Unitiqute: which NAS box, ripping software, format?
Posted by: Frank E on 04 July 2011
Hi,
I'm new to the forum and have a Naim Unitiqute on the way. While I'm waiting for it I want to sort out my digital music and shop for a NAS box.
Ripping Format
What format is best to rip my CDs to disk on? WAV AIFF? Other?. I'd like the highest quality possible and as open standard as possible that'll work with the Unitiqute and anything I might get in the future e.g. CDJs, Ableton, Traktor, music production software, personal players.
Ripping Software
Which CD ripping app (XP32) is best for ripping software at this quality and keeping the tags. I have loads of compilations and the directory structure of those tends to get messed up the most. I listen to whole albums, rarely do I pick out a single track from an album so it's important to me my mix and compilationCD directories don't get messed up.
NAS box
I have a network in hand already; CAT 6a structured wring / Catalyst 2950 (100Base T). I'll need to get a NAS box then.
Would anyone be able to recommend a uPnP NAS box that won't end up in the WEEE dump in a few years as my needs change?
I'll be using it principally for the Unitiqute and general archiving / file storage though might employ IP cameras, recording/archiving from set top box, smart metering and smart grid as the technologies emerge. .
Features I'd like are; low energy usage, power management options, low noise, fault-tolerant RAIDable, can use SSDs as they become cheaper. I'll get the HDDs myself.
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Aleg
Personal preference:
1. Uncompressed FLAC
2. dBPoweramp
3. Any from QNAP or Synology
-
aleg
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Tog
For me you can't beat - Vortexbox running on an Atom or Intel i3 low power based linux server delivering flac lossless.
Tog
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by likesmusic
FLAC level 5 is good trade off between compression time and storage space.
if there are any audible differences on your system between any of the FLAC levels, your system is broken.
dBpoweramp heap good ripper
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Aleg
Originally Posted by likesmusic:
...
if there are any audible differences on your system between any of the FLAC levels, your system is broken...
Frank E
Some members are scientifically narrow minded when it comes to audible differences.
Just trust your own ears not other people's opinions.
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Frank E
Thanks. Storage space won't be an issue and I have plenty time to rip the CDs.
What might be an issue is that some of my CDs aren't in the best of conditions,so I'm going to have to use the slow error correcting routes (if applicable) anyway..
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by likesmusic
Originally Posted by Aleg:
Originally Posted by likesmusic:
...
if there are any audible differences on your system between any of the FLAC levels, your system is broken...
Frank E
Some members are scientifically narrow minded when it comes to audible differences.
Just trust your own ears not other people's opinions.
What is narrow minded about that opinion?
It is computationally trivial to decompress FLAC, and it isn't necessarily the case the the higher the compression level the more demanding the decompression is - checkout the benchmarks on the FLAC website. So a modestly rigorous person, perhaps myself, concludes that a modestly decent system should be able to decompress any level of FLAC identically. And if that's not the case, then you should ask why - with an open mind. Of course, it might also be true that FLAC files with long tags sound worse than FLAC files with short tags on some systems.
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Steven Shaw
I use a readynas and rip to flac using EAC. Very happy with the results. I haven't yet really experiented with different flac compression levels or other formats.
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Jack
Certainly FLAC should meet your requiremet and as others have mentioned dBPoweramp is very good for ripping/tagging. I can vouch for QNAP but might be worth taking a look at some others as suggested including Asset although may not meet all your requirements. You cant play AIFF on the Qute at present.
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by DQ
Hey,
AssetNAS also worth considering. Fits easily with DBPoweramp and generally stable. Could do RIPNas if you want to make life easy.
Cheers
Posted on: 04 July 2011 by Frank E
I think iI will get a Qnap. Seems to do it all; PnP, various flavours of RAID, power management. They just weren't listed as uPnP on the site I looked on
I'll try a few rippers out on WAV and FLAC.
Posted on: 05 July 2011 by Jack
Frank.......QNAP uses Twonky for UPnP
Posted on: 05 July 2011 by Frank E
What is twonky?
Is that good or bad for an audio/ film setup? for general non-AV file storage?
I'll be using it principally for the Unitiqute and general [PC data] archiving / file storage though might employ IP cameras, recording/archiving from set top box, smart metering and smart grid as the technologies emerge.
Can I install a uPnP server on my desktop (XP32) in the meantime so I can stream some music until I decide on a NAS machine?
Many of my CDs need polishing / re-surfacing. I made a few enquires today at video rental shops, libraries, games shops and the like and for the price of getting the damaged ones resurfaced I would be as well buying a resufarcing machine.
Posted on: 05 July 2011 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Hi Frank,
My preference:
1) CD to WAV with id3 chunk, Hires in FLAC, and realtime transcode to WAV
2) dBpoweramp
3) Asset uPNP on a WHS.
For me optimum sound quality is experienced by sending WAV to the Naim equipment.
Small WHS boxes are effectively silent and low power, switch on and forget.
Your switch is clearly more than adequate for a simple application such as this. The only advantage I can see.is you can manage VLANs to separate audio and video/av networks and support IGMP snooping for multiple video and audio multicast streaming systems, and of course set priority queues for your media ports.
Simon
Posted on: 05 July 2011 by Guido Fawkes
Originally Posted by Tog:
For me you can't beat - Vortexbox
Tog
+1
Posted on: 11 July 2011 by Nickalexander0703
I use a qnap 259 pro and am really happy with it, I just replaced an older qnap and the difference in speed is amazing. I use db poweramp to rip CDs to Flac and would def recommend the nas and software.
Posted on: 14 July 2011 by Frank E
Thanks for all your suggestions folks. I'm new to music networking but not to networking so still learning a lot of the acronyms and technologies
I'm no further on with the networking side due to leaving my bank card in the EPOS terminal at the shop, then blowing a pin on my last decent CPU. Quite frustrating having the kit there and not having the cash even for a couple of patch leads.
I'll be ditching the Catalyst for a cheap and cheerful [hopefully not nasty] higher-speed, lower-energy burning switch. Not really sure about equiment that end of the CPE market. The Catalyst is using 30W idle IIRC, that's more than all the lighting in the house. I think its a bit OTT at this time for one PC, a printer, a Unitiiqute and a NAS box which I won't use all at the same time.. I can always use it later or for something else, it was saved from the builders' skip anyway.
Perhaps I'll get another router fom my ISP when my broadband is upgraded to ADSL2+.My ISP had an access RFS date set for 30 June to deliver ADSL2+ ( though they have a dependency on an infrastructure RFS date of 31 Jul). Current router has just a single 100-T port.
I'm looking after my dad who is partially-sighted, (liive-in) so my listening room is my bedroom / office / workshop / library / store room combined. Space is therefore scarce, fan noise disturbs my sleep and electricity bills disturb him as he pays a share of the electric.
I just noticed this evening one can rip oversampled WAV. I've just used 1411
