aac to apple lossless - quick question.

This sounds like a right pain.

My only suggestion (and it won't save that many hours although you can set it up and let it work away in the background) is that DBpoweramp has a batch conversion facility which, if you get the settings right, will convert from AAC (or any other format) into ALAC (or any other format including FLAC) and at the same time delete the original file.

Not ideal I know, but maybe worth a try...

You probably won't like this suggestion, but to preserve your sanity I would suggest you don't use your iMac as a uPnP server.  You will likely find it more reliable and stable to use a NAS drive as the file store and uPnP server - or some other dedicated server.

My adventures in streaming started off trying to do what you are doing (albeit not with Yazsoft) and I gave up.

Partly this is because there does not (yet) seem to be a robust uPnP server available for OSX, and partly because your iMac is going to spend time doing lots of stuff other than reliably serving music.

In the short-term I think it would be worth you trying Asset as the uPnP server:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/asset-upnp-dlna.htm

This is the preferred server for lots of people on here in the Windows / NAS environment, and is now available on OSX.  Phil Harris from Naim recommends Asset in his posts on here.

Good luck with it - worth persevering!

What happened to taking a record out of its cover putting it on a record player and dropping the needle .. The good old days .. hey ho  . Ok i will have a look DBpoweramp its the whole streaming thing its becoming really frustrating  Nick .. Not only that, the nstream app doesnt work properly with my ipad ... 9/10 times it doesn't find my UL  and i dont think i have had 2 hours of unbroken music listening in the year i've had my UL .. Its only that when it does play I love the sound that i continue to persevere.  I will get there but its becoming my lifes work  .. I watched a documentary on the Hadron Collider last week .. that looks like child play compared to streaming audio ...

And some other uPnP server ideas in here eg Plex:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...pnp-why-so-difficult

Where people are referring to Mac Minis, I believe most are using those as dedicated media servers, so avoids issues of having the computer doing things that conflict with reliably serving your music.

Sounds to me like your network might be the problem: how is it configured? Are you connecting via Wifi?

Yep .. my imac is in my kitchen and the UL in the dining room but no more than 25ft apart ( albeit a wall inbetween )  also have a sky wifi booster inbetween the 2 points  .... My router is the ( out the box )  sky one .. I was for a while using d link powerlines / ethernet cable to  connect the IMAC to UL but i didnt see any real improvement in the stability and so went back to WI-FI .. Someone did say it may pay me to upgrade my router ? .. i guess its a new router and nas drive going on my christmas present list  ? 

Unfortunately the world of uPnP streaming is not as straightforward as it should be and most people would expect it to be :-(

I have got to a place where it works pretty much just works (bar the occasional switch off and on), but by throwing a fair degree of money at the problem :-(.  My server is a UnitiServe; I had  ethernet put through the house so everything is wired; I use an Airport Extreme as the router; two Unifi wireless access points; and a single 28-port switch for all the ethernet to hook to. 

From what I have read on the forum over the years, here would be my suggestion as to what you should try to get things more robust at reasonable cost.

First per my previous post get a NAS drive.  Lots of posts on here about recommendations - lots of people use Synology.  ReadyNAS Duo V2 seems to work well also. 

Have the NAS drive and the UL connected to a simple (but good quality) unmanaged switch eg a Netgear GS105.  If you cannot connect this switch to your router through a wired connection, then connect it to an Airport Express and use that as a wireless bridge.  This will make it look to the NAS and the UK like they have a wired connection, and you will get the data from the NAS going to the UL through a wired connection.

Use an Apple Aiport Extreme as your router.  I am a long-way from being an Apple fanboy, but some of the network stuff that needs to be configured in a certain way for the Naim control app to work reliably is configured this way in the Apple router - worth reading Phil Harris's posts on this topic.  I've read good things on here about Draytek routers also. 

If you don't want the NAS next to your UL, then have it plugged directly into the router.  I would still have the UL hooked into an Airport Express to make it think it has a wired connection - based on reports from others on the forum that this works well.

I was about to post some suggestions for you, but nudgerwilliams has saved me the hassle - that's more or less exactly what I've done, and I've seen a big improvement in sound quality as well as a stable network. One thing to add, whatever NAS or storage device you use, go into your ISP router settings and allocate it a static IP address.

Good luck! I know how frustrating this can be, but it will be worth it!

This in nothing to do with inadequacies in Naim boxes or the App. With a proper server, router and network wiring it will all work without pain or angst.

HH, I agree entirely. A year ago, I wouldn't have. Good advice from members of this forum (yourself included) have saved me from attacking my Superuniti with a sledgehammer!

Nope I am only too aware that a majority of my problems point to me and my hardwares inadequacies. However I wished Mr Shopkeeper had pointed out the problems and indeed the extra costs I would incurr to get my UL to sing  .... Maybe its my fault .. I let my ears do the buying and didn't give anything else much thought, but i,ll get there . Thankyou all for your help so far .. I am not quite at the sledgehammer stage yet.  I am more Basil Fawlty when he gives his car a damn good thrashing with a piece of tree .. 

OK, I may have been exagerating a bit about the sledgehammer!  I'd probably have restrained myself enough to stick it on ebay.

We prefer to not rely on the network for moving the music around. We use WiFi for control only. Music is hard-wired (hard-fibred?) between the Mini and DAC in the SN. Years ago, I was sending music over WiFi. Simple things like the microwave oven would cause issues. Gave up on the whole idea at that point. Nothing I have since seen regarding the world of the laughably-named UPnP makes me think that my IT skills are anywhere near good enough to get it to work reliably.

I can certainly understand how many would decide to give up on upnp (surely one of the greatest misnomers in the English language!) However, I do think that with a bit of help and persistence, anyone can make it work. I'm certainly glad I stuck with it, although I accept that there are other ways to get good sound from a digital source.

I'm with you on that one Winky. My dealer nearly persuaded me that I should consider going down the UPnP Naim streamer route but at the time I didn't think the SQ was good enough. Since then I cannot ignore the multitude of threads on the forum about problems with this system and software. The Mac Mini route hard wired to the DAC and main system has been foolproof so far, as has the ability to play music from the Hard Drive to the MuSo and Zeppelin via Airplay.

I think when we say UPnP here we are referring to DLNA UPnP. Basic UPnP is a set of protocols that allow many of your devices to discover and work with each other on your home LAN. For example it is often used in your internet router to automatically open up ports for you to use the Internet... Pretty sure that is plug and play and  you perhaps didn't even know it was doing it.

DLNA UPnP, a subset of protocols for AV, requires a little thought, but not much. Reading these forums most people seem to have problems when they try and use shortcuts for theif LAN such as streaming over wifi or ethernet over mains devices. Some cheap / bundled broadband routers seem to cause problems as well with poor  DHCP implementation and multicast support. This will cause havoc probably with many home network applications and you have may have only really noticed it with your music.

Finally there appears to be the issue of problematic DLNA UPnP servers.. I use Asset and never had an issue other than when I have used Beta software. I did use Twonky many years ago, at the time there want much choice .. It was poor.. and haven't touched it since.

i have no glitch at all with my streaming, and I stream hours of music most days, apart from occasionally my NDX crashes ( about once a month) and I then need to simply power cycle It.

Simon

Fair comment, Simon, although one only has to look at your avatar's cranium to see that what only requires a little thought for you might blow a fuse in a pea-sized brain like mine.

 My thoughts exactly.

Best concise basic set up advice I've seen posted on the streaming forum

  it should get posted as a sticky 

+1, a wired network,  decent kit and Asset and I've never had any problems whether streaming music, hd video or anything else to my naim, wdtv live, laptops, tablets or anything else

Agreed. Simon is one of the reference-level advisers on this forum. What seems like straightforward implementation to him would warp my fragile little mind.

Hello Dap 1

I also use the iMac as a server to play my music on the Unitilite.

After several disappointing attempts, I found that Playback is working fine from the iMac to the UL.

As for the audio files, I use XLD when I need to convert FLAC into ALAC. Once the FLAC is converted, I delete the FLAC and it works. Never tried it with AAC, though.

Ok, I agree this stuff is second nature to me, but I genuinely think my comments apply irrespective of the users knowledge or understanding as others have also intimated.

BTW, the avatar is the Hood and not Brains from Mr Anderson's puppetry, and he was more villainous than smart..... 

Simon

At the risk of sounding like an idiot why are you converting AAC to ALAC?  Why not just play AAC?  It's already lossy.  I don't see how converting it to ALAC is going to  help.  Maybe converting to ALAC somehow finds all the lost data?  Sounds suspicious.