Uniti Star suitable usb drives

Hi DJ, I recently hooked up an oldish 1TB Lacie drive to USB on my Atom.  It's about 5 years old.  I just had it kicking around so I formatted it and copied everything from my NAS to it, so the Atom would have a local copy.   It's powered from the mains, usb to the back port.  I believe I've heard that it is easier on the streamer if you don't depend on its internal power. I think I've got about the same amount of music as you.  The Atom DLNA server shares it out.  Browsing from my TV or Ruko, it seams just as fast as my QNAP.  Sorry, don't have a Mu-so to try.

Interesting - i did read in the Naim Nova e manual that too large a USB drive is not good. Or is the Star somehow different ...

I use a Seagate 4 Tb usb Drive For back up

Thanks very useful. I too read that large drives could be a problem because of speed of access. So it’s good to hear your experience. I found this reply from Phil Harris of Naim. He seems to indicate that large music stores could be problem.

Atom, Star and Nova can all support locally attached USB mass storage devices (USB attached hard discs and USB memory sticks) with Star and Nova also able to take SD Cards in a rear panel slot too. They are able to scan and index music from those devices and play it.
Atom, Star and Nova also have built in UPnP servers so the music that is on a locally attached USB mass storage device (or SD Card) would also be made available to other UPnP clients on the network via their built in UPnP servers.
Star is additionally able to rip to a locally attached USB mass storage device or SD Card so as it has its own UPnP server then the music that it has ripped to local storage will also be available to other network devices via its UPnP server.
As Atom, Star and Nova are not designed to handle the large music libraries that Core is then they do not have support for scanning and accessing network folders.

Hi,

I own a Uniti Star and I'm interested at the topic.

So, if I understand well, is better to connect a powered HDD instead of a self-powered USB drive?

According to you, for the best sound quality, is better to connect the Star wired to a UPnP server (NAS, PC, etc. with music library) or as a "standalone" streamer with the library connected to the USB port?

Thanks a lot,

seems logical to use a drive with its own supply .  theres enough circuits powered internally, plus you can place smp unit away from your system  

I read on the Naim held docs that star could scan network drives, even shows you how.  It doesn't work properly as the options suggested are not initially shown, you have to "pop out" of the app (by that I mean app switching on an android phone) then back to the same menu and all the options are shown.  It lists network shares once you give the right access account details but doesn't do anything after that.

"As Atom, Star and Nova are not designed to handle the large music libraries that Core is then they do not have support for scanning and accessing network folders."

What is considered large?  Considering getting a 128gb SD card and importing my music to my Star.  The music store locally has extra meta data against the album's and artists along with better searching of local music.

Can anyone tell the difference between a usb drive, SD card and a uPnP Nas (using Asset to force stream all as WAV at present)

I am using an old (but not that old) SanDisc 128GB USB stick. Iths USB 2.0 but my Star after initial formatting of it happily rip cd's to it and then plays them.

Hi - I have attached to my Uniti Star a WD MyPassport 4TB self-powered USB hard drive, ripped CDs, imported and played FLAC files. So far so good, drive is small and silent, access to encoded files on the server has almost no latency, so everything is fine, I guess.

Great to here Your Uniti Star is working as it should.

Justin_Clark posted:

I read on the Naim held docs that star could scan network drives, even shows you how.  It doesn't work properly as the options suggested are not initially shown, you have to "pop out" of the app (by that I mean app switching on an android phone) then back to the same menu and all the options are shown.  It lists network shares once you give the right access account details but doesn't do anything after that.

"As Atom, Star and Nova are not designed to handle the large music libraries that Core is then they do not have support for scanning and accessing network folders."

What is considered large?  Considering getting a 128gb SD card and importing my music to my Star.  The music store locally has extra meta data against the album's and artists along with better searching of local music.

Can anyone tell the difference between a usb drive, SD card and a uPnP Nas (using Asset to force stream all as WAV at present)

 

 

Hi Justin

Did you make any decision on the differences between a USB drive, SD card and UPNP Nas drive. I currently use my new Nova and 250dr with Tidal CD quality wifi streaming plus I am setting up a QNAP Nad for wifi streaming. I am not keen on going down the Ethernet wired approach because of the cost and disturbance of installation and, to me, confusion over the different types of cables. If I could get near similar sound quality from a usb drive I would be tempted to buy a WD Passport or similar drive

Bob

Hi, I use a small SD card, which I rip to and that sounds great playing the flac rips.  I then back up/move those files over to a qnap Nas and use asset to stream back as WAV to the Star, cannot hear anything different/better, both doing great.  I just lose out on the extra tagging on the music file Naim added to the music store when it rips to itself.

If you are looking to stream hi-res dsd files then you are better off with an ethernet connection than WiFi.  I use some powerline adapters from tp-link (av1300) which are very fast and i get no problems with streaming anything.

Justin

Thanks for your advice and suggestions. I haven’t dipped my toe in the HD waters yet and I’m not sure if I would hear much difference with the Nova

i have heard mixed reports about PL adapters so good news on your choice- I also think the new platform works better on Wi-fi than the previous one used in the Uniti range 

Bob

Shropshire Hills posted:

i have heard mixed reports about PL adapters so good news on your choice- I also think the new platform works better on Wi-fi than the previous one used in the Uniti range 

The new Unitis have 802.11ac WiFi, which should be better than the old streamers running n or g. My Atom is certainly a big improvement on WiFi, although I still give it a proper wired Ethernet connection. 

To test for sound quality degradation from Powerline adapters, I would buy a cheap long Cat5e cable and try that with the PLs turned off and listen for any differences. Also you could try Simon’s suggestion of a LW radio to listen for electrical noise. 

I don't understand why people would think there could be any degradation in sound if using a powerline Vs straight cat5e cabling to a switch or Vs WiFi.  The data is 1/0's ... The only difference you could ever hear is if the music stops as the buffer runs out and streaming gets interrupted.  Only if the uPnP messes with the stream prior to sending or the unit down mixing the stream if the bandwidth drops could anything change the quality.

You word docs doesn't get less colours or text if you open the file from a network share via WiFi or ethernet.... Correct me if you know/think better because I am intrigued to know

In the real world there are no such things as ones and zeroes traveling down wires. Instead there are electrical fields in the conductors that create analogue voltage levels, which are interpreted as ones and zeroes at imperfectly defined times. Suddenly there is a lot of room for mischief.

All of the limitations of digital audio are actually analogue limitations. There are no infinitely steep waveform edges. There is no clock signal that is perfectly uniform, either in time or amplitude. There are no perfect converters between the two domains, yet all audio signals both start and end in the analogue domain.

I don’t think anybody is suggesting that ones and zeroes don’t arrive correctly at your streamer when using Powerlines. Where they can cause sound quality degradation is through the high levels of RF noise they necessarily generate, which can easily affect analogue electronics.