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Anyone know how they are going to handle this on the Naim App side.. For instance, is there going to be a seamless way to control the core if you attach it to say a 272 or other iOS controlled preamp?

DUPREE posted:

Anyone know how they are going to handle this on the Naim App side.. For instance, is there going to be a seamless way to control the core if you attach it to say a 272 or other iOS controlled preamp?

Are you meaning when they are connected to a common network via Ethernet or are you meaning when connected directly to each other via S/PDIF?

Obviously they will both need to be connected to your network to be able to be controlled by the app anyway...

Cheers

Phil

I more meant integration - would you have to flip back and forth between devices to control - i.e. go to core to select track, go back to device menu go to 272 for volume etc or would it understand they were two parts of the same system

FWIW, I believe that bit perfect rips really are that - i.e. that the bits stored in the files are the same. However, I suspect that either the metadata is stored differently, or that the reading of the file in real time by the server or the rendition of the file in real time on the renderer differs depending on the location of the metadata in the file or differs in the means that is used to read and expand said file in real time. The article in HifiCritic pretty much seemed to say this and their research is ongoing. Very interesting article. Incidentally, if memory serves (I don't have the article nearby) they found that WAV files were affected less than FLAC by the metadata, and they found that FLAC with metadata removed was pretty much identical to WAV in quality whereas FLAC was 'worse' than WAV when metadata was present.

Frank.

DUPREE posted:

That makes no sense either. The metadata is at the beginning of the file then it is followed by frames of the music stream. The stream itself does not have the metadata interspersed; it should be the same stream regardless of what the metadata is. The file sequentially just contains
The four byte string "fLaC"
The STREAMINFO metadata block
Zero or more other metadata blocks
One or more audio frames

I don’t see how it having or not having metadata could be the issue.

Well, for one thing the renderer or perheps the control point might query a file's metadata at replay time. This does not need to happen, of course, but can happen. Perhaps it never happens, perhaps it happens with a fixed frequency, perhaps randomly.

Of course, there could be other reasons why metadata of .flac file can affect the sound quality. I personally have never experienced these effects. But, in absence of detailed knowledge on how data streams (and queries) are handled, it is very difficult to exclude a priori the possibility that metadata can have an impact on sound quality. In particular, when there are empirical evidences that seem to support this possibility.

It would be nice if files that have been found to sound differently with and without metadata would be shared. We could then attempt at independently confirm or confute these findings.

Metaflac (https://xiph.org/flac/document..._tools_metaflac.html) is available for virtually all platforms and allows one to remove all metadata from a .flac file with the "--dont-use-padding --remove-all" options.

DUPREE posted:

I more meant integration - would you have to flip back and forth between devices to control - i.e. go to core to select track, go back to device menu go to 272 for volume etc or would it understand they were two parts of the same system

If you're using the Core as a UPnP source then it will work exactly as it does now ... you'll have the app controlling the NAC-N272 (for example) and in the 272 control select UPnP and browse the Core's UPnP server.

There's no reason that would change as far as I can see?

Phil

Phil

I think he means if you are using the Core as an HD Player into a 272.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

Phil

I think he means if you are using the Core as an HD Player into a 272.

best

David

Hi David,

That's not really the way that you would normally use it but in that case then you would have to switch between controlling the 272 and Core in the Naim app if you wanted to control them.

Phil

nbpf posted:

DUPREE posted:

That makes no sense either. The metadata is at the beginning of the file then it is followed by frames of the music stream. The stream itself does not have the metadata interspersed; it should be the same stream regardless of what the metadata is. The file sequentially just contains
The four byte string "fLaC"
The STREAMINFO metadata block
Zero or more other metadata blocks
One or more audio frames

I don’t see how it having or not having metadata could be the issue.

Well, for one thing the renderer or perheps the control point might query a file's metadata at replay time. This does not need to happen, of course, but can happen. Perhaps it never happens, perhaps it happens with a fixed frequency, perhaps randomly.

Of course, there could be other reasons why metadata of .flac file can affect the sound quality. I personally have never experienced these effects. But, in absence of detailed knowledge on how data streams (and queries) are handled, it is very difficult to exclude a priori the possibility that metadata can have an impact on sound quality. In particular, when there are empirical evidences that seem to support this possibility.

It would be nice if files that have been found to sound differently with and without metadata would be shared. We could then attempt at independently confirm or confute these findings.

Metaflac (https://xiph.org/flac/document..._tools_metaflac.html) is available for virtually all platforms and allows one to remove all metadata from a .flac file with the "--dont-use-padding --remove-all" options.

I think FLAC is a great way to store music, but comparing two FLAC rips made by different software may be hard. It is compressed after all, so there are other variables than the software. Comparing WAV makes more sense to me.

A CD ripped to WAV *should* sound the same no matter how it was ripped . . . but of course it doesn't. There are re-reads and C2 and lots of other ways of correcting for errors, but they do happen, due mainly to hardware and firmware, but also the ripping software (eg EAC and DBPowerAmp have different error levels).

That's why we have AccurateRip. What that does is compare lots of people's rips of the same album. If there are 50 rips and 40 of them are identical to the bit, then it's reasonable to assume that those are accurate. (As an academic, I'm forced to say that this is an assumption - all 40 may be inaccurate. But the more rips there are and the more consistency there is, the higher the chance they are accurate. Also, being accurate doesn't necessarily mean the best-sounding, but that is subjective, so I'm going to stick with 'accurate' as the goal.)

If two rips to WAV are both deemed accurate by AccurateRip, they are the same. It matters not one jot what software was used to rip them. If they sound different, then there's another reason for it: eg one or other ripping software wasn't using AccurateRip, or one or other rip failed AccurateRip (at least to an extent). It can also happen that AccurateRip doesn't have enough examples of an album to be certain, or the examples it has are not consistent. In that case it will tell you. But that's not relevant to this exercise: there's no dispute that errors in rips can happen, only that rips from different software sound different even after AccurateRip has approved them.

Best of all, we can test this. Take EAC, DBPoweramp, and a Unitiserve, and rip the same CD to WAV on each - make sure it's an album AccurateRip has plenty of examples of (I believe Dido's No Angel is considered the go-to for this). If they pass, put each resulting file on a USB and run a blind test (double blind is better). My firm belief is: you won't be able to tell which is which. If that's the case, you may safely assume it makes no difference to sound quality which software you use.

so any news on when these are going to ship and what hard drives are seen as good options for the core?

If the Core started shipping on Wednesday as rumoured in another thread I'm going to need a drive to go in one very soon. How about that list?

Long time NAIM man but first post here, I usually just ask the local dealer but given that they don't have a great deal of info on the new Uniti range I thought I'd ask here.

Am I correct In assuming that if I were to get the new Uniti Star, I could I then potentially bin my existing NAS drive and store all my music on an SD card or USB stick? Conversely if my collection is too large for the card/stick I assume I can still use my NAS?

Bikewithnonmae posted:

Long time NAIM man but first post here, I usually just ask the local dealer but given that they don't have a great deal of info on the new Uniti range I thought I'd ask here.

Am I correct In assuming that if I were to get the new Uniti Star, I could I then potentially bin my existing NAS drive and store all my music on an SD card or USB stick? Conversely if my collection is too large for the card/stick I assume I can still use my NAS?

You could put your music on local storage but I see the local storage on the Star as an accessible simple way to do things so the users don't have to bother with a NAS. As you already have a NAS then you should probably stick with that. And yes of course the Star will work properly with a NAS.

best

David

Perfect. Looking forward to testing one out in the new year!

The officially recommended drives are:

HDD : Seagate Pipeline 2TB

and

SSD : Samsung 850 EVO, 512GB and 1TB

Phil

Phil has said a couple of times that he doesn't recommend NAS drives for the Core because such drives have reduced Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER) timeout and may give up on trying to read a hard-to read block if it encounters one. So he advises to go for a drive intended for a PC rather than a NAS.

best

David

It's the Seagate then, hope it's quiet, and a 2TB USB for backup. I think I'll need more than 1TB before I replace it for the first time.

Phil Harris posted:

The officially recommended drives are:

HDD : Seagate Pipeline 2TB

and

SSD : Samsung 850 EVO, 512GB and 1TB

Phil

Not the WD Red then?

Penarth Blues posted:

Phil Harris posted:

The officially recommended drives are:

HDD : Seagate Pipeline 2TB

and

SSD : Samsung 850 EVO, 512GB and 1TB

Phil

Not the WD Red then?

*chuckle*

Phil

Phil Harris posted:

Eloise posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

the £2999 Uniti Star, complete with built-in CD ripping and music storage;

Does it have music storage built in (i.e. internal HDD) or is the music storage via USB connected HDD?

Only 'Core' can have an internal hard disc drive...

 

Phil

Hi Phil,

Which hard drives can Core use? Will Naim recommend brands or will Naim supply (i.e. build/test/validate for compatibility etc) them?

regards

To Quote Phil's earlier post...

The officially recommended drives are:

HDD : Seagate Pipeline 2TB

and

SSD : Samsung 850 EVO, 512GB and 1TB

Phil

From what I understand, the end-user supplies and fits the hard drive. The process of fitting the drive has been made as easy as possible.