What is the difference between unitserve and uniticore ?

Innocent Bystander posted:

Christine posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

My music is stored in a very straightforward way, in nested folders (directories), e.g. Genre\artist (composer for classical)\album.  Very quick and simple to srore new things, and very easy to browse, exactly as when I had a physical collection arranged on shelves, or a record store, etc. When I had an ND5XS controlled by Naim App, and files served by three different UPnP players over time, i could browse by that storage hierarchy, simply, easily and effectively.

Does the Core controlled by Naim App not allow browsing like that?

It mattered not a jot that many files had missing metadata (my ripped LPs), and many more had incorrect metadata (in particular a high proportion of classical where there is much inconsistency in assigning metadata). no time-wasting doing anything with metadata, no fretting about how metadata is stored between different file types, no missing albums where something has gone wrong with metadata. Simplicity is often best...

That is exactly what I do and the system works perfectly.

The core will index your music perfectly, even now, BUT if you have any rips from a Unitiserve with included metadata files or user edits files then this is what is causing the problems.

As far as the rips are concerned, maybe the issue is the compatability of the Unitiserve, rather than a failing of the Core per se. However, one would expect Naim to have made their new machine capable of handling anything ripped in the old one, otherwise perhaps provide an import utility to convert them.

The Core can either serve files stored on the US or it can import music from the US into the Core. Both of these things work fine for me.

Best

David

David Hendon posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Christine posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

My music is stored in a very straightforward way, in nested folders (directories), e.g. Genre\artist (composer for classical)\album.  Very quick and simple to srore new things, and very easy to browse, exactly as when I had a physical collection arranged on shelves, or a record store, etc. When I had an ND5XS controlled by Naim App, and files served by three different UPnP players over time, i could browse by that storage hierarchy, simply, easily and effectively.

Does the Core controlled by Naim App not allow browsing like that?

It mattered not a jot that many files had missing metadata (my ripped LPs), and many more had incorrect metadata (in particular a high proportion of classical where there is much inconsistency in assigning metadata). no time-wasting doing anything with metadata, no fretting about how metadata is stored between different file types, no missing albums where something has gone wrong with metadata. Simplicity is often best...

That is exactly what I do and the system works perfectly.

The core will index your music perfectly, even now, BUT if you have any rips from a Unitiserve with included metadata files or user edits files then this is what is causing the problems.

As far as the rips are concerned, maybe the issue is the compatability of the Unitiserve, rather than a failing of the Core per se. However, one would expect Naim to have made their new machine capable of handling anything ripped in the old one, otherwise perhaps provide an import utility to convert them.

The Core can either serve files stored on the US or it can import music from the US into the Core. Both of these things work fine for me.

Best

David

 

Seems odd to work on one US-Core combination and not another. Could it be  that your US files have good metadata, and Christine's not? Or the filing done differently on your US compared to hers?

Christine posted:

Bart posted:

Christine posted:

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

This thread has with over 100 posts of course changed subject. However there are 2  differences between the s Userve and Core. ...

Exactly and also don't forget that metadata editing when available ...

While I agree, I see this as part of knowing the market.  The "younger generations" do a lot ...

...

Or I'm going to ask my software developer to write a desktop application that will edit Core produced metadata

This would not be a very good idea, I believe.

Better would be to ask your software developer to write 2 small applications: one to export the Core internal files to plain .flac files and another one to import plain .flac files into the Core's internal files and formats.

This would give you a simple fromCore / toCore interface that you could use for much more than just metadata editing. It would also allow you to take advantage of already existing and well established tools for .flac metadata editing, of course.

What I want to say is that using or developing specific software for specific devices or data format is rarely a good idea. From a user's perspective, it is often more convenient (and certainly more flexible) to rely on interfaces to standard formats and on well established tools that operate on standard formats. In this sense, both the US and the Core are based on rather questionable software designs and are not particularly user friendly, in my view.

What doesn't work well is that the Core replaces the metadata on imports from the US and makes a total hash of it. So finding your music is tricky as Christine has said. It's true I have had a very few albums that didn't import well into the Core for whatever reason, so I ended up with only some of the tracks. I had one which ended up as "Unknown album" "unknown artist". But when I ripped that CD directly into the Core it was fine.

I'm sure Christine's US metadata is far more tidy and accurate than mine. As long as the cover art was right and I was happy with the album name, I never bothered to look at anything further.....

best

David

David Hendon posted:

 

i am using naim app, not n serve. i am using the good app ( i wrote precedently n serve but i was referring to naim app). it doesn't work. i configured the core, the storage...my tracks are appearing, but no sound when i click to play. the time of the track is running...but no sound.

OK so I guess what you are doing is telling the Core to play an album from inside the Core part of the Naim app. What that does is play the album via the digital output from the Core, that is what you want if you are connecting it to a DAC.

If you want to serve from the Core to a streamer with upnp, say an NDS, then you have to go the NDS part of the Naim app and select the album you want to play, which I think you said works. So it is doing what it is supposed to do, in that respect at least!

best

David

i reinitialized the app and finally the sound appeared. And thanks for your help, it is just that it made me nervous all this bugs...

Mr Happy posted:

Keler, re read Davids post. Go to the nds icon in the naim app and select it. Now play music from the core through the nds, not the core part of the app. 

yes, i succeeded, thanks.

Innocent Bystander posted:

David Hendon posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Christine posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

My music is stored in a very straightforward way, in nested folders (directories), e.g. Genre\artist (composer for classical)\album.  Very quick and simple to srore new things, and very easy to browse, exactly as when I had a physical collection arranged on shelves, or a record store, etc. When I had an ND5XS controlled by Naim App, and files served by three different UPnP players over time, i could browse by that storage hierarchy, simply, easily and effectively.

Does the Core controlled by Naim App not allow browsing like that?

It mattered not a jot that many files had missing metadata (my ripped LPs), and many more had incorrect metadata (in particular a high proportion of classical where there is much inconsistency in assigning metadata). no time-wasting doing anything with metadata, no fretting about how metadata is stored between different file types, no missing albums where something has gone wrong with metadata. Simplicity is often best...

That is exactly what I do and the system works perfectly.

The core will index your music perfectly, even now, BUT if you have any rips from a Unitiserve with included metadata files or user edits files then this is what is causing the problems.

As far as the rips are concerned, maybe the issue is the compatability of the Unitiserve, rather than a failing of the Core per se. However, one would expect Naim to have made their new machine capable of handling anything ripped in the old one, otherwise perhaps provide an import utility to convert them.

The Core can either serve files stored on the US or it can import music from the US into the Core. Both of these things work fine for me.

Best

David

 

Seems odd to work on one US-Core combination and not another. Could it be  that your US files have good metadata, and Christine's not? Or the filing done differently on your US compared to hers?

The biggest problem, and one Naim have said they are looking to fix is that Core ignores any Unitiserve app produced user edits, which is pretty much a metadata file.  This means that Core will display totally incorrect data for any albums with user edits.

There are also other problems with Core and metadata. 

Keler Pierre posted:

Christine posted:

The sound quality of the Core is improved over the Unitiserve.

It is more dynamic and spatial although my thoughts are that the bass is slightly thinner than Unitiserve.

Overall the SQ is very very good.

i agree with you: a bit more clarity, dynamics but with the unitserve there is more bass . i finally could rip cds on the lacie on the core. I found the rips more thin than on the unitserve.

i don't know if i had ripped them on an internal drive( like samsung ssd 2,5), the sound would be better.  For now i prefer the rips on my unitserve.  The downloads seems better on the core, on my lacie ssd external.  But i will take time to compare more...

What spdif cable are you using between the Core and your DAC? A different cable could bring back some more bass if you find it lacking with the Core.

Daniel H. posted:

Keler Pierre posted:

Christine posted:

The sound quality of the Core is improved over the Unitiserve.

It is more dynamic and spatial although my thoughts are that the bass is slightly thinner than Unitiserve.

Overall the SQ is very very good.

i agree with you: a bit more clarity, dynamics but with the unitserve there is more bass . i finally could rip cds on the lacie on the core. I found the rips more thin than on the unitserve.

i don't know if i had ripped them on an internal drive( like samsung ssd 2,5), the sound would be better.  For now i prefer the rips on my unitserve.  The downloads seems better on the core, on my lacie ssd external.  But i will take time to compare more...

What spdif cable are you using between the Core and your DAC? A different cable could bring back some more bass if you find it lacking with the Core.

no cable, in ethernet, core and unitserve to switch and nds to switch. 

when i attached my lacie ssd external drive on the core, i could find the cd rips but not the downloads which are on it. ?   a bug or i don't understand....

MY VERDICT :the core had a naim powerline and the unitserve a tp ps. in ethernet, my verdict on my system : the core is more dynamic and clear, but thinner too and more forward. The serve have more ground, bass and body. 

The serve can take flac and waw, you have not to choose.  For cd rips, i definitely preferred the serve, by a small margin. For downloads on the core, on my lacie ssd external, sometimes i preferred the core and sometimes the serve. 

So i decided to keep my serve. I used a december core, so perhaps the updated core will be different. I will retry in a few months.

Keler Pierre posted:

MY VERDICT :the core had a naim powerline and the unitserve a tp ps. in ethernet, my verdict on my system : the core is more dynamic and clear, but thinner too and more forward. The serve have more ground, bass and body. 

The serve can take flac and waw, you have not to choose.  For cd rips, i definitely preferred the serve, by a small margin. For downloads on the core, on my lacie ssd external, sometimes i preferred the core and sometimes the serve. 

So i decided to keep my serve. I used a december core, so perhaps the updated core will be different. I will retry in a few months.

If you are comparing SQ, then I suggest you compare what the CD actually sounds like playing through your system without all the server paraphernalia connected with the Core or Uniti Serve. When I was demoing the Uniti Serve I played both through the nDAC which has the XPSDR. The CDX2 was always better, which is what my dealer always told me.

As others have remarked, the s/pdif is actually amazingly good (the nDAC takes 16 samples for each bit before deciding whether it's a 0 or 1). I used a loan Chord Clearway BNC to BNC (not RCA with adaptor). Doubtless the Naim DC1 is better. I didn't try fancy Ethernet cables, and don't doubt they improve SQ - it must be something to do with earth levels making the digital signals on the s/pdif bad enough to corrupt the encoded sound as the Ethernet packets have error checking and I never had buffering problems.

I decided to stick with the CDX2, even through I got rid of the Ethernet over mains gadgets and got the hub into the lounge (5m cat 5e style ads like cable cost a few pounds) to sort out all the connectivity issues between the US and the iPad. The NAS sat next to the hub. I split the dual band wireless networks giving them separate names, which means the App never lost the server.

Filipe posted:

Keler Pierre posted:

MY VERDICT :the core had a naim powerline and the unitserve a tp ps. in ethernet, my verdict on my system : the core is more dynamic and clear, but thinner too and more forward. The serve have more ground, bass and body. 

The serve can take flac and waw, you have not to choose.  For cd rips, i definitely preferred the serve, by a small margin. For downloads on the core, on my lacie ssd external, sometimes i preferred the core and sometimes the serve. 

So i decided to keep my serve. I used a december core, so perhaps the updated core will be different. I will retry in a few months.

If you are comparing SQ, then I suggest you compare what the CD actually sounds like playing through your system without all the server paraphernalia connected with the Core or Uniti Serve. When I was demoing the Uniti Serve I played both through the nDAC which has the XPSDR. The CDX2 was always better, which is what my dealer always told me.

As others have remarked, the s/pdif is actually amazingly good (the nDAC takes 16 samples for each bit before deciding whether it's a 0 or 1). I used a loan Chord Clearway BNC to BNC (not RCA with adaptor). Doubtless the Naim DC1 is better. I didn't try fancy Ethernet cables, and don't doubt they improve SQ - it must be something to do with earth levels making the digital signals on the s/pdif bad enough to corrupt the encoded sound as the Ethernet packets have error checking and I never had buffering problems.

I decided to stick with the CDX2, even through I got rid of the Ethernet over mains gadgets and got the hub into the lounge (5m cat 5e style ads like cable cost a few pounds) to sort out all the connectivity issues between the US and the iPad. The NAS sat next to the hub. I split the dual band wireless networks giving them separate names, which means the App never lost the server.

i don't tried in this comparaison the spdif mode because i have tried it already with my unitserve and nds and dc1 cable.  When i add a switch, an optical bridge between switch and nds, and an audioquest diamond ethernet cable, the ethernet mode was 2 steps better than spdif.

Today i don't miss anymore my past cdx2/xps2 that i sold 10 months ago.

Been reading the all dam*** thread for an hour now

just ordered my atom 2 weeks ago and look forward to see the core hitting my rack very soon. Hey people, I guess you'd all have very different ways to use the Core, but frankly I do think you're just too demanding for something that has just been released. 

IMHO, many of these bugs should have their respective fixes in a few months... and I do expect to have issues with mine. I just ordered my core yesterday evening and can't wait for it to land at my place, hoping the Atom will join it in May as promised by Naim. 

But in the meantime, lets not forget its all about music first, not just about zeros and ones.... 

I know for sure I'll be enjoying my nap-100/UQ2 and Dac v1 new companions with joy  

'if I had to blame the new UC for one missing feature though, it'd be the ability to serve music wirelessly, I'd have loved that, knowing that all Naim steamers  have had wireless abilities for years now.  But enough tech talk, what I'm interested in is the funky dope sound these lil beast will pour into my big ears 

yeh man, naim will funk your ass!  i love funk too and naim electronics are the kings for that.

Filipe posted:

Keler Pierre posted:

MY VERDICT :the core had a naim powerline and the unitserve a tp ps. in ethernet, my verdict on my system : the core is more dynamic and clear, but thinner too and more forward. The serve have more ground, bass and body. 

The serve can take flac and waw, you have not to choose.  For cd rips, i definitely preferred the serve, by a small margin. For downloads on the core, on my lacie ssd external, sometimes i preferred the core and sometimes the serve. 

So i decided to keep my serve. I used a december core, so perhaps the updated core will be different. I will retry in a few months.

If you are comparing SQ, then I suggest you compare what the CD actually sounds like playing through your system without all the server paraphernalia connected with the Core or Uniti Serve. When I was demoing the Uniti Serve I played both through the nDAC which has the XPSDR. The CDX2 was always better, which is what my dealer always told me.

As others have remarked, the s/pdif is actually amazingly good (the nDAC takes 16 samples for each bit before deciding whether it's a 0 or 1). I used a loan Chord Clearway BNC to BNC (not RCA with adaptor). Doubtless the Naim DC1 is better. I didn't try fancy Ethernet cables, and don't doubt they improve SQ - it must be something to do with earth levels making the digital signals on the s/pdif bad enough to corrupt the encoded sound as the Ethernet packets have error checking and I never had buffering problems.

I decided to stick with the CDX2, even through I got rid of the Ethernet over mains gadgets and got the hub into the lounge (5m cat 5e style ads like cable cost a few pounds) to sort out all the connectivity issues between the US and the iPad. The NAS sat next to the hub. I split the dual band wireless networks giving them separate names, which means the App never lost the server.

if the cd555 could play hirez, i would buy it. For me the best solution would be an esoteric transport with a statement dac. I would play cds on that combo and sometimes hirez on a memory stick attached to the dac. If naim will product a super ndac, i will sell my nds.

It may happen, the ndac have 7 years old....

Bouba posted:

Hey people, I guess you'd all have very different ways to use the Core, but frankly I do think you're just too demanding for something that has just been released. 

IMHO, many of these bugs should have their respective fixes in a few months... and I do expect to have issues with mine. I just ordered my core yesterday evening and can't wait for it to land at my place, hoping the Atom will join it in May as promised by Naim. 

 

Personally, I would prefer manufacturers to get the product completely right before release - that doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't later build in improvements, but everything that is there or said to be there should work, and work properly.

Of course, there can and sometimes will be odd things that maybe only come to light under particular circumstances that hadn't been envisaged, whether they be significant faults or minor oddities, and what matters there is how the manufacturer (or supplier, as the purchase contract is actually with them) deals with it.

And also, for whatever reason, sometimes the purchaser will have a false idea of what an item is designed to do, maybe having made assumptions based on something else, in which case the matter is not the manufacturer's fault, nor is there any onus on the manufacturer, or indeed the supplier, to fix the problem. That doesn't make it any the less frustrating for the individual, but is simply how it is.

The important thing in respect of the various limitations cited in this thread is for Naim to identify whether in respect of any they may be at fault, and find a way of fixing, and for the purchaser to identify where it is their expectation was wrong, and accept that, maybe while suggesting it to Naim as a desirable enhancement to consider. Meanwhile the experiences of the early adopters is all useful for others considering if the unit does what they want, and if not whether to either wait or find another solution.

Bouba posted:

Been reading the all dam*** thread for an hour now

just ordered my atom 2 weeks ago and look forward to see the core hitting my rack very soon. Hey people, I guess you'd all have very different ways to use the Core, but frankly I do think you're just too demanding for something that has just been released. 

...

The thread would likely be much shorter if Naim had provided from the very beginning a detailed technical documentation for the Core and, when they decided to ship, a list of supported and unsupported features.

I do not know what you mean by "too demanding" precisely but there are obviously fellows here who expect a Naim product (in particular, one which has been announced with so much fanfares, if you know what I mean) to meet some minimal usability requirements when it is shipped. Others are perfectly fine hoping that Naim will deliver later and via software updates. Both points of view are legitimate, of course, and account for a big chunk of the discussion going on in this thread.

Also, notice that your chances of receiving very soon a Core that hopefully works as it should, very much depend on early Core users and reviewers having spotted major design flaws and implementational errors and provided Naim with detailed reports of their findings, among others, through this forum.

today i tried again a comparaison between serve and core. I must say that the differences today , in sound quality, are in favor to the core: a little more clarity, the percussions are more crisp. I don't find the core thinner anymore.  Other day, other impression.  The differences are on the same order as a better power cord.  My serve has a tp ps and the core a blue heaven nordost power cord. I will try again a powerline on the core and we will see.

i must say i have to be well concentrated to see the differences, it is not day and night, more like photos on ipad 4 vs ipad air.

Its burning in. My demo one got better each day for the two weeks I had it. Most naim kit takes many weeks/months to burn in so the core probably had much more performance to come but as it was a demo unit it had to be returned.

I've had my Core a few weeks and other than the original issues (folder / file access on mac and metadata editing) I haven't had any other issues. All music uploaded, backed up and operating just fine.  From a musical aspect (playing via uniti2 / PMC Twenty5 23 speakers) the performance has been has per a couple of others comments, keeps improving. Ideal world all have been perfect day 1 but no hardship from my perspective  as I could upload / find and play my music!