Unity Atom: 20k tracks limitation

I would either call Naim or get your dealer to talk to them.

Presumably it does some indexing of the USB device which has a fixed limit? Alternatively connect the hard drive as a NAS?

DiscoVolante posted:

 ...connect the hard drive as a NAS?

I would guess that this will allow browsing of an unlimited number of files? To try it, you could connect the USB drive to a computer, run a UPnP server on it, and see if that allows all the files to be displayed. 

Before making any assumptions, though, I would take your USB drive to a dealer and ask them to let you demo an Atom with it, just to find out whether or not this is an absolute limit.

Thanks for all the answers so far. As suggested above, I contacted Naim about this, and they were incredibly fast to respond. According to their reply, the 20k limit is there "because indexing the database past this point leads to sub-par performance", and they pointed to the Core or a dedicated UPnP server to circumvent this limit (it's only when the Atom has to act as a server itself, that the limit comes into play). I was actually hoping to keep things very simple by avoiding another piece of hardware (the Core or a server), but it looks like that's not an option. My wireless router supports UPnP and has a USB hard drive (with a backup copy of all the music) already hooked up to it. Maybe I'll explore this route.

Personally, I would not buy a Core to feed an Atom. For only a bit more cash, you could buy a Nova and a basic NAS. 

pipet posted:

I'm really interested in the new Unity Atom. The only fly in the ointment seems to be  - as far as I gather from the available information - that there is a  limit of 20,000 tracks, when I connect e.g. an external hard drive to one of the USB ports. Since I have slightly over 20k titles (not growing much anymore, though), and this limit seems rather arbitrary, I was wondering, if this number of maximum tracks can somehow be increased (or lifted) through a (hidden?) setting. Or would this require a firmware update?

If that is a true limitation it would be quite disappointing when the target audience is likely to have large music libraries.  I suspect the same might apply to the Nova and Star - suspect it relates to resources of the hardware in the devices, which in this day and age you'd like to think could be more versatile but I guess we may be talking about specific low noise components that work for the device, whereas more powerful off the shelf components might be detrimental to SQ - then again perhaps not....

<quote>If that is a true limitation it would be quite disappointing when the target audience is likely to have large music libraries</quote>

As far as I understand from Naim's reply to my inquiry, this limitation is only in effect, when e.g. an external hard drive is connected to the Atom. When the music is served by a UPnP device, this doesn't seem to be an issue. I would have liked to keep things simple, though, and not bother with an additional UPnP device.

On a side note, it would be perfect, if the Atom could accommodate an internal SDD...

pipet posted:

<quote>If that is a true limitation it would be quite disappointing when the target audience is likely to have large music libraries</quote>

As far as I understand from Naim's reply to my inquiry, this limitation is only in effect, when e.g. an external hard drive is connected to the Atom. When the music is served by a UPnP device, this doesn't seem to be an issue. I would have liked to keep things simple, though, and not bother with an additional UPnP device.

On a side note, it would be perfect, if the Atom could accommodate an internal SDD...

I've considered just having an external myself especially as ethernet connection seems to affect sound quality implying directly connected devices may reduce this.  Good to know the UPnP system is more scalable.

As far as an internal SSD goes there'd be no reason why the directly connected device limit would be any different fro an internally connected device as far as I can see, but yes might be nice.