What is the difference between unitserve and uniticore ?

Innocent Bystander posted:

Sourav Mazumder posted:

I compared Core with JRiver/Roon running on Mac Mini.

Core was surely better to my ears in both spdif mode as well as in upnp mode (over ethernet) serving to my streamer/dac. I also tried Roon accessing files from Core and serving to my Streamer/DAC over ethernet. This was tad better than Core directly serving to spdif. The SQ is better in lower frequency and in overall tonal quality (more analogue).

Regards,

Sourav

Is your use of MacMini using its own souncard outputs (SPDIF or optical)?  Have you compared  JRIver/Roon against Audirvana (optimised, including dedicated USB bus output bypassing the MM's soundcard)?

Oh !!! I need to check that out. Thanks for reminding.

Typically I play Audirvana in dedicated/exclusive control USB mode only to my DAC. JRiver/Roon I play through ethernet using UPnP/Roon's Propreotory protocol. Audirvana through dedicated usb is tad better to my ears.

I'll test now the same Audirvana set accessing music from Core. I'll get back tomorrow on this.

Regards,

Sourav

No quarter posted:

I have a question about the core,as I am interested in one.I am aware that you can plug an external hard drive into the back of the core,do you need to buy,or have one of the removable drives installed for it to work,just running music off the external drive?If you can do it this way,are there any sound compromises?My plan was to feed my Hugo off the core into my 272 analog in,just trying to minimize the initial cost if I do buy a core.

Not sure that anyone answered this. You don't need to install an internal drive if you are happy to use an external USB drive or NAS or whatever.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

No quarter posted:

I have a question about the core,as I am interested in one.I am aware that you can plug an external hard drive into the back of the core,do you need to buy,or have one of the removable drives installed for it to work,just running music off the external drive?If you can do it this way,are there any sound compromises?My plan was to feed my Hugo off the core into my 272 analog in,just trying to minimize the initial cost if I do buy a core.

Not sure that anyone answered this. You don't need to install an internal drive if you are happy to use an external USB drive or NAS or whatever.

best

David

Thanks Dave,that is the opposite of what Keler said,but maybe he misunderstood me,I would just use the external drive at first,until I can afford to add the ssd drive,which would then allow me to rip my cd's,if I understand correctly.Since I would want to buy the best and biggest drive I can install.

It may be the opposite to what he said but it is the case nevertheless. And furthermore you can define any external drive as a music store using the setup option in the app and then you can rip to that external drive. In other words you can have the full functionality of the Core with any drive option you want.

Jon Honeyball started a thread on thoughts on Core Storage in the Streaming Audio room a couple of months back and wrote a long and thoughtful review of the different options. It would be worth searching that out.

best

David

No quarter posted:

Thanks for the reply,I thought you might be able to still use it to play what is on the external drive,as the 272 only accepts thumb drives,I also wonder if you would be better off transferring what is on the external to the ssd drive,I'm mean,will it sound any better,does is process it somehow before outputting it(off an external drive)?

you can transfer the external drive to your pc then to your core via transferring to core downloads. You will loose nothing in the transfer. But the sound must be better with the core than external drive to the 272.  I was better for me with my nds and for a majority of users with nds.

No quarter posted:

David Hendon posted:

No quarter posted:

I have a question about the core,as I am interested in one.I am aware that you can plug an external hard drive into the back of the core,do you need to buy,or have one of the removable drives installed for it to work,just running music off the external drive?If you can do it this way,are there any sound compromises?My plan was to feed my Hugo off the core into my 272 analog in,just trying to minimize the initial cost if I do buy a core.

Not sure that anyone answered this. You don't need to install an internal drive if you are happy to use an external USB drive or NAS or whatever.

best

David

Thanks Dave,that is the opposite of what Keler said,but maybe he misunderstood me,I would just use the external drive at first,until I can afford to add the ssd drive,which would then allow me to rip my cd's,if I understand correctly.Since I would want to buy the best and biggest drive I can install.

 

No quarter posted:

David Hendon posted:

No quarter posted:

I have a question about the core,as I am interested in one.I am aware that you can plug an external hard drive into the back of the core,do you need to buy,or have one of the removable drives installed for it to work,just running music off the external drive?If you can do it this way,are there any sound compromises?My plan was to feed my Hugo off the core into my 272 analog in,just trying to minimize the initial cost if I do buy a core.

Not sure that anyone answered this. You don't need to install an internal drive if you are happy to use an external USB drive or NAS or whatever.

best

David

Thanks Dave,that is the opposite of what Keler said,but maybe he misunderstood me,I would just use the external drive at first,until I can afford to add the ssd drive,which would then allow me to rip my cd's,if I understand correctly.Since I would want to buy the best and biggest drive I can 

Yes , Mr Hendon is right, it is not necessary to buy first an internal drive for your core. You can attach an external drive at the back. 

But i just said that the internal drive does not go with the core when you buy it. 

But if you rip cds, i think you must have the internal drive. I am quite sure but better ask.

With my unitserve, downloads on the internal drive vs on external drive attached to the serve sound the same. But for me the external drive attached permanently to the serve is running hot.  You have many possibilities.

You really definitely don't need an internal drive for the Core to rip CDs! You need a connected drive to be properly designated as a music store. That's all. You designate as a music store using the option in the Core settings in the Naim app.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

You really definitely don't need an internal drive for the Core to rip CDs! You need a connected drive to be properly designated as a music store. That's all. You designate as a music store using the option in the Core settings in the Naim app.

best

David

yes you are right, i just responded to "no quarter". i had not very well understood his question first....  i am french....

but to rip cds with the core with an external drive, i am not sure. But if you are sure , ok. You are right when you say that you can attach an external drive to the core and don't buy necessarily an internal drive. To listen to downloads ok, but to rip i don't know.

I have not the core but the unitserve with nds. 

If you look on the support page for the Core on Naim's website, it says

"Before ripping CDs or importing music you will need to configure your music store. This means selecting the drive you want to use as a Music Store (either internal, USB or NAS) and then formatting the drive which will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store."

This is a bit different to the Unitiserve where only the internal disc can be used to store rips, although the Unitiserve SSD moved quite a long way in the Core's direction.

best

David

David Hendon posted:

If you look on the support page for the Core on Naim's website, it says

"Before ripping CDs or importing music you will need to configure your music store. This means selecting the drive you want to use as a Music Store (either internal, USB or NAS) and then formatting the drive which will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store."

This is a bit different to the Unitiserve where only the internal disc can be used to store rips, although the Unitiserve SSD moved quite a long way in the Core's direction.

best

David

As David mentioned I tried ripping CD both in NAS based store and USB attached store 9Seagate Super Drive) without any problem. I ran Core like that for couple of days before adding an internal store.

I believe CD ripping, storage management, and backup are the cases where Core really shines compared to the other products in the market (at least here in USA). Actually not many products are there which provide such flexibility in storage management.

Regards,

Sourav

Just came across this page about getting unitiserve data into the wav files, has anybody tried it - http://www.jthink.net/songkong/en/melco.jsp - would the data then work in uniticore ?

David Hendon posted:

If you look on the support page for the Core on Naim's website, it says

"Before ripping CDs or importing music you will need to configure your music store. This means selecting the drive you want to use as a Music Store (either internal, USB or NAS) and then formatting the drive which will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store."

This is a bit different to the Unitiserve where only the internal disc can be used to store rips, although the Unitiserve SSD moved quite a long way in the Core's direction.

best

David

Thanks again for the replies guys,David,the only concern i have then,is when you say formatting the drive will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store.The music is already on the hard drive,which i believe was formatted when i first got it,are you saying that once i connect it to the core,i would not be able to remove it,without losing all the data?

Peter Lambert posted:

Just came across this page about getting unitiserve data into the wav files, has anybody tried it - http://www.jthink.net/songkong/en/melco.jsp - would the data then work in uniticore ?

Rather misleading is their statement, "For a long time Naim users have had to make a decision between using Uncompressed Wav without metadata or converting to Compressed Flac. This allowed metadata to be stored but at the expense of sound quality since the Flac files are compressed."

Do these people not know how flac works, or are they intending to mislead?

David Hendon posted:

If you look on the support page for the Core on Naim's website, it says

"Before ripping CDs or importing music you will need to configure your music store. This means selecting the drive you want to use as a Music Store (either internal, USB or NAS) and then formatting the drive which will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store."

This is a bit different to the Unitiserve where only the internal disc can be used to store rips, although the Unitiserve SSD moved quite a long way in the Core's direction.

best

David

you are definitely right and it is even a good new for me. Perhaps i will sell my unitserve ( 10 months) and buy the cheaper core for that money.  i have already an external drive. I am just waiting for the stabilization of the core's hardware. i heard many bugs with the core on this forum, but naim will solve that.

FLAC files are compressed. They are compressed "losslessly". For example, a sequence of 10 zeros may be replaced by 0 x 10. It is still compressed, it takes up less space, and needs to be decompressed before it is played.

Peter Lambert posted:

Just came across this page about getting unitiserve data into the wav files, has anybody tried it - http://www.jthink.net/songkong/en/melco.jsp - would the data then work in uniticore ?

I spoke to the chap created Songkong on the Melco stand at the Bristol Show. It sounded interesting. Apparently, it inserts metadata into the Naim ripped files so that they can be served by non-Naim servers without resorting to the folder view. It's quite quick too. I'd be quite interested if I were to buy a Melco (to replace the Unitiserve), but the advent of the Core has made that less of a possibility.

...and to answer the question more directly, there is no need to use Songkong for Naim rips if you intend to use a Core because it can serve Naim rips.

Dozey posted:

FLAC files are compressed. They are compressed "losslessly". For example, a sequence of 10 zeros may be replaced by 0 x 10. It is still compressed, it takes up less space, and needs to be decompressed before it is played.

Agreed, and provided the software decompressing does its job right, in real time fast enough to not affect the digital stream being fed to the DAC, it by definition is capable of as good a sound quality as .wav. 

KRM posted:

...and to answer the question more directly, there is no need to use Songkong for Naim rips if you intend to use a Core because it can serve Naim rips.

Right so core/unitiserve use the same/similar system, I assume its more if you want to move to a non naim system or if you have a naim player but wanted to use a different upnp sever instead of serving straight from unitserve.

Peter Lambert posted:

KRM posted:

...and to answer the question more directly, there is no need to use Songkong for Naim rips if you intend to use a Core because it can serve Naim rips.

Right so core/unitiserve use the same/similar system, I assume its more if you want to move to a non naim system or if you have a naim player but wanted to use a different upnp sever instead of serving straight from unitserve.

Hi Peter,

Exactly right.

No quarter posted:

David Hendon posted:

If you look on the support page for the Core on Naim's website, it says

"Before ripping CDs or importing music you will need to configure your music store. This means selecting the drive you want to use as a Music Store (either internal, USB or NAS) and then formatting the drive which will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store."

This is a bit different to the Unitiserve where only the internal disc can be used to store rips, although the Unitiserve SSD moved quite a long way in the Core's direction.

best

David

Thanks again for the replies guys,David,the only concern i have then,is when you say formatting the drive will completely erase the drive and format it for use as a Naim Music Store.The music is already on the hard drive,which i believe was formatted when i first got it,are you saying that once i connect it to the core,i would not be able to remove it,without losing all the data?

To make it into a music store, you have to let the Core format it. I don't think there is a way round that, although you could check with Phil in Naim support. You could just make it a music share, in which case the Core will recognise and serve the music on it, but you won't be able to rip to it as a music share.

You could save all the music elsewhere temporarily, (you should have a backup anyway), define the now empty disc as a music store which would mean it would be formatted. Then you could import the music back again from your temporary disc into your newly-defined music store. This would keep the files you already have and save future rips too.

Or the simplest thing might be to buy a hard disc for internal use and use your external disc as a share. A 2 TB HDD of the recommended type only costs about £80 from Amazon etc and if you are only ripping music as you buy it, you could probably make do with a smaller HDD for rips, which would cost even less.

best

David

Thanks David,i thought someone said the biggest and best hard-drive for it was a thousand bucks or euro's,whatever that works out to.

Well you can look them up yourself. It depends what capacity you want and that depends on the number of albums you have.! can tell you that I have about 400 albums ripped to WAV and that takes about 300 GBytes. A 2TB Seagate Pipeline (aka Video) HDD costs less than £100 and a Samsung 850 500 GByte SSD costs about £150. If you want bigger capacities obviously the cost goes up. I think the numbers you were given in that earlier post suggested 500€ to 1000€ for a 2TB SSD. I would expect it to be towards the lower end of that range. 

Best

David

Bart posted:

Peter Lambert posted:

Just came across this page about getting unitiserve data into the wav files, has anybody tried it - http://www.jthink.net/songkong/en/melco.jsp - would the data then work in uniticore ?

Rather misleading is their statement, "For a long time Naim users have had to make a decision between using Uncompressed Wav without metadata or converting to Compressed Flac. This allowed metadata to be stored but at the expense of sound quality since the Flac files are compressed."

Do these people not know how flac works, or are they intending to mislead?

To me it sounds as if they were trying to mislead but this does not mean that they know how flac works! Ignorance and malice are by no means mutually exclusive :-) Best, nbpf