Mac UPNP Servers - A round up

Posted by: 0rangutan on 17 March 2011

Thought I'd check where each of the Mac UPNP servers are up to nowadays.

Here are the results of some that I have checked. If you have experience of any other Mac UPNP servers, please share here.

In brief, a combination of EyeConnect and Majestic will provide stable support for FLACs, Apple Lossless and album art in n-Stream for a grand total of $6.99. No single server provides all of these (still!)

EyeConnect 1.6.10

Free if streaming music only.

Stable, good interface.

Transcodes Apple Lossless to WAV very well.

No album art in n-Stream.

No FLAC support.

Good choice if you don't use n-Stream and don't use FLACs. Your only choice if you use Apple Lossless.

Majestic 1.2.6

Used to be free, now $6.99 in Mac AppStore.

Stable, poor interface but overhaul coming soon.

Can transcode, but only to 128Kbps so not very useful. Also likely to improve soon.

Album art in n-Stream works well.

Plays FLACs perfectly, including Hi Res.

Good choice if you use FLACs, don't case about Apple Lossless and like to use n-Stream.

PlayBack 1.7.2

£10.

Stable, good interface.

Plays FLACs perfectly, including Hi Res.

No transcoding and so no support for Apple Lossless.

No album art in n-Stream.

Good choice if you use FLACs, but Majestic offers more for less.

Twonky 6.0.32

$19.95.

Not especially stable, poor web interface. iTunes playlists work now, but not in all previous releases.

Plays FLACs perfectly, including Hi Res.

No transcoding available and so no support for Apple Lossless.

Album art in n-Stream works well.

Good choice if you use FLACs, but Majestic offers more for less.

Rivet 2.7.1

£12.95, although free demo seems to be fully featured.

Stable, okay interface.

Album art in n-Stream works well.

Transcoding doesn't seem to work and so no support for Apple Lossless.

No support for FLAC.

Good choice if you don't need FLAC or Apple Lossless, use n-Stream and don't want to spend any money.

Others

Allegro - dated and unstable.

Songbook - never got this to work on my Mac.

MediaLink - runs fine for PS3, but doesn't work on my Qute.

Tag'n'play - work in progress, will try again once ready for a 1.0 release.

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Richard Lord

Hi Orangutan. Thanks for that. I have the Netgear ReadyNAS duo. Bought only because Naim recommended it. I am supposed to connect to N-Serve, but I have noticed that if I connect directly into the NAS, I see EyeConnect displayed as one of the options. I was wondering what it was for, or rather what it was. I thought it was something on my Mac. So thanks for that. I had connected to it and thought I saw it say, Converting, when I clicked on an Apple Lossless, which then played.

Richard

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Tog

Sad state of affairs - reflects Apple's lack of interest.

EyeConnect works quite well ( shame about the album art ) - when are they going to update it?

Tog

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Guido Fawkes

reflects Apple's lack of interest.

lack of interest in?

don't think Apples sees a great need to support FLAC in the same way some devices don't support AIFF files - would be great if all systems supported all formats. Ideally all new systems should support Airplay as well as UPnP and for file sharing NFS as well as Samba (though I guess Samba has a musical ring about it).

All the best, Guy

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Tog

Lack of interest in UPnP - their lack of interest in flac goes without saying - for that they have flac. However, surely it can't be impossible to get at least one decent Mac based UPnP server - Asset under crossoverMac doesn't count.

Tog

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Simon Jones

Apple's interest is in the iTunes/iPod/iPhone/AirTunes family. Life would be far simpler if (when?) Naim get on board with that, rather than forcing us into the technical netherworld of UPnP…

Simon

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Guido Fawkes

That would be my hope too Simon and indicators are Naim plans to support Airplay

As for UPnP for OS X - I doubt you'll see it from Apple and there are a very few ADC folk showing any interest. It would be an interesting project if somebody wished to take it up - you may have identified a gap in the market. I don't suppose I'd used it though as my system works fine without it. Surely a Vortexbox is ideal for UPnP or a QNap NAS.

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by rhr

PS3 media server works on OS X, Windows & Linux, is free and supports transcoding. I have it installed on my QNAP nas. A bit difficult to configure, but works, plus lots of features.

Posted on: 17 March 2011 by Richard Lord

Additional to my earlier post. EyeConnect as seen on the uPNP input is one of the servers I can connect to. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the NAS - I was mistaken.

I have experimented and I thought it was connecting to the Mac. So I powered it down. Still there. So I powered down the NAS, still there! It is on the N-Serve, but I was connecting to EyeConnect, not the N-Serve. It is also on the Apple TV, but that was in standby. In any case, the album I chose had been ripped to Apple Lossless (ALAC?). It would not play consistently, the music would stop for several seconds before resuming. I then chose another album which had been ripped to WAV format (which is not on the N-Serve, yet). That played perfectly.

So where was this music coming from? I have a ghost sending me mysterious albums. I will do more investigating tomorrow.

Richard

Posted on: 18 March 2011 by garyi

Richard as a point of clairty the UPNP protocal only needs to be on, on your router (And actually you may not even need to do that)

You do not need it turned on, on the NAS or on the MAC. The point of uniti serve is it 'scrapes' your network for any music files it can find.

These should all be on your NAS for the sake of simplicity, however if you do have music on your mac that is not on the NAS then goto system prefs and sharing, then advanced turn on SMB, Back in sharing there is a plus button to add folders, add the itunes folder in your home folder that contains the music (Or where ever its stored)

This will then be picked up.

If your UPNP is just for music, let the uniti serve handle it I would say.

Posted on: 18 March 2011 by Tog

Guido is correct - Naim responded to the iPod by licensing digital access - it remains to be seen how they deal with AirPlay. High end hifi companies remain quite sniffy about the audiophile nature of AirPlay and have invested heavily in UPnP in an attempt to avoid heavy licensing and development costs. UPnP/DLNA is not really Open Source more a commercial federation of vested interests that has adopted the same basic free technology and adapted it. As a result consistency of applications is very poor with some vendors making extensive use of extensions to the agreed framework rather than wait for an agreed standard. True Open Source can be just as chaotic but since it responds to the needs of it's users paradoxically it develops faster ( though not always in the ways you would expect) and even when it is distributed as a commercial product like Ubuntu remains far more consistent.

Vortexbox has weaknesses in the way that its DAAP server - forked-Daapd works with large iTunes libraries and handles metadata using ffmpeg. There is a real desire for improvement and like Naim the support from those involved relentless with updates rolled out with advice and improvements issued within 24 hours. The only other people that I know with that level of commitment are the guys at Naim.

In it's current incarnation VB UPnP on my system is quick, delivers cover art to n-stream promptly and hasn't missed a beat on a system that streams to a Uniti with rock solid wifi. It can't aggregate my libraries yet, isn't set up for dig out but otherwise the sound is great.

I will wait to see how far Naim have caught up with the new N-stream app before deciding what to do next but for the moment it's UPnP/DAAP via VB and Apple.

Tog

Posted on: 18 March 2011 by JeanChris

I've tryed almost all UPnP server software available for Mac OS X.
I don't use iTunes and I don't have an iPhone or iPad. I just use a Mac Mini because I already own it ! I own a NaimUniti (latest with firmware v3) and use mostly FLAC, a little MP3 320 Kbits VBR and a little AAC, no Apple Lossless.

Running natively under Mac OS X, the "best" is Twonky 6.0.32 with a custom navigation tree (hard to tune it by editing XML files but OK now).
Nevertheless, Asset UPnP running via CrossOver Mac is much more better.

I experience that running Asset UPnP in a Windows 2000 bottle is better (performance and stability) than running it with a Windows XP bottle.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Mellow Miles

quite new to 'Audiophilia' and doing some research to get a reasonable set up with my new Uniti.

not sure I (well actually definitely cannot) can afford a unitiserve but from what i've heard It probably might not be the best for me

currently run music from Mac book Pro to dodgy speakers but for new house getting Uniti set up for less dodgy speakers. Music currently mostly MP3s but have large CD collection that was ripped to the itunes so thinking of reripping to higher quality files and download hi res files to that folder.

I'm wanting a storage device that will supply the hi res to uniti but also have duplicate for mp3s - for new music that'll supply itunes on the macbook -> ipods etc.

I've looked at the list from Orangutan and being new to this have no idea what is best despite reading about all of them and searching other fora about them!! the Hifi dealers I've been to have confused me a little so want to check with you guys.

1) is there anything that can do what i've outlined above? Especially interested to know if the Mac Mini can

2) theres a new device i've seen pop up - AVA media rip n play (£800) or Zara (£1500). no reviews. has anyone used this for your naim products +/- Macs and do you think it can do what i've suggested in a minimum faff way ??

looking at the Vortexbox etc which cost 300 i'm wondering where the extra expense is going in to either of the above options

many thanks in advance

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by 0rangutan

Easy - rip everything to Apple Lossless in iTunes on a Mac mini, configure iTunes to convert tracks to 256kbps AAC when copying to iPod etc, install Playback UPNP.

This will mean you have lossless files for best quality, streamable directly to your Uniti via Playback, but 256kbps smaller files on your iPod to save space.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Guido Fawkes

If you simply want to stream then Vortexbox is very good, but Naim seems to go on about WAV format and VB is a FLAC box. Nonetheless, it works well with the UQ.

Mac Mini is ideal if you want to use S/PDIF and it plays mostly anything (not 192KHz though if that matters). It is very easy to use and update and well ... you get a Supernova 6 cable and plug it in to the UQ or DAC or whatever and it just works .... and its getting better all the time.

As OT says Playback works well for streaming from a Mac Mini, but it doesn't magically convert from ALAC to WAV if that is important.

No idea what the other box you mention is ....

I would check the Naim unit very carefully to make sure it does what you want and you are happy with using it and updating it when new software becomes available.

I love the Naim SQ, but finding the ease of use with the streamers is not as easy as I'd like ... in fact updates for me are impossible ... perhaps they are fixing this.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by 0rangutan

Sorry, I had assumed you would have a Uniti with the latest 24/192 board, in which case you can happily stream ALAC to it. No need to convert or transcode to FLAC or WAV.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Stefan Vogt

Thanks, Orangutan,

just what I was wondering. So when you said "no support for Apple Lossless" by Playback, you referred to the older, non-ALAC native naim streamers? So with the ND5XS and ALAC I should be fine?

Best,

Stefan

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Noogle

Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

I love the Naim SQ, but finding the ease of use with the streamers is not as easy as I'd like ... in fact updates for me are impossible ... perhaps they are fixing this.

Agree it's less than ideal, but if all else fails a Naim dealer can perform software updates. Or buy a £50 WinXP laptop with an RS232 port from your local newspaper's classified ads.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Richard Lord

Originally Posted by Noogle:

Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

I love the Naim SQ, but finding the ease of use with the streamers is not as easy as I'd like ... in fact updates for me are impossible ... perhaps they are fixing this.

Agree it's less than ideal, but if all else fails a Naim dealer can perform software updates. Or buy a £50 WinXP laptop with an RS232 port from your local newspaper's classified ads.

That is not at all convenient for us Apple boys. But if I understand previous posts, Naim now support ALAC with their latest streamers. This suggests they are gradually making positive changes. Surely it is therefore only a matter of time before they allow updating via the Net direct.

This business of having to use an intermediary PC when the streamer can already access the Net is surely an oversight on Naim's part.

No offence intended to Naim - I also love their sound and thus tolerate their idiosyncrasies.

Richard

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Mellow Miles

Thanks guys this is awesome.

I feel like i've doubled my vocabulary since i decided to upgrade my HIFI system!!

A couple of thoughts

OT you mentioned the Uniti with the 24/192 - this is the one i got so I assume you're right which does make things so much easier. thanks for pointing that out... i'm surprised the naim dealers i've been to didn't mention this. Other than memory does it really matter the spec of mac mini if using purely as a music server? Can I ask which UPnP you installed? - I appreciate the last 2 questions may not be allowed on the forum though not quite sure hence thought i'd ask and i apologise if i've got that wrong.

lastly can i just check how you configure files to be compressed in transit to iphones/pods etc??

many thanks again

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Originally Posted by Noogle:

Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

I love the Naim SQ, but finding the ease of use with the streamers is not as easy as I'd like ... in fact updates for me are impossible ... perhaps they are fixing this.

Agree it's less than ideal, but if all else fails a Naim dealer can perform software updates. Or buy a £50 WinXP laptop with an RS232 port from your local newspaper's classified ads.

I think I'll give Naim streamers a miss until they have this sorted ... my dealer lives 150 miles away so a bit unfair to expect him to do software updates for me ... other manufacturers make it easy to upgrade, so why not Naim? I can update every other device I have without having to buy a Windows PC ... even some Naim kit like the DAC.

OK so a Synology NAS could solve the problem that Naim streamers only perform at their best with WAV as it can transcode, but not sure why Naim can't fix it so it plays all lossless formats really well. However, to me this is no longer a show stopper, but my first gripe is.

I'm really hoping Naim can fix this or bring out the NDS without the streaming bit.

Posted on: 03 July 2012 by 0rangutan

Stefan - Yes!

Mellow Miles - Any Intel-based Mac mini (ie. one from the last 4 or so years) will be easily up to the job. Go for a large hard drive though if you want lots of storage and to not need a NAS.

To save AAC versions to your iPod, go to iTunes, select your device (while connected), click on the Summary tab, tick the box labelled "Convert higher bit rate songs to" and use the drop down to choose your preferred bit rate. I use 256 - using 128 would allow twice as many songs, but at a poorer sound quality. iTunes will then convert files on the fly when it copies them to your device. Note - you need to do this per-device that you intended to sync.

Posted on: 04 July 2012 by james n

Originally Posted by 0rangutan:

Brilliant - always transferred full AIFF to my iPod. Never realised iTunes could do this on the fly

Your comment on Playback not providing album art in n-Stream in the orignal list - works perfectly for me.

James

Posted on: 06 July 2012 by Mellow Miles

Originally Posted by 0rangutan:

Stefan - Yes!

Mellow Miles - Any Intel-based Mac mini (ie. one from the last 4 or so years) will be easily up to the job. Go for a large hard drive though if you want lots of storage and to not need a NAS.

Thank you very much i've put in a few bids on a well on website to try a system out!!!

thanks again