even that had fallen off - that's why I think the units had gone on my Ruarks.

Unfortunately our house, as I have said before, is like a building site at the moment so my TT is stowed away and needs a new cartridge too.  One of the channels has gone dead on my current one and every time I sit down and say 'Let's get this TT working' I answer myself 'No lets listen to something off the Uniti.'

When all the building work gets finished I must get my TT going.  I aim to convert my Vinyl to 24/96 digital.  A long term project.

So I used to run a second system which had a Marantz CD75 as front-end and I used to swap out amps now and again.  To this sytem I now want to add a streamer and I may well by a Naim UnitiQute or another Lite, not sure yet.  But I would like to use some my amps I have kicking about though.

So that's it I am looking to build or buy a streamer and a silent Linux box would be a good solution using something that old daemon MPD.  I had thought about a Raspberry because I could use a USB stick for program memory I suspect and that might do all I need.  As long as I can do digital out on it of course, but I assume I can.

Graeme, here is quite a comprehensive overview of UPnP servers, clients (or both), among others for windows and os x:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..._servers_and_clients

As I said, I have tested that I can run Asset and Minim Server on my linux box (just in case someone comes by and brings me a NDS for free :-). But I wanted a solution that does not require the linux box to be wired to a router or to have a NAS in my living room and I eventually settled on the MPD solution. This is very straightforward and allows me to have the small fanless linux box next to the DAC and to control it wirelessly from my laptop or from my wife's ipad.

In a nutshell and assuming I have roughly understood Naim's software ecosystem:

In #2 an MPD client plays the role, in the linux universe, of nServe in the Naim universe. It talks to a server (MPD daemon, running on the linux box) in much the same way as nServe talks to a software that runs on a server, for instance UnitiServe. The latter does not need (although might be able to take advantage of) an external UPnP server.

In contrast, in #1 a control application (for a UPnP client running on the linux box) would play the role of nStream in the Naim universe. It would rely on a software running on the linux box which itself does need an external UPnP server, e.g., one running on a NAS (in much the same way as nStream relies on a software running, for instance, on a ND5XS or on a UnitiServe which, in turn, relies on an external UPnP server).

Best,

nbpf

Many thaks for the link nbpf. 

nbpf: Remember I spoke about writing some software to read and write FLAC tags, well I have got it working.  I can now read FLAC tags, amend them and then save the new FLAC file.  I have just been sat here listening to a track off the Abraxas album (one of my favourite albums) and it was a track I had fiddled with.  RESULT!

I did look at MetaFlac and one of the tracks I used with it caused it to fall over - don't know why but it did.  It was a 24/192 track but that should pose no problems.  It was an album of French Organ music, an absolutely beautiful album by Pétur Sakari.  But would the é cause a problem?  Shouldn't, FLAC is not internationalised, it does not support 2 byte encoded characters but that is not the case here.

Still a lot more testing to be done, the next step is to look at the track that caused metaflac to keel over and die.

I am really pleased with myself and have a very self-satisfied and smug look on my boat race.

Bill, indeed Ogg Vorbis Comments specify that the field types are not internationalised, but the values may be and encoded using UTF-8.

it is interesting that Ogg Vorbis Comment field types only have a recommended subset of field types and could vary from encoder to encoder.. Unless there is a later doc I haven't found.

http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

I used the document in that list to decode that block in a FLAC file.  The language is quite strange I think imho and unfortunately the formats are slightly different to that specified by xiph.org for FLAC files in general - ie that stuff outside the Ogg Vorbis.  The content & list lengths in the Ogg Vorbis are low byte first - not that it says anywhere (I believe).  Whilst xiph.org specifies high byte first for content and list lengths - just like we use everyday in numbers.  Not surprisingly that caught me out.

One of the most useful tools I had at my disposal was notepad++, a favourite of mine for a number of years.  If I look at a FLAC file (or my fledgling efforts) in Notepadd++ it will give a value (a number or an icon) for EVERY byte in the file, unlike notepad.  A very useful tool, it means the you can do a visual check on two files.  NB it can open more than one file at a time and ctrl-tab cycles you round them.

As they say in that document "Below is a proposed, minimal list of standard field names with a description of intended use. No single or group of field names is mandatory; a comment header may contain one, all or none of the names in this list."  So basically that means that they don't impose any restrictions on 'field names' so you can use whatever field names (tag IDs) you want.  xiph.org also do not imply any restrictions on tag IDs either.  The fact that it can vary from encoder to encoder is NOT a disadvantage, it is in fact a big advantage - one of its greatest strength in fact.  Because of this you can use any text as a tag ID and the decoder can ignore it.  In fact it is only things like streamers, ripping programs and tag editors that ever really look at FLAC Tags.  Your streamer will just pull out things like Artist, Album, Tile etc but if it chooses to ignore something it can.

Just create a new tag with a name outside of the recommended list in dbPowerAmp and after ripping look at in mp3tag, your new tag and its data will be there.  No problems.

The advantage of MinimServer is that you can introduce your new tags (for example 'Classification' in my structure) into its 'decision tree' and that for me is what it is all about.

Get JRiver

The thing about Linux is (a) it's free and (b) its quick and runs well on sub-par hardware.  Are we seeing a 'Mean Old Git Theme' emerging here?

But looking around there doesn't seem to be so many upnp clients available in Linux.

That is correct. I have realized this when I was considering different options for a dedicated audio server. The fact that there are not so many UPnP clients for linux OSs, however, is not completely surprising.

The UPnP protocol enables clients to discover servers in a dynamically networked environment. If you start a UPnP server on a laptop in you local network, for instance, your UnitiLite will "see" that server no matter what IP address the laptop has received.

This kind of flexibility is not for free and makes most sense in a non-static environment and for music players of portable devices. This is the stronghold of Android and iOS. There are players running on linux OSs that support a UPnP client, VLC for instance. But there are not so many.

Another point which might be worth considering is that, in a static environment in which remote file systems can be accessed seamlessly, a UPnP server / client architecture is not necessarily the most straightforward solution. As I mentioned in a previous post, I prefer the MPD approach and other non-UPnP and non-MPD approaches are certainly possible.

nbpf said:

The UPnP protocol enables clients to discover servers in a dynamically networked environment. If you start a UPnP server on a laptop in you local network, for instance, your UnitiLite will "see" that server no matter what IP address the laptop has received.

Yup indeed, it works without a name service (I  assume) like DNS or WINS, but that is OK if you have only a small number of upnp servers on your network.  You just do a 'brute force' search but think what might happen if you had 500 upnp servers on your network??????

I have deicided that I will install Linux on an old PC, one which I built a few years back, and I will write my own client and controller.  This will be a big project for me but there are libraries out there and a brief search has found some that could make the job easyish.

I am coming to the end of my FLAC metadata project and I am now building code to scan my FLAC library and save to a MySQL database.  I can now read the medata contents and can rename, edit etc the FLAC tags.  I had a bit of problem with the encoding which caused a little hiccup.  Above you will see that Simon & I swapped a couple of posts about internationalisation in the Ogg Vorbis specification.  Well it is UTF8 only for the field name but for the data can contain  full-fledged ANSI 2 byte codes.  For example I use a tag PERFORMERS and below is the tag pair within the metadata of Santana's Abraxas:

   PERFORMERS=Areas, José Chepitó

There will be one of these for each member of Santana.  Now PERFORMERS is the field and MUST be UTF8, whilst "Areas, José Chepitó", without the quotes, is the data and is in ANSI and bytes in it can, therefore, be two bytes - but only if required, not all bytes.  So for example the letter 'a' would be one byte but the e-acute and the end of his first forename will be 2 bytes.

Now the the standard says that the length of the whole field will precede the the tag pair and will be encoded in a way it describes in the spec, so you would be forgiven for thinking that the following is correct:

<30>PERFORMERS=Areas, José Chepitó

and if you had this stored this as a string in just about any programming language the len() function would give 30 - ps do not include the <30> in the calc.  But in fact the length of it is 2 more - ie 32, because of the éó characters being 2 bytes.  This caused a little headache but like all of these things you struggle along and all of a sudden it hits you.

So I am now spending time on my database structure plus I am also looking at various libraries.

I retired just over a year ago and I have to say I am loving it, we can get up when we want, we can jump in our camper van when we want - it is great!  But I do miss the kind of work I have been doing and have really enjoyed spending a few hours a day on the FLAC Tags work.  It is great to get the 'old grey cells' jigging about again.

Actually thinking about it, in the clear light of morning, a better idea might be to install MPD and write some code to interface that.  Less work!

Sounds great Big Bill ! Enjoy the time ! Best, nbpf

If you go the MPD way you'll find quite a mature system. In this case, take care to only install alsa and mpd, not pulse. I have found

http://lacocina.nl/audiophile-mpd

useful. There are of course improvements that could be implemented both on the server side and on the client side. On the client / metadata side, it would be nice to be able to access an album's booklet, for example. Accessing covers, lyrics, etc. already works fine on most clients.

That link is very useful, thanks nbpf.

Before I do any real programming I am going to spend some time with MPD and VortexBox, both of which I am sure will do what I want.

I think I will do MPD first though.

Thanks again.

Didn't go the way I planned.

I resurrected my old PC, it was one I built a good few years ago.  It was running Win2000 Server and I was using it for a database server, app server and web server.  When I built my last PC it was so powerful I could run all these apps on it and still do development work on the beast.

So I started the poor old girl up and it immediately went into the BIOS screen - not a great start.  Well to cut a long story short, the CD/DVD was sticking on the rails, because of dust from years of inactivity I suppose.  So I fixed that.  I took out the hard disk and put that into my new machine to check it over and it passed fine - first good news.  I had a disk with Ubuntu on it and thought that I would try this first no joy it kept hanging.  After a bit of messing about I found that the CD ROM was duff, not totally just enough to make me think it was gonna work and waste a lot of time in trying to get it to work.

So, I had also downloaded a version of Vortexbox, so I burned it to a cd rom and had a bash (pun intended) at installing it and would you adam and eve it the thing worked.

So now I have vortexbox on my old PC and it works I can play files on my NAIM UnitiLite, not that I need that functionality.

At this point the football started and I was looking forward to Brazil giving the Germans a good thrashing......

Never worked out why it went to the BIOS screen.  I thought it may have been the backup battery but the date and time were fine.

I can only think that I had removed something that was registered in the BIOS.  If you add or remove memory chips then it will cause the BIOS to load at first restart, for example.

Right VortexBox - what is it like?

If you have an old PC and you want to press it into action as a music server then this could well be the answer.  You can get hold of the software for free and install it on an old PC and it works rather well.  The distro comes complete with a version of linux which you burn to a CD and boot your old, unloved PC - read the instructions here about buring an ISO image, or ask on this forum.  You could at a later date get hold of one of the low energy boxes that they supply and create a very low energy server.  The total price would be less than a decent NAS I would expect but probably not by much.

You could also buy one of their low energy boxes to use as a streaming client, if you wanted it ultra-quiet you could order it with an SSD.  You would not need a great deal of disk space so go for the cheapest option.

The problem with Linux, if you are not already skilled in maintaining this OS, is that you will need to learn a fair amount of Linux knowledge.  Couple this with the fact that I did not find a great deal of documentation about the VortexBox system, although it is supported pretty well.   Saying that though, I think if you buy one of their boxes it would already be setup and ready to go.

Another option would be a Windows PC running FooBar which does server, if you download the upnp server module and client.  This would work fine and would have the advantage in that only a little knowledge would be required and any USB DAC you might choose to use would have Win drivers.  Bits and pieces of software you might want to use, such as mp3tags, would also work on this platform.

Another option would be a Mac, not as wide coverage as Windows but I doubt that would cause any problems at all - ask the Apple fanboys for what you might need.

For just a client a Uniti box would do just fine, in fact more than just fine.  Messing about with VortexBox over the last couple of days has shown me just what a great option a Uniti box really is, especially if you don't have much of a system and would not want to run your current amp.  Add a pair of speakers and away you go, you do not have to learn a whole load of arcane knowledge about Linux or even Windows & Apple.  It just is a matter of plugging in turning it on and that will turn you on.  A UnitiQute is pretty cheap and does include an FM tuner and an amp for a very competitve price.  In true NAIM fashion as you go up scale they sound better and of course cost more

Yes I know you will have to configure your network and get a server but you will have to do that anyway if you are going to opt for some sort of media PC,  If you buy a VortexBox for a server or a NAS then after a great deal of labour ripping your music collection then you can sit back and enjoy.