NAIM App Alternatives

I've tried them all & although some seem faster/smoother with UPnP they are all limited,  the Naim app is made for the purpose & none of the alternatives bring Naim features such as iRadio, Tidal & maybe most important System Automation.    If iOS & Android are loosing art,  you need to look elsewhere - can you describe a bit more what you mean by  'losing artwork'.     Also it would be a help to know about your system - NDX gets its UPnP feed from what, NAS, PC, Mini-Mac etc. & is it wired or wireless.

Hi thanks for your quick reply. I guess you are right about the features but for me the primary purpose is convenience and speed of the basic structure of playing songs. 

I am wired from a qnap nas. Mike. The issues I get are that twenty and naim don't get on do well and it causes artwork to gradually disappear over time so nothing is displayed in the folders. Also and very prevalent is the issue with the wrong or adjacent album cover appearing for the wrong album. 

Just to get some semblance of normality I do a rescan every few days. Even this though still leaves dozens of anomalies.

Trev...

I'm inclined to look into the QNAP & its media server (UPnP) software (what is it ?? tWonkey, Asset, Minimserver ??)     The app is a dumb display & can only show what the NAS sends it.   My Synology can show new album art when its first uploaded,  but has been known to 'lose' it,  typically after a hibernation,  a rescan fixes it & it stays 100% fixed.   But if you are saying yours is OK after a rescan but then looses it again, then I'm 99% sure its the media server software on your NAS.  

I guess that's the problem with my system it never stays fixed.  Twonky is the only server I can use as the other 2 you mention don't display any artwork whatsoever in folder view other than the individual track you are playing.

What I don't get is why other apps are much slicker than naim's own. If I could combine their slickness and naim's visuals and functionality (if it worked) I could get very close to heaven. 

Thought 3 and a half k would have got me there but not yet unfortunately. 

tWonkey is not great,  (others have less polite opinions) A friend of mine had it pre installed when he bought his QNAP.  He was not a happy chappie until I persuaded him to move to Asset.  I don't understand why Asset won't  work for you,  so many forumites with QNAP use it & it's hard to find anyone with a bad word about it.

Yes, Twonky is a pile of crap. With a Qnap Asset is the one to go for. I never use folder view but have just checked and the folder view gives all the artwork, as one would expect. 

Thanks guys and thanks for checking.  I used twonky because it put the songs in the correct order in folder view and because of the artwork not appearing in the parent folders in asset. 

If this is fixed I will give it another go tomorrow and perhaps download the latest version for qnap and report back.

Once again thanks for your comment and support. 

Trev...

Given the lack of functionality that is being added to the Naim app for in Naim's words "legacy products" in my £7k NDS with £6k 555DR bought in 2016 and currently served by Asset UPnP server running a RaspberryPi 2 with Linear PSU operating in headless server mode on a stripped down Linux OS.

I am looking into establishing a Roon core on a NUC, though a dedicated OS called RoonOS, as a package called ROCK. This is to be provided at 'No Charge' once you are a Roon subscriber. And the hardware requirements are industry specification NUC devices readily available at sensible prices for an i3/i5 device. The OS is Linux derived but customised/stripped down to serve as just a headless server, with automated updates for all elements.

Thie Roon core reads, indexes, supplements with metadata and manages your music library from NAS or local disc. This will be used with a Roon to UPnP bridge running on a small $169 fanless server (£200 delivered). There is then a Roon iOS control app, which has the same functionality as the Win7/10 & MacOS versions I used already to manage my library, along with a toolkit of open source tools.

Roon have a comprehensive roadmap for their software and because they are not promoting their own hardware line, it is just about the software. This includes MQA decoding and advanced DSP features, including up to DSD256 upscaling/downscaling.

I have already stated to Naim, I don't see value in the £2k Core for existing systems with music libraries established on a NAS infrastructure, i.e., no local storage nor ripping requirements, just serving & Metadata enrichment. £2k is a very expensive Linux server with a Linear PSU & a CD drive. Plus the £ required for local storage, so £400 for the max 8TB disk. But they have no other offer for this purpose and their focus and direction is very much on the new product range, at the expense of their existing customers and installed product base.

Simon.

If replacing Twonky with Asset helps to solve your problem, great. There may also be issues that you could improve with your network configuration to make things a bit slicker. For starters, having a decent wireless access point (Airport Express works well for many people) but without knowing how your network is set up now, it's hard to say more on this.....

Hi all.

OK I've tested Asset 5.1 for qnap today and it is much better than when I tested it 6 months ago. 

It is better than before because:

1. Now It doesn't show the irritating @thumbs icon so in folder view.

2. The artwork is now all present and correct for each of the albums in folder view.

However: there is still no artwork in the parent folders so this is where twonky still wins. 

Looks like they have finally reacted to my feedback but not entirely. Such a shame as I can tell that it is also quicker than twonky.

Thank you guys for all your thoughts and input. 

Trev...

Check the 'Upstream Artwork' which populates some of the parent folders, from the Album level. If you need others than the default set there is a Conf file in the .dbpoweramp folder but this needs SSH access to the folder level on the NAS.

Simon

Hi Simon..I enjoy discovered that it is always the lowest level only of each folder set that contains artwork so for example:

U2 - no artwork

U2 - Joshua tree - artwork present.

However still within the U2 folder I have another folder with all my cd singles in. This again has no artwork but if I delve into this folder each cd single has artwork.

I'm just off out but will later try copying the artwork up a level and testablished a few folders I. Each creating a new image in the cd singles folder and one in the U2 folder to see what happens.

If this works then I will surely keep Asset as it will be worth the hassle of doing this for all 400 + folders.

Trev...

I

Yes, that what the 'UpStream Artwork' function should do.

I only Artwork for individual albums 

So all my U2 album with individual album artwork

And one 'upstream artwork' at the Artist level

plus we have been customizing the level about that with the icons in the 'AssetImages' folder

So it's all possible.

Simon

Hi Simon thank you for the tip. The upstream artwork box was checked by default. I tried in-checking and checking and re-scanning but I still get no artwork in the parent folders of the artists themselves.

I guess what asset need to do is upstream the artwork 2 levels.

Much of my artwork is embedded so I will have to use dbpoweramp to extract these covers and manually place them in the parent folders. This did work by the way. Just a shame I have to duplicate all the artwork to get to this stage.

I guess I'll request the 2 layer functionality at some point this this week. 

Thanks once again for taking the time and trouble to share screens hots etc.

Trev..

No problem - I do believe that Asset is the best 'non-equipment manufacturer' UPnP server out there - as I said I run it on a very stripped down RaspberryPi, as a headless server, so it stays separate from the NAS function which is in the Study. The RaspberryPi, and therefore Asset runs in my living room on a 'sub-network' just with the NDS on its own switch, with a NFS mount between the Pi and the NAS. I use the transcoding feature of Asset for PCM files, so FLAC, ALAC, AAC & MP3 are converted on the fly, so to speak, to WAV and then served to the NDS, so there is local store/forward in switches and then processing and caching in the Pi (the NFS mount has a rsize of 256KBytes), to ensure an error free packet stream.

It looks great in the Naim app with the customized icon set, that was developed and tweaked in one of the thread on this forum, by the members.

It is just a shame that the Naim app is not 'keeping its end up' with a poor UX experience on the homepage with the basic text lists of iRadio Presets and UPnP Playlists, and then the limited search functionality - we don't even get a search 'icon' once in the local storage menu, and the global search function ignores 3rd party UPnP served content.

I see no reason to pay the £2k for a UnitiCore, same as the UnitiServe before it - it is just a PC with a CD drive for Ripping and a HDD/SSD disk for local storage. These types of components/technologies are 'off-the-shelf', yes, you have to be proficient in building/managing your own serving infrastructure, power supplies, network of switches, NAS arrays (I have 4 - 3 in RAID1 & 1 JBOD, with scheduled rsync backups between them etc) but that's our interest because half the time it's similar to either what we do in work, or have done as a profession etc. Yes, it is not the 'plug-in & forget' arrangement for the mass-market, but please Naim don't penalise up for not being in the 'plug-in & forget' camp and leaving us without feature enhancements and developments, especially given that 'system builders' and 'tweakers' got Naim to the status in the HiFi industry it has today.

Simon.