New system w/ Naim streaming

Looks like a good trade, I hope you will enjoy it to the max.....

Congrats on the purchase.  Lots of people on the forum very happy with that streamer / power amp combo.

Not wishing to put a dampener on your excitement, but to enjoy the 272 to the full you must get a decent network setup.  Hopefully you have a good dealer who will do this for you when they install.  If they don't and if you are not network savvy then come back to the forum for advice.  There are simple, cheap and easy ways to get it working sweetly, but also the opposite!

David

Nice

I'm learning a great deal re: the networking aspect.  I think my dealer & the forums here will help out.

XPS DR? Hmmm... I want to simplify (famous last words). Speaking of which I understand that I shouldn't stack components on each other, right?

Is it ok to put an XPS DR under my N 272?  I would think that would be alright.  I want one rack for everything (may have to change racks, gurrr).

I need a taller Fraim rack with more shelves.

By under, if you mean on the same shelf, absolutely not. If you can afford the boxes, you can afford the shelves. 

Well said.  My sentiments exactly.  The more boxes you have the better value the shelves, particularly the Fraim.  You can not afford to do without them with a big system.

Dang, I was afraid of that. I may need to sell both of my Zothecus tiger Maple racks since I'll need more than 4 shelves eventually (XPS DR added down the road). I'll get a quote on the Fraim & Fraim light tomorrow. I love the black & cherry look with 6 shelves- so clean and smart looking. I want just one rack so I take up less space and allow me to move my speakers closer to each other.

Congrats, and welcome to Naim .. I am sure you will enjoy.. by the way, the network matter is straightforward. Keep it simple, by keeping it wired (avoid powerline adapters if you can and wifi to the NAS and streamer. ) and  unless you have a very modern and powerful internet router .. You might want to use a network data switch to connect the 272, NAS, UPnP media server (if seperate from NAS) and internet router. Many on here use little cheap  netgear switch devices for this task.

To get the most of your local streaming many here use Asset or MinimServer as the UPnP media server.. They work well with the Naim app.

Enjoy

Simon

PS I wouldn't worry about powersupply upgrades.. enjoy what you have first..I have even sold some of my powersupply upgrades and reverted back to standard for my CDP for example.... It is easy to get carried away with Naim..

Beware of getting a six tier Fraim, particularly if you want to use an LP 12 on the top. Fraim works a lot better with low stacks. I'd just use what you have for now. Once you get the new speakers you can experiment with how far apart they need to be - remembering that the ideal is not to have the rack between the speakers. 

Regarding the XPS, please don't think I'm saying you must have one. It's just that I recently added one to my 272/250 and know the impact it makes. 

I was hoping to keep it simple  I did confirm that a gigabit switch (i think this is the same as a network data switch you mentioned) would be best set up for me.  My modum & router (good net gear 6250 dual band) is upstairs and my Hi Fi is in the basement. I planned on going with a wired connection like so...

From my router I would run cat 6 to my basement, in a basement closet I would plug the router out cable into the gigabit switch. Then plug the N 272, Naz Drive (synology 1515 or 1515+), and my Upstairs Denon DLNA certified HT receiver into the gigabit switch.  I'm not sure about the Synology ability to play DSD files but read this from there web site " All synolgy NAS drives can directly stream DSD files via Media Server or Audio Station to your DLNA or UPnP rederers for playback".  I also heard that you use Minimserver is required for DSD over DLNA. So clear as mud, right?

As you can tell, I'm still in the woods about this but getting there. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks

Why Synology 1515 ?,  its a 5 bay & is really not needed as a NAS for audio.

2 bay with RAID-1 is probably the most common with forum'ites

I need the added HD capacity for my music.  

While I've got you one the line, do you know if you must fill up all 5 bay's upon set up? Can you start with 3 for example, then add more over time?  thanks

So how much music have you got ??? not many folks around here have more than 3TB for audio only.  

5 bays does not mean you get 5x capacity, depending on RAID set up you will find you double up on discs  a 5 bay would typically run RAID-5 using 2 pairs of doubled up discs & a hot spare: so a 5x 2TB array will give you 4TB - my 2bay has 2x 2TB in RAID-1 & it gives me 2TB

WD "Red" - the most recommended HD make & model - go up to 6TB.  

Thanks for the help. Do you know if you can put say 3 HD's in the 5 bay NAS (regardless of your RAID config) or must you fill all HD bays from the git go.

I'm no expert,  but I doubt it

The question still stands, how much music have you got - say it in albums or TB if you know it.

Its a bit like how long is a piece of string,  .......... ,

With ripping CD's it depends on the format & lossless or lossy you intend to use - WAV, FLAC, MP3 etc

A 16/44 WAV album will be around 250 to 700MB, assume an average of 1GB for 3 CD's.

HD downloads will be much higher, a 24/96 WAV album will be around 1.5GB,  a 24/192 around 3GB.      

FWIW your network sounds spot on. If your Naim app regularly cant find the 272 there is something else to do, but if you have a modern wifi access controller in built in your router I suspect you will be fine.

Simon

I'm pretty sure you can put fewer than five disks in your five-bay Synology NAS. I have a similar arrangement and don't fill all the bays. I don't have your exact model, so can't be 100% certain, but it should be fine.

IMHO there's very little point in RAID in a home/music context. I know lots of people use it but I've never seen the point. It isn't a back-up in any reliable sense, it slows down the write-to-disk and in many circumstances increases the noise of both fan and disk. All for what? The ability to almost instantly switch to the other disk if one crashes - that is if it is the disk only, not the CPU or power supply, because if the problem is anything but a single disk then RAID won't help. And you still need to have a separate back-up anyway. I love my music, but it's not THAT critical. Save your money and the bays, and just buy the disk size you need, and make sure you keep good back-ups.

I agree with you there, I was planning on having a backup outside of my NAS that I can access in case one of the nas drives fail.  Maybe 5 bay's is a little excessive, but just didn't want to run out of space in a year or two.  I seem to do that quite regularly on my PC. 4 TB red drives are priced in the sweet spot now but next year it will be the 6TB drives, ect.