Unitiserve vs NAS

In my opinion it's completely pointless. You may as well flush the money down the loo. When I swapped from a UnitiServe to a nas the sound improved noticeably. That's right - improved. 

Well... HH presents one point of view. I will present the other - I like the functionality of my UnitiSere SSD. I found no difference to sound quality streaming from NAS or via US.

One thing: UnitiServe is now being replaced by Core. Same functionality, just a new device.

Jonathan posted:

Hi there - I have a Readynas NAS that streams perfectly to my Nac-n 272 (and uniti and unitiqute).

Is adding a unitiserve (ssd or 2tb) to my system worthwhile sonically? My music collection around 1TB and is all flac as CD, 24/96 and 24/192 quality. The CDs were ripped on my windows pc.... may be an issue?

Cheers

Jonathan

I do not think that you would find any benefit to purchasing a UnitiServe, especially focusing on value for the money.  I owned one for about 4 years but now just use a nas.

Adam - the question was whether it's worth it sonically, and your response says that it's not, so you are presenting exactly the same view as me.

A Core would enable you to avoid streaming across a network, and thus avoid the pitfalls that plague some installations, and its direct dedicated link to a DAC has the potential to be better sonically than having a network involved.

The UnitiServe can do that too, but sounds better via Ethernet. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Adam - the question was whether it's worth it sonically, and your response says that it's not, so you are presenting exactly the same view as me.

Indeed. 

But I've tried to add a benefit 

I am not impresse  to say the æ least, with the terrible upnp server preinstalled on the readynas! I have seen that you can install minameserver on a readynas, not the current lineup of nas that runs OS 6 or what they call the Readynas OS.  if you install java on it first. There is a guide on the minameserver page.

http://minimserver.com/install-readynas.html 

Jonathan posted:

Hi there - I have a Readynas NAS that streams perfectly to my Nac-n 272 (and uniti and unitiqute).

Is adding a unitiserve (ssd or 2tb) to my system worthwhile sonically? My music collection around 1TB and is all flac as CD, 24/96 and 24/192 quality. The CDs were ripped on my windows pc.... may be an issue?

Cheers

Jonathan

Hi - I have found the ReadyNAS's inbuilt ReadyDLNA media server - although quite basic and doesn't offer transcoding - sounds very good indeed - in as far as the inter frame timing is fast and consistent - certainly the NDX seems to prefer it that way.

S

Thanks to all for the input. Ill stick with my NAS - upgrade speakers next!

Cheers

Jonathan

Check out Melco if you want to invest on expensive NAS, it got far grater fallowing than US

Emre posted:

Check out Melco if you want to invest on expensive NAS, it got far grater fallowing than US

LIke the Core,  Melco is not just a store but it can present a rendered output direct to a DAC, and ii't sound quality is highly regarded. Another good one, a little less costly but more 'hands-on' is Mac Mini+ Audirvana, also highly rated. THe Core is an unknown quantity in terms of sound quality when used as a renderer, but if it is good it will compete with these.

Used like that these products only need a DAC, not a 'streamer' to output high quality audio, and as I indicated earlier, used that way they have the great advantage of avoiding streaming locally stored music across a network (but can be linked externally to a network and accessed by other networked players if desired, or to download or stream music from the internet)