Technophobe considering Naim Mu So purchase - few very basic questions

Craig,

I don't know for sure, but I don't think the Muso will be able to power an external USB hard drive, so that discounts any hard drives that requires power from a PC or other device.

It may not be the answer you want, but you will have a much better control capability in any case, and a much better user experience if you were to purchase a decent cheap NAS (say, a single bay Synology or QNAP). These would come with their own media (uPnP) server, and would be very easy to set up and use. You can't install a media server on a standard external drive, because the drive is just a drive. A NAS enclosure is actually a computer in its own right, and can run programs (or apps) such as a uPnP or media server.  

You would then need to connect the NAS to your router using standard (say, cat6) Ethernet cable, and rip your CDs to the NAS. You would also require a PC or Mac (which you obviously already have) in order to configure the NAS and to install and 'switch on' the media (uPnP) server that comes bundled with the Synology or QNAP NAS.

The Muso itself would not need to be connected to the NAS directly, unless you want to be able to stream high resolution music files. You should be able to stream standard CD quality music from your NAS to the MUSO over Wi-Fi without any difficulty, assuming not too much distance from your router,   

Thanks HMACK. Sort of confirms what I'd thought. Daft question - once all ripped/transferred to the NAS, I'm assuming I wouldn't need a PC turned on?

Annoying these sort of "What HiFi" type reviews.  Said, "this will handle every source you throw at it" which seems clearly wrong!

OK,

Point 1: 320kB MP3 aren't a patch on the quality of CD: To get CD quality you need to play back using WAVE data - this can either be *.WAV files on the disk or can be FLAC files transcoded to WAVE by the processor on a NAS drive.

Point 2:  The Media Server on a NAS drive indexes the files in multiple ways (e.g. Artist, Album, Genre, etc.) and you can use these criteria to select the music you want to play.  If you just store the music on a disk, then two differences occur:
a)  There is no prebuilt index, so each time you turn the player on or plug the disk in after adding more music, the player has to completely rebuild the index of the tracks on the disk and this takes time.
b)  The only way for the player to access the files is through the file system, so the only way to select music is to navigate through the hierarchy of folders on the disk (rather than select by Artist, Album, Genre, etc.).

You can play from very low powered USB powered disks or from USB disks that use a separate plug in power supply.

Indeed with a NAS you don't need a PC (or Mac) turned on because the NAS's CPU (a very low power type) provides much more 'intelligence' than is needed just for the music selection and the formation of the music data stream.

Would an external PSU powered drive help with the problem?

If you already have a PC you could put server software like Asset on the PC and point it at a USB hard drive connected to the PC, or just store the Flac files on the PC and that would also work perfectly well although you a Nas is better as you would have t have your PC running whenever you listen to music.  You could also subscribe to Tidal and just stream music rather than have local storage 

I think I'm getting it - NAS def way forward. As I said, happy to commit the ££ if there's benefits & sounds like there is. Thanks very much all for the replies!

One other response - re the comment that 320kb mp3s aren't a patch on FLAC. With regards to the Naim's ability, is this correct? I've tried to tell the difference here using the following set ups & couldn't tell the difference:

1. Good separates/speaker set up of a friend - CD vs 320 mp3.

2. My own Cowon hi def mp3 player with good headphones - FLAC vs 320 mp3.

Is the Naim really that good that you can tease apart FLAC vs 320 mp3s?? If so I'm buying it!!

I can't say for the Muso as I've never owned one, however I did have an ND5 XS, and with that the difference is clear.  I did a 'single blind' demo for a couple of friends who thought they wouldn't be able to hear the difference, comparing WAVE to MP3, but they correctly identified the MP3s every single time.

The difference between WAVE and FLAC is much less, but I (and they) can still her the difference and Identify the FLAC most of the time (however, not all the time as was the case for the MP3s).

One thing to point out, is that the difference in both cases aren't in the 'surface view' of the music, but in the 'inner workings' that allow you to get to the true feeling and to the  heart of the meaning of the piece.  With MP3 there's also a loss of little details such as quiet instruments in the mix that are completely blanked; when you hear the same thing on FLAC or WAVE you can suddenly hear subtle little things that you never knew were there!

Yes, I can easily tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 on my Mu-so. I would suggest that you load dBpoweramp (it costs less than £50) onto your PC to rip all the CDs as FLAC files to your NAS and then this will look after album covers and metadata (track listings, artist/album names etc). The quality will be the same as the original CDs. You can get away without a NAS by using your PC as a music server but you would need to leave it on all the time.

Going forwards you can download future albums from the various sources (e.g. Qobuz and Highresaudio) that sell high quality albums at roughly the same price you'd pay from Apple or Amazon for MP3. You can also download music that is higher than CD quality from these sources and, yes, I can tell the difference between a CD quality FLAC and a Hi Res FLAC on my Mu-so.

The only problem you then might run into is known as upgrade-it is. My Superuniti sounds even better than my Mu-so (I bought it a few months afterwards) but it was much more expensive and requires speakers.

Craig, I'd also advise that you rip to flac. It sounds way better than MP3 and my Qb easily shows the difference. To keep things simple I'd suggest that you get a Qnap nas and load Asset (a upnp server program) onto it. Asset is very good and is easier to set up than MinimServer. Minim is also very good but can be fiddly and won't run on Qnap. It runs on Synology but as I said it can be fiddly. Synology and Qnap are probably the best makes of nas, and Asset and Minim are probably the best upnp servers. There are lots of people here who use them so there is plenty of advice. 

One thing I'd suggest is that when you start ripping the CDs you decide what music genres you want to use to help you find your albums. You can rely on artist of course but genres can be really helpful. Say you want to play some reggae, you just go into the reggae genre on the Naim app and they all appear. Or chamber music, opera, jazz vocal or whatever. 

It can be a bit complex to set up, but once done it all runs really well. I'm pretty stupid and have managed it, so I'm sure you can too. 

Another vote for lossless files here - FLAC or WAV. To my ears MP3s just don't compare at all, even in my car they don't sound as good to me. Investing in a decent NAS is worthwhile too, and if you get a decent sized hard drive, there will be plenty of room for uncompressed CD rips.

I would strongly recommend that you set up the whole thing on a wired network rather than relying on WiFi. It might seem like a bit of a PITA but you just need some regular, cheapish CAT5e cables.

ChrisSU posted:

I would strongly recommend that you set up the whole thing on a wired network rather than relying on WiFi. It might seem like a bit of a PITA but you just need some regular, cheapish CAT5e cables.

I agree and you can easily buy flat cable which perfectly well and goes under carpets etc.

I'm just a little concerned that we are overloading the OP with techie stuff here.

HH, Minimserver will work quite happily on a QNAP server. I know as I have it installed on my TS421 and TS451 servers. I did so initially as a short term solution while waiting for Illustrate/Asset to release a DSD compatible version for the QNAP.

Sorry, getting confused. What I meant to say is that Asset is less fiddly, but won't run on Synology. This bloody acquired brain injury is becoming annoying. 

It's easy enough to compare MP3 with any other format. You can make copies and convert, then A-B them. If MP3 doesn't sound like shit compared to an uncompressed CD rip, your MuSo may be defective. But joking aside, try it for yourself. Maybe you won't hear a difference. You can then make an informed choice based on your own experience.

QNAP and Synology have a NAS for everyone. You can't really go wrong if you stick to well regarded brands and exercise the same policy with HDDs, WD Red being well regarded and widely used. It's all relatively easy and with a server like Minim or Asset running on a suitable NAS the MuSo is a snap to set up. And it sounds very good for what it is.

Just to be clear, make the MP3 copy from flac or wav etc, not the other way round! Mp3 is 'lossy', throwing away information in the compression process, so converting from Mp3 will not improve it.

Having been in similar situation I put all my CDs in a box in the loft and took out a Tidal HiFi subscription. 

CraigD posted:

One other response - re the comment that 320kb mp3s aren't a patch on FLAC. With regards to the Naim's ability, is this correct? I've tried to tell the difference here using the following set ups & couldn't tell the difference:

1. Good separates/speaker set up of a friend - CD vs 320 mp3.

2. My own Cowon hi def mp3 player with good headphones - FLAC vs 320 mp3.

Is the Naim really that good that you can tease apart FLAC vs 320 mp3s?? If so I'm buying it!!

It depends on 2 things. 1 The quality of the test files. Bad recordings can sound at least as good compressed 320 KBPS compared to the lossless cd rip. I am sure som maybe many newer mainstream releases are mastered so they sound good compressed, for Spotify or worse Apple music. The fact that neither of the 2 services seem to have any interest in offering cd quality supports this view.

Even with a good recording you will have to listen for the aspects of the music that is lost in the compression.

Uncompressed music will have better soundstage, more detailed trebble and be more musical than the compressed files. But with casual listening you would not notice the difference.

I am using a QB now with Tidal standard quality and it works fine. Many of us listen to online radiostations with even lower bitrates. But I would never compress my own cd collection, and with a serious setup I want the best streaming quality as well.

Claus    

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

I am sure some maybe many newer mainstream releases are mastered so they sound good compressed, for Spotify or worse Apple music. The fact that neither of the 2 services seem to have any interest in offering cd quality supports this view

Yes. I think that nails a lot of it with one hammer.

Very few producers or distributors actually care. They just mark it up and sell it regardless. Even the sloppy tagging suggests that care is neither required nor taken. It's like buying a high performance car and finding it shod with tyres you've never heard of that cost £50 for a set.

Who regulates them? What is the minimum acceptable standard for sound quality? Actually we know the answer already. It's shit.

Thanks all for the replies - much appreciated. I'm going for a Synology NAS + the Naim. NAs arrives today, Naim being ordered when I move into new place next month, so currently ripping away. Looking forward to the Naim after now hearing it in a shop & being impressed. Volume in particular was impressive.

Some intriguing opinion re the mp3 vs FLAC debate. I have an interest in this, and for anyone with shared musical tastes, try www.metal-fi.com for a nice bit of nerdery. Some serious mastering & equipment snobbery going on in there, in a field where there's a lot of variation between 'good' and 'bad' sounding records. Those guys rate the music but also the sound of the recording as well which I think is great. 

Quite how much I'll get from FLAC vs mp3 is open to debate, given that a lot of my music is your typical poorly produced/mastered metal, but I've gone for big TB storage so might as well burn FLAC anyway.

CraigD posted:

Quite how much I'll get from FLAC vs mp3 is open to debate, given that a lot of my music is your typical poorly produced/mastered metal, but I've gone for big TB storage so might as well burn FLAC anyway.

There is no debate about FLAC vs MP3,  not even with poorly recorded metal.    one is bad, the other is worse - 

Craig,

Mike's comment about bad and worse is obviously tongue-in-cheek.

I think he is referring to the fact that some people in this forum believe that (using Naim streaming devices at least), WAV files sound better than the equivalent FLAC versions. Although FLAC is lossless (like WAV), their logic for choosing WAV over FLAC is that the streamer has less work to do when it doesn't have to convert FLAC files. I think most people who play music in WAV format still store music in FLAC format (easier to retain metadata) on their NAS and transpose on the fly (ie via the media player on their NAS) to WAV format which is fed by the media player to the streamer in WAV format.

It's actually not universally accepted that (especially in the non Naim world that WAV is best, and I think it quite unlikely that you will hear a difference on your Muso. I transpose from FLAC to WAV simply because the media player (minimserver) on my Synology NAS can do so. I really don't hear a consistent improvement on my main systems (which are much more expensive than a Muso), let alone on my Muso Qb.

My advice would be to rip to FLAC, and if you like rip a couple of tracks to both FLAC and WAV and compare the two. If you can't hear a difference, then simply stream your music as it is to your Muso without conversion.

Your Synology NAS should come with both its own media server and components to allow you to install minimserver. The advantage of minimserver for me is that it displays album artwork much more quickly than Synology's own media server, but italso is better for tansposing from FLAC to WAV on the fly should you choose to do so. It is, however quite a bit trickier to install and configure than Synology's own media server. If you decide to install minimserver, check out Minimserver's own instructions on the web.

Incidentally, I recently attended a Naim Audio demo of their 'Statement' amplifier, using the top of the range Naim streamer  (NDS + twin power supplies) and massive speakers (a total system cost of over £400,000). They played a mix of WAV and FLAC tracks for their demo, and the guys from Naim running the demo didn't seem too convinced by the WAV is better than FLAC argument.

Good luck!   

Craig,

I have to agree with Mike-B; even with quite poorly recorded music, MP3 just makes it worse.

Hmack, Mike was commenting on FLAC vs MP3, not FLAC vs WAVE!

FLAC vs MP3 I believe is a well accepted argument and clear difference for just about everyone.
FLAC vs WAVE is a subtle difference and quite a small difference at best; indeed some people hear no difference at all.

Craigd, the difference between MP3 and FLAC is significant - I have never really seen a debate comparing them regarding SQ as they are really chalk and cheese - one is sampled PCM and the other is a psychoacoustic masking compression system (i.e. its playing tricks with your brain). The differences will be  clearly appreciable even on a Muso... however that is not to ay MP3 is always bad - far from it  - and in the car and general background listening it can be really effective - But all those queues and subtitles which really bring recorded music to life and make it feel real, immersive and emotional and that are enabled with high quality replay equipment - even on poorly recorded or mastered recordings - will be very diminished or even absent on MP3 - as that tends to be the info that is discarded in the  lossy compression process.

So if you are ripping CDs - I would go to FLAC - you are not losing anything - if you go to MP3 you will have discarded a lot that you won't be able to recover unless you re rip the CD -