NAS music server and apps for 172XS?

Yes, you need a NAS drive, and you store all your music files on it.

The NAS drive will have a UPnP media server on it, this will allow the files to be visible to the NAC 172XS.  The Mac will connect to the NAS as a network drive, so it will be able to play the files as well.  It can also be used to load new music onto the NAS.

Streaming wirelessly to the NAC 172XS will not allow you to play HiRes files, and will be more prone to drop-outs; it may also not give the best sound quality.  A wired connection (Cat5e or higher) is recommended.

Here's a guide I wrote to help set-up music networks.

https://drive.google.com/file/...eUU/edit?usp=sharing

Many people have had success with Synology QNAP and other NAS systems, but ones that use Twonky as the media server do seem to cause more problems than the others.

If you are buying a small 'home use' NAS, then they aren't particularly noisy, in fact any normal desktop or laptop computer with a fan will be quite a lot louder.  If you are worried, most manufacturer's specify the sound level.  However, be aware that even with 'silent' NAS enclosures, there is still the 'rattle' as the disk operates - sometimes the manufacturers don't include this in their noise figures for 'silent' NAS enclosures.  In practice, the disk rattle for 'home use' NAS drives (e.g. the 2TB or 3TB WD red) is quite low level and won't disturb your listening - put the NAS on a rubber mat and you won't notice it.

Mariano,

Sorry I got the wrong uri - that's to an older deleted version, here's the correct one

https://drive.google.com/file/...S28/view?usp=sharing

Thank you for your reply. Very clear...I guess now I have two different questions (related).

So, let's say that I can plug any device to 172xs. Is there a device in the market where I can send downloaded files in my computer using wifi so I do not need to have the Mac always on and connected? I understood some Nas can store and stream. I want to avoid using the computer rather than to download. Then I would like to send the downloaded files somewhere. And finally, turn in on Naim 172xs and play. Without computer.

Thanks.

Another related question (hope does not go off topic):

Today I am using my Mac to store and wirelessly send music via UPNP without any drop-outs. And when 172xs reads it says 96Khz or 44Khz depending on the Flac file. I use Serviio to create the UPNP DLNA.

Isn't that the best quality? Sometimes I put the files into Flash storage and just plug the USB. But I did not notice any improvement

Hi Mariano,

OK, currently you have Serviio on the Mac as the UPnP server, and that connects to a wireless router.  The 172 connects to the wireless router and requests Serviio to send the music.  The same will work with a NAS drive, the Media server on the NAS will behave exactly the same way as Serviio (but, as you say, you don't then need your Mac to be on).  On the 172, the NAS will appear as a different name than the Serviio, but otherwise it will work the same.

If you are streaming at 96kHz via wireless, then your WiFi is working very well!  Using a NAS won't make any difference to this.

If you don't hear a difference between music on a USB stick and music on your network then the network is working sufficiently well and not causing any noticeable degradation of sound quality - that's very good, it took me two months to achieve that!

If you get a NAS drive, plug it in to your wireless broadband router, turn on the NAS's UPnP media server and copy your files to its shared folder for music; then everything should just work the way you want it to.