Musicless!

Hi Dave

The hard reset option is what IT departments go for because it often turns out to work!

But if this happens again, I would suggest you try restarting just the NDS first because I think that may have fixed the problem. Restarting the HDX won't ever do any harm (!). You really shouldn't need to remove and reinstall the iPad app. It should be enough to stop and restart it (press home button twice quickly, scroll sideways to find the app and then sweep upwards to stop it.  Then press home button once and re-select the naim app).

I think the reason you may need to have restarted the NDS is that somehow your network had lost sight of the right IP address for it. I used to get this with my streamers until I stopped using the router as a switch and put a separate switch in as well.

enjoy the music!

best

David

Hi David,

Yes, old school, I know, but the hard reset, (done gently), seems to save the day more often than not, and best of all, doesn't require in depth knowledge on the part of the user, in this case, me!

I have a separate switch installed, but let's not get into the technicalities, the music is playing once more, and that's what matters. 

Thanks,

Dave.

You can't beat a hard reset or the Three Fingered Salute. Or leaving well alone, which I hope will now continue to apply.

Hi Nick,

I did ask myself, my dealer, (and the forum members), exactly the same thing, and the received wisdom was that whilst it was tying up capital, reduced as it is to ripping duties, there was a certain "digital handshake" between it and the NDS.

That, and the fact that I've convinced myself that I can determine a difference between WAV and FLAC replay, and didn't want to swap the convenience of the HDX for ripping means it remains part of my setup. I also wasn't too interested in incorporating a computer or laptop in the whole process.

 Mind you, having recently gotten into Tidal, (which is streamed in FLAC), if I do reconsider my views on the superiority of WAV, then things may well change.

It's all good.

Dave.

That sounds more like twaddle than wisdom but no matter. To run a server on your NAS is fast and easy to set up and reversible. There will be no harm in trying it. You may find that your HDX is getting in the way of the presentation. Or you may not. Or possibly you will hear no difference.

We used our HDX into NDS (after running the HDX solo for some years) because it was such a useful thing to have sitting in the system, what with ripping, serving and acting as a backup source.

But when it had to go back to the factory I installed Minimserver on the NAS as a temporary measure. It sounded so much better that we never saw our HDX again and got a decent bit of cash in its place.

Easy to try. Like you I think WAV sounds better than FLAC. That's a separate discussion to switching servers. Minimserver and Asset play back WAV natively and I'm sure all the others do.

Hi Harry,

Been having a look at Minimserver this afternoon, and just want to clear up a couple of points before taking the plunge..............as mentioned earlier, I'm not especially clued up on all things networking.

From what I understand, Minimserver should be installed directly onto the NAS, whist Minimwatch should be on my MAC laptop, in order to configure Minimserver?

Since all of the music on the NAS is in the form of Naimrips, will Minimserver retain the tagging information on these WAV files, or will I have to manually sort this out?

It was all so much more straightforward with CD's! 

Regards,

Dave.

Been there Dave, and still sorting out my tags!

This is because I decided to keep all my files as WAV because I discerned a difference between FLAC and WAV.  I also discerned a difference between WAV and FLAC transcoded to WAV. Apparently you shouldn't be able to hear a difference, but for some reason I did, so kept my WAV files as they were.

Problem is, the WAV files then need tagging when you move away from Naim doing the serving duties. If you are happy to convert your files to FLAC using the HDX, it will do the tagging for you.

I will be getting a NAS for (mostly) backup duties as I have a Unitiserve for serving duties. If my Unitiserve konks out again (twice so far), I may start to use the NAS for serving duties. I was relieved to hear that all the WAV files on the Unitiserve can be converted to Flac to copy over to the NAS to avoid tagging issues and the FLAC files from either can be transcoded to WAV into the NDS.

So I am a little concerned that some can hear a difference between transcoded and native WAV files. I definitely want to preserve the superiority (IMHO) of WAV flies in SQ terms so not sure now whether to go ahead and convert to FLAC on my Unitiserve.

Any thoughts on this welcome.

When I first started looking into network replay I read that Naim design their network players around WAV & recommend that codec.  Then I started reading (on this forum) about bad stuff such as  metadata issues (most of which I didn't understand at the time)  so I trod a bit carefully. I tried FLAC with & without transcoding & straight WAV.  One thing that's always puzzled me is why transcode from FLAC (or another) to WAV when you can have straight WAV without the need for transcoding.  I chose WAV because of SQ, but the difference is subtle at best, FLAC transcoding had gapless replay issues that turned out to be my DNLA/UPnP media server (at that time),  I found WAV had no such issues, found understanding & editing of metadata easy & with dBpoweramp converting from any one of the other codec's to WAV even easier.  

However I advise you don't rush into this as as I understand it the US packs WAV in a different way to standard & I believe it needs extra work to get it to display correctly - the forum has experts on this.  It might well be that its easier to convert a US-WAV file to FLAC & if that's the case I would go with it.  

I did install Minimwatch once Dave but I never used it. It's probably still on my PC but not in the startup list any more.

I run Minimserver on a NAS with an Arm processor (as opposed to Intel) which means that another bit of helper software (Java Runtime Environment) needed to go on first. It is pretty much all automatic to install and configure. My other NAS runs an Intel processor so if I wanted to install Minimserver on that I would only need the one install file. There is a guide on the website and it's very easy to follow. I am not an IT genius either. 

I configure and run Minimserver through its web interface using a browser. This is handy because I can sit in the lounge and, for example ask Minimserver to rescan using my iPod and Safari. This control page is accessed at Minimserver's IP - see the help page on the website.

I should add that I never have to restart or rescan  routinely. Unlike the HDX which sometimes took for ever to rescan and list new stuff correctly, Minimserver (and Asset, which I use on my other NAS) are nearly instantaneous. 

The potential rub, as Nigel points out is tagging the music collection. Alas, Naim use what might be called a propitiatory tagging system - if it tagged the files at all, which it essentially doesn't! You will get a list of WAV albums and tracks therein but in the Streaming App it might look a bit threadbare. I didn't sweat it and took several months to tag them all. This turned out to be therapeutic for me - not a chore at all. There were numerous errors in the file titles produced in the ripping (not the tags) and I was pleased for the opportunity to clean it up, get the best artwork and tag them exactly as I wanted them indexed.

Like going streaming with an HDX in the first place, my fiddling about with rips and all that stemmed not from a desire to do things in new ways. The motive force came entirely from sound quality and musical enjoyment. All the convenience factors and occasional reorganisation of my library was a side effect of the big leap in playback quality that streaming delivered - at least to my ears.

Formats are easily inter convertible and you can use copies. I would suggest experimenting with a few files or small number of favourite and familiar albums. If you can hear a difference it should be obvious. With any luck you won't. That will make things comparatively easy - or at least quicker. 

It is not surprising that some of us hear differences and some don't. And then there will be those of us who may hear a difference but are not particularly bothered one way or the other. When you consider all the variables in the listeners, rooms and systems it's a wonder any of us are sometimes able to agree on anything.

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer go to a party (Really?!!).  After the party the car won't start.

The mechanical engineer says "The solenoid isn't working - it's an electrical problem."

The electrical engineer says "The starter motor's jammed - it's a mechanical problem."

The computer engineer says "Perhaps if we all got out then got back in again..."

Files from my nas, which are FLAC transcoded to WAV using Minimserver sound better to me than WAV files ever did when played from the UnitiServe. If it were me, I'd convert the lot to flac and be done with it. 

Excellent.

And may well work.

I think the "experiment and see which you prefer" approach is a really good one. My understanding on your file conversion situation, however, is that your HDX stores the tags for the WAV files in a separate database (rather than as ID3 tags associated with the individual .wav files)... The easiest thing to do would be to use the HDX (via the nServe desktop client, if I understand correctly) to convert your library to FLAC (which preserves your existing tagging information and writes ID3 tags to the individual .flac files) and, if possible, move or copy that FLAC library to your NAS. 

At this point, you can experiment with HDX (serving WAV or FLAC) versus your NAS (running whatever server you choose, probably MinimServe by the sound of it, and serving FLAC or transcoding FLAC to WAV and serving WAV).

Then, using the FLAC library on your NAS and an external conversion program (such as XLD or dbPowerAmp or the like), batch convert to WAV format (either one album at a time, or in bigger groups, or all in one giant step). Such conversion programs usually preserve ID3 tags, and you should end up with a WAV library (hopefully in a different directory from your FLAC library!) that is an exact duplicate of your original library on the HDX, but now with the tags included in the .wav files instead of in the external naim tagging database.

The critical part here, in case I've been too obscure, is to use the HDX to build the FLAC library (since this preserves tags, adding ID3 tags) and then to use an external converter to build the second, ID3-tagged WAV library.

Don't fret about any other differences: the compressed-but-lossless FLAC files contain the exact same music information as the full fat WAV files, and the conversion process is purely numerical and reversible - i.e. WAV to FLAC and back to WAV will produce three identical music libraries for you: the WAV library on your HDX with tags in a database; the FLAC library on your NAS with tags embedded in the .flac files; and the (second) WAV library on your NAS (also with tags embedded in the .wav files). Any sound differences you hear (or don't, as the case may be) are due to the unpacking and processing and transcoding during playback....not to the information stored in the files themselves.

Best wishes!

Regards, alan

That sounds logical and sensible. Personally I would still pilot the whole process with a small selection of files or albums first.

Thanks for the advice gents.

I think a limited SQ check to compare native WAV vs transcoded WAV is worthwhile. If I can't notice a worthwhile difference then fine, I can go ahead and convert my WAV files to FLAC on my US. If I do notice an appreciable difference then presumably I can convert WAV to FLAC on the US, copy over the FLAC files to the NAS (for back-up) and convert back from FLAC to WAV on my US so I can continue to stream native WAV from the US - until the fateful day when the US finally konks out (as the US is essentially a computer I assume it is a case of when and not if). That way I have the security of a back-up on the NAS, do not have to deal with tagging issues and can continue with streaming native WAV from the US as long as it holds up.

Have I got that right?

Apologies to the OP if I have deflected the discussion a bit but I think we have related issues.

I've never tried it but I think it's entirely possible.

Hi Nigel, the transcoded I looked and measured as used by Asser showed the media data was identical between PCM media from WAV and PCM data from FLAC.

However TCP/IP stacks and thier relative performance in terms of timing and window sizes can cause a difference in SQ in many Naim devices.. and this can become very noticeable with web streaming service providers like Tidal.

Now depending on your NAS or UPnP media server you might find the network dynamics different between native WAV and transcoded WAV despite the payload data being the same. If such a difference exists than you may well hear a SQ difference.However it may be in such a scenario you may prefer transcoded WAV to native WAV.. It will boil down to the stack and en iron meant the transcoded resides on.

Such network affects can vary from firmware to firmware, and it might be a preference sounds good with one firmware sounds and then becomes no preference with another firmware. 

So I say its best not to go too obsessed with this. You may hear subtle  SQ differences.. But they well could be transient and preferences change.

Simon

Thanks Simon,

I'll do a couple of tests of native vs transcoded WAV and see if I can hear a difference.

As you say though best not to get too obsessive about this but I am not sure if I can face the tagging issues if I copy WAV files over to a NAS.

Am I right in saying I can convert WAV to FLAC and then convert back from FLAC to WAV on the Unitiserve?

Hi Nigel, not being totally familiar with the Unitiserve - I believe you can do as you suggest

Simon

I had a UnitiServe and yes you CAN convert WAV to FLAC and vice versa but only for files in the Music folder, i.e. CDs ripped by the US itself, and not files in the Downloads folder. After converting my music to FLAC and copying it to my NAS, which was originally purchased for backup duties, I sold the US and now play music from the NAS using Asset UPnP. The US is simple to use but I soon discovered its limitations due to lack of flexibility.

You certainly can...