Dipping toes into the NAS (world) with no clue and getting rid of the CD player

Duncan Mann posted:

Resurrection posted:

Yes, Kanye West is not necessarily my favourite person or music streaming service owner. Interestingly,  you can now buy 2TB flash drives, albeit for about £1,300 but I think I would trust the portability and flexibility of one of those than a single NAS. Obviously having more than one NAS on your network would work adequately. 

My goodness, Resurrection - you're brave! I've lost so many USB flash drives over the years, I would be terrified to take it out of the house/streamer USB socket!

I'm wrestling with the NAS backup problem currently, having just acquired a new QNAP NAS to run as a Roon Core. The QNAP expansion units are ideal as a backup solution, but eye waveringly expensive for what they are. Think I'll end up getting another low powered NAS to act as a backup solution.

My local music is stored on my PC, my Mac, a half terabyte Seagate backup drive and now on Google Drive so am feeling quite safe. A NAS can give you a false sense of security. 

Was just interested in the volume of music you can now store and port on a flash drive. 2 TB is quite a lot.  

Innocent Bystander posted:

Resurrection posted:

Yes, Kanye West is not necessarily my favourite person or music streaming service owner. 

Who?

Apologies, Jay Z owns Tidal and both he and Kanye West are far from being my cup of tea in any sphere of life.

ChrisSU posted:

I’m sure there is a dealer near you that sells Innuos, so it would be easy to check out. My experience of music storage devices, either off the shelf products like the Core and Innuos Zen, or NAS drives, is that if there is any difference in sound quality at all, it is quite subtle. I was thinking more of the ease of use of a product that does everything from riping to editing, storage and serving music files, without the need to ever fire up a computer or instal a piece of software  

A Zen Mini costs £699. A Naim Core costs £2k and has a smaller set of features. I would go for the Zen. 

Hi Chris,

I have just been looking at the Innuos Zen MK.II although i was looking at the Mini to start with,  very interesting bits of kit indeed...Actually, come to think of it I don't think my dealer had one in the store to show me.

Funny enough my dealer (last week) kept on mentioning and rating a device called a Bluesound NODE 2?  but then still reassured me that the Naim streamers are easily the best sounding.

I take it one would still need a dedicated streamer to pair up with the Innuos and the whole point being that one would eliminate the laptop & NAS in one go?

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

Stephen Tate posted:

"I take it one would still need a dedicated streamer to pair up with the Innuos and the whole point being that one would eliminate the laptop & NAS in one go?"

Yes, the Innuos Zen or Zen mini contain hard disks onto which your CDs would be ripped. They would replace not only your Laptop & NAS (including Asset) , but also dbPoweramp because along with their propriety music server they have a built in CD player and ripping software. You would still need a 'streamer' to play the music stored on the device.   

However, you appear to be already successfully ripping your CDs to your NAS, so rather than paying more money up front and going down what might be a totally unnecessary and expensive route, why not wait until you get your streamer up and running - can your dealer not lend you a Naim streamer on trial? If the Naim Streamer/App works perfectly with your current NAS setup, there is no need to spend more money on the Innuos. If not, then you could give the Innuos (or other similar device) a go.

If you do decide to buy an Innuos, make sure you purchase one that has a large enough hard drive to accommodate your current and future CD collection. Also check with your dealer that you would be able to load hi-res files onto the device.

You will still need to have a backup drive - the same issues relating to NAS drive or motherboard failure on a NAS will also apply to the Innuous. I guess that you could use your existing QNAP NAS as your backup device should you go with the Innuous. 

Stephen Tate posted:

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

IYou should not have to pay in order to use Asset on your NAS. How did you obtain the Asset software, and where have you installed it? It should be installed on your NAS, and not on your laptop. I use minimserver server (in essence much the same as Asset) which was available as a free piece of software on my Synology NAS along with an alternative Synology server that I don't like quite as much as minimserver. When I got my NAS, I simply chose the installation option for minimserver to get it installed on my NAS & up and running. 

I am pretty sure that Asset will come as a free Installation package option on your QNAP NAS. Perhaps a QNAP/Asset user can confirm this? 

Hmack posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

"I take it one would still need a dedicated streamer to pair up with the Innuos and the whole point being that one would eliminate the laptop & NAS in one go?"

Yes, the Innuos Zen or Zen mini contain hard disks onto which your CDs would be ripped. They would replace not only your Laptop & NAS (including Asset) , but also dbPoweramp because along with their propriety music server they have a built in CD player and ripping software. You would still need a 'streamer' to play the music stored on the device.   

However, you appear to be already successfully ripping your CDs to your NAS, so rather than paying more money up front and going down what might be a totally unnecessary and expensive route, why not wait until you get your streamer up and running - can your dealer not lend you a Naim streamer on trial? If the Naim Streamer/App works perfectly with your current NAS setup, there is no need to spend more money on the Innuos. If not, then you could give the Innuos (or other similar device) a go.

If you do decide to buy an Innuos, make sure you purchase one that has a large enough hard drive to accommodate your current and future CD collection. Also check with your dealer that you would be able to load hi-res files onto the device.

You will still need to have a backup drive - the same issues relating to NAS drive or motherboard failure on a NAS will also apply to the Innuous. I guess that you could use your existing QNAP NAS as your backup device should you go with the Innuous. 

Brilliant!

Thanks Hmack, totally understood.

Yes, I am going to see if my dealer will let me trial a Naim streamer. I have gotten used to dBpoweramp now and i'm starting to get my head around the QNAP's operating system with which I have already purchased and I am now feeling my way around Asset too. All I need now is a Naim streamer!

Feeling much more confident now!

Many thanks

The Core and the Innuos are really simple ways of ripping and storing the music, but with less flexibility than the Qnap, and at a higher price. As you are now set on the Naim streamer the logical thing to do it to keep ripping the albums with dB poweramp. Let the streamer arrive and see how you get on with Asset. If you still find ripping a pain with the computer and Qnap, that’s the time to investigate whether a Core or something else is worth paying out for. 

Remember too that if you have a Core or a Zen, when you start buying downloads you will still need to download to the computer, adjust the metadata and copy to the storage. So the ease of the Core etc is only really relevant for ripping CDs. Once they are all ripped you don’t need the functionality. 

Remember too when you visited - we downloaded an album from Qobuz, edited the metadata with dbpoweramp, copied it to the Qnap and had it playing, all within about two minutes. You too can get to that point. 

Hmack posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

IYou should not have to pay in order to use Asset on your NAS. How did you obtain the Asset software, and where have you installed it? It should be installed on your NAS, and not on your laptop. I use minimserver server (in essence much the same as Asset) which was available as a free piece of software on my Synology NAS along with an alternative Synology server that I don't like quite as much as minimserver. When I got my NAS, I simply chose the installation option for minimserver to get it installed on my NAS & up and running. 

I am pretty sure that Asset will come as a free Installation package option on your QNAP NAS. Perhaps a QNAP/Asset user can confirm this? 

Hi Hmack,

I think it was so I could have a control point on the laptop. Richard (aka Trickie Dickie) of this forum loaded it onto my laptop. I can see that there is an Asset tile on my QNAP interface. Maybe I would have to purchase the Asset App if I was to continue using it on the laptop?

I f so, then I won't bother purchasing it seeing as though it's  already loaded onto the QNAP.

Again, many thanks!

Hmack posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

IYou should not have to pay in order to use Asset on your NAS. How did you obtain the Asset software, and where have you installed it? It should be installed on your NAS, and not on your laptop. I use minimserver server (in essence much the same as Asset) which was available as a free piece of software on my Synology NAS along with an alternative Synology server that I don't like quite as much as minimserver. When I got my NAS, I simply chose the installation option for minimserver to get it installed on my NAS & up and running. 

I am pretty sure that Asset will come as a free Installation package option on your QNAP NAS. Perhaps a QNAP/Asset user can confirm this? 

For full features you need to pay for Asset. With Minim, though it’s free, it’s only right to make a donation to the developer, so there is little difference really. Once you have paid for Asset you get updates for free. There may be a deal for buying Asset and dbpoweramp together, as they are both made by the same people. 

When you get your streamer up and running, you should have no need to interact with Asset at all. It will simply be running on your NAS in the background to make your music collection available to your streamer. 

You will use your Naim app (preferably on an IOS device such as an ipad) to browse and play your music collection via the Naim streamer (assuming you go with a Naim streamer). The Asset server software running on your NAS will simply be anonymously 'presenting' your available music collection in the background to your streamer. Simply switch on your streamer in the morning and use the free Naim app installed on your IOS or Android device to browse and play your music.  

Hungryhalibut posted:

The Core and the Innuos are really simple ways of ripping and storing the music, but with less flexibility than the Qnap, and at a higher price. As you are now set on the Naim streamer the logical thing to do it to keep ripping the albums with dB poweramp. Let the streamer arrive and see how you get on with Asset. If you still find ripping a pain with the computer and Qnap, that’s the time to investigate whether a Core or something else is worth paying out for. 

Remember too that if you have a Core or a Zen, when you start buying downloads you will still need to download to the computer, adjust the metadata and copy to the storage. So the ease of the Core etc is only really relevant for ripping CDs. Once they are all ripped you don’t need the functionality. 

Remember too when you visited - we downloaded an album from Qobuz, edited the metadata with dbpoweramp, copied it to the Qnap and had it playing, all within about two minutes. You too can get to that point. 

Yep, I'm hearing what you're saying now Nigel!

I'm now so glad I have stuck to the original plan. I'm now starting to see the light and I thought your setup was rather elegant indeed. Sounded fantastic!

Hmack posted:

When you get your streamer up and running, you should have no need to interact with Asset at all. It will simply be running on your NAS in the background to make your music collection available to your streamer. 

You will use your Naim app (preferably on an IOS device such as an ipad) to browse and play your music collection via the Naim streamer (assuming you go with a Naim streamer). The Asset server software running on your NAS will simply be anonymously 'presenting' your available music collection in the background to your streamer. Simply switch on your streamer in the morning and use the free Naim app installed on your IOS or Android device to browse and play your music.  

That’s what we were doing when Stephen visited. I also showed him how it was possible to access Asset from the iPad so that the browse tree can be amended without the need to go anywhere near the computer. This enables you to tweak how the music is presented in the Naim App really easily. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Hmack posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

IYou should not have to pay in order to use Asset on your NAS. How did you obtain the Asset software, and where have you installed it? It should be installed on your NAS, and not on your laptop. I use minimserver server (in essence much the same as Asset) which was available as a free piece of software on my Synology NAS along with an alternative Synology server that I don't like quite as much as minimserver. When I got my NAS, I simply chose the installation option for minimserver to get it installed on my NAS & up and running. 

I am pretty sure that Asset will come as a free Installation package option on your QNAP NAS. Perhaps a QNAP/Asset user can confirm this? 

For full features you need to pay for Asset. With Minim, though it’s free, it’s only right to make a donation to the developer, so there is little difference really. Once you have paid for Asset you get updates for free. There may be a deal for buying Asset and dbpoweramp together, as they are both made by the same people. 

Looks like a no-brainer to go ahead and purchase it then Nigel, it's no big deal, it seems cheap enough. I'll purchase it nearer the time.

Thanks

Stephen Tate posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

The Core and the Innuos are really simple ways of ripping and storing the music, but with less flexibility than the Qnap, and at a higher price. As you are now set on the Naim streamer the logical thing to do it to keep ripping the albums with dB poweramp. Let the streamer arrive and see how you get on with Asset. If you still find ripping a pain with the computer and Qnap, that’s the time to investigate whether a Core or something else is worth paying out for. 

Remember too that if you have a Core or a Zen, when you start buying downloads you will still need to download to the computer, adjust the metadata and copy to the storage. So the ease of the Core etc is only really relevant for ripping CDs. Once they are all ripped you don’t need the functionality. 

Remember too when you visited - we downloaded an album from Qobuz, edited the metadata with dbpoweramp, copied it to the Qnap and had it playing, all within about two minutes. You too can get to that point. 

Yep, I'm hearing what you're saying now Nigel!

I'm now so glad I have stuck to the original plan. I'm now starting to see the light and I thought your setup was rather elegant indeed. Sounded fantastic!

Good. I’m not saying that the Qnap is better than the Core or a Melco or an Innuos or anything else. It’s simply that decisions should be made logically. If once you have the streamer you think that a dedicated server would be a good idea then that’s fine, and you will know exactly what you are getting for the extra money. When I started streaming I was far too scared to get a Nas - I didn’t even know what it was, nor a switch. And I thought that you changed the file names to change how the files appeared on the Naim app. I had no idea what metadata was. Totally clueless! But with help from some lovely people on here, some head scratching and the power of google, I bumbled my way to where I am now. So think to yourself that you are doing really well, and what you have learned in a short time, rather than what you don’t know. Remember that people here will always help. Once you are around I will come to see you. I rather like the idea of borrowing an ND5xs for a couple of days so that we can have it all up and running. At least then you will know that your hard work has paid off, to see it all working. 

Stephen Tate posted:

I take it one would still need a dedicated streamer to pair up with the Innuos and the whole point being that one would eliminate the laptop & NAS in one go?

I described what it does when I mentioned Innuos in a couple of my much earlier posts, though I named the Zenith rather than Zen as it is the one about which I have read favourable assessments compared to Melco. Others did suggest the cheaper Zen and possibly Zen Mini.

These Innuos devices are essentially  equivalent to my Mac Mini: a combined store/renderer, which can either connect direct to a DAC with usb input, the Innuos doing the rendering (great if you want to have the freedom to select DAC separately from the playing side, for wider choice of DAC or for possible future upgrade), or alternatively it can stream via a network to a streamer like  the forthcoming ND5XS-2.

Had you gone for that instead of a NAS, you could have started playing through your current DAC (if I remember correctly that it has a usb input), however you chose to go down the NAS route. That money, time and effort would be wasted if you simply got shot of the NAS,  although maybe not the time if you had were to get an Innuos before losing the NAS, as you could copy the ripped files across, But as suggested, if you can afford to keep the NAS as well, it could usefully keep your backups.

However, you did visit HH and were impressed with what he demonstrated, and it was on the strength of that that you committed to a NAS - and that is a perfectly reasonable way to store your music, as probably the majority do. The sensible thing at this stage would be to await an opportunity to take up his offer to visit you and he;p sort things out, and in the meantime just forget about it. As for the software on teh NAS, I'm not sure what you're trying to do with it. You are successfully ripping with dBPoweramy. Hopefully after the advice already given you can now easily find where rips go. If I understand correctly you can copy to the NAS - what on earth do you want to do with them on the NAS? Until you have a streamer, there is nothing to do - just leave them be. And if you can't copy to the NAS, or yoy feel something is wrong with that, wait until HH can visit, or your dealer, or as has been suggested get the dealer to allow you to do a home audition of ND5XS - he was trying to persuade you to buy one at one point.

And, please try to stop panicking! At least, that is the way your frequent despairing posts come across...

Hungryhalibut posted:

Hmack posted:

When you get your streamer up and running, you should have no need to interact with Asset at all. It will simply be running on your NAS in the background to make your music collection available to your streamer. 

You will use your Naim app (preferably on an IOS device such as an ipad) to browse and play your music collection via the Naim streamer (assuming you go with a Naim streamer). The Asset server software running on your NAS will simply be anonymously 'presenting' your available music collection in the background to your streamer. Simply switch on your streamer in the morning and use the free Naim app installed on your IOS or Android device to browse and play your music.  

That’s what we were doing when Stephen visited. I also showed him how it was possible to access Asset from the iPad so that the browse tree can be amended without the need to go anywhere near the computer. This enables you to tweak how the music is presented in the Naim App really easily. 

If you can access Asset from the iPad, even better. I find that I rarely have to change the folder structure on my NAS because I can live with the quirks of classical music categorisation. Most of my music collection is non classical.

However, the ability is probably a pre-requisite for anyone with a large classical music collection.

Just about the only time I ever need to interact with minimServer on my system is to initiate a re-scan of my music collection whenever I add a new batch of records. A bit quirky to do with minimServer and I deliberately didn't go into details. Hopefully it's a little easier using Asset & you can point the way for Stephen.    

Hungryhalibut posted:

Stephen Tate posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

The Core and the Innuos are really simple ways of ripping and storing the music, but with less flexibility than the Qnap, and at a higher price. As you are now set on the Naim streamer the logical thing to do it to keep ripping the albums with dB poweramp. Let the streamer arrive and see how you get on with Asset. If you still find ripping a pain with the computer and Qnap, that’s the time to investigate whether a Core or something else is worth paying out for. 

Remember too that if you have a Core or a Zen, when you start buying downloads you will still need to download to the computer, adjust the metadata and copy to the storage. So the ease of the Core etc is only really relevant for ripping CDs. Once they are all ripped you don’t need the functionality. 

Remember too when you visited - we downloaded an album from Qobuz, edited the metadata with dbpoweramp, copied it to the Qnap and had it playing, all within about two minutes. You too can get to that point. 

Yep, I'm hearing what you're saying now Nigel!

I'm now so glad I have stuck to the original plan. I'm now starting to see the light and I thought your setup was rather elegant indeed. Sounded fantastic!

Good. I’m not saying that the Qnap is better than the Core or a Melco or an Innuos or anything else. It’s simply that decisions should be made logically. If once you have the streamer you think that a dedicated server would be a good idea then that’s fine, and you will know exactly what you are getting for the extra money. When I started streaming I was far too scared to get a Nas - I didn’t even know what it was, nor a switch. And I thought that you changed the file names to change how the files appeared on the Naim app. I had no idea what metadata was. Totally clueless! But with help from some lovely people on here, some head scratching and the power of google, I bumbled my way to where I am now. So think to yourself that you are doing really well, and what you have learned in a short time, rather than what you don’t know. Remember that people here will always help. Once you are around I will come to see you. I rather like the idea of borrowing an ND5xs for a couple of days so that we can have it all up and running. At least then you will know that your hard work has paid off, to see it all working. 

Absolutely Nigel. I really enjoyed my visit to yours, seeing and most importantly hearing first hand how it can be done. With which I thought, that's it, that's what I want, exactly that.

Feeling miles better today, thanks all!

Hmack posted:

Just about the only time I ever need to interact with minimServer on my system is to initiate a re-scan of my music collection whenever I add a new batch of records. A bit quirky to do with minimServer and I deliberately didn't go into details. Hopefully it's a little easier using Asset & you can point the way for Stephen.    

I have just tried a rescan on Asset (for the sake of it) - it was as simple as to go to the Asset main home page and click - Rescan - then this came up - Rescanning entire library...

Innocent Bystander posted:

 

And, please try to stop panicking! At least, that is the way your frequent despairing posts come across...

 

Well, I do apologise for this. I have suffered from panic attacks and anxiety problems all my life. I was on medication from the doctor for around thirty years and then decided to stop my medication and deal with it myself. I have done so with healthy eating, plenty of exercise and mental stimulation!

Sometimes things do still get the better of me, being in an unknown situation can easily spark it off!!

None of us are perfect and I will at least try to be more positive in my posting. Thank you for my reality check, IB.

Stephen, dealing with that on you own - MUCH RESPECT - that's very hard to do.
I'm sure we can all wish you well with your ongoing coping strategies.

I'm so pleased Nigel has offered to come to your aid, he's a really nice guy, I very much enjoyed meeting him.
I hope that goes a long way to helping you settle.

Stephen Tate posted:

At the moment i'm just using Asset's 'free trial' App. I'm assuming that when this free trial is close to it's expiry date I will be sent a reminder with a link asking for a purchase or not?

I have just been playing around with Asset, it seems easy enough to understand and get used to. Now I have made my mind up with the Naim streamer (hurry up Naim ) it would seed obvious to me to just go ahead and purchase the Asset App anyway?

the new nd5xs2 will perhaps not arrive until several months, i heard that the nd555 will be first to come.    A good dealer would normally borrow you a streamer in the waiting, as you have given him an account for the new streamer.

Stephen Tate posted:

ChrisSU posted:

I’m sure there is a dealer near you that sells Innuos, so it would be easy to check out. My experience of music storage devices, either off the shelf products like the Core and Innuos Zen, or NAS drives, is that if there is any difference in sound quality at all, it is quite subtle. I was thinking more of the ease of use of a product that does everything from riping to editing, storage and serving music files, without the need to ever fire up a computer or instal a piece of software  

A Zen Mini costs £699. A Naim Core costs £2k and has a smaller set of features. I would go for the Zen. 

Hi Chris,

I have just been looking at the Innuos Zen MK.II although i was looking at the Mini to start with,  very interesting bits of kit indeed...Actually, come to think of it I don't think my dealer had one in the store to show me.

Funny enough my dealer (last week) kept on mentioning and rating a device called a Bluesound NODE 2?  but then still reassured me that the Naim streamers are easily the best sounding.

I take it one would still need a dedicated streamer to pair up with the Innuos and the whole point being that one would eliminate the laptop & NAS in one go?

The Zen devices can be used as a NAS into a streamer. They can also be used straight into a separate DAC, giving you access to your own CD rips, Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Roon and iRadio without the need for a streamer. This would work with the DAC you already own, which of course you could upgrade, perhaps to a Naim V1, a Chord DAC, or something else. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Remember too that if you have a Core or a Zen, when you start buying downloads you will still need to download to the computer, adjust the metadata and copy to the storage. So the ease of the Core etc is only really relevant for ripping CDs. Once they are all ripped you don’t need the functionality  

The Zen (unlike the Core) allows you to download directly to it and edit the downloads, no computer required. Given that it has web streaming built in too, I think it is questionable whether you then need a streamer, when you could spend the money on a standalone DAC, potentially giving you better sound quality for your budget. The Naim approach is, of course, a little different, but I think it’s good to keep an open mind on how to build a digital front end. 

Stephen Tate posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

 

And, please try to stop panicking! At least, that is the way your frequent despairing posts come across...

 

Well, I do apologise for this. I have suffered from panic attacks and anxiety problems all my life. I was on medication from the doctor for around thirty years and then decided to stop my medication and deal with it myself. I have done so with healthy eating, plenty of exercise and mental stimulation!

Sometimes things do still get the better of me, being in an unknown situation can easily spark it off!!

None of us are perfect and I will at least try to be more positive in my posting. Thank you for my reality check, IB.

I apologise if I may have hit a raw nerve with my comment, and I sympathise with any difficulty you may have in keeping on top of it. At the other end some of us find it very wearying when trying to make suggestions only to have your posts flit between one extreme of enthusiasm and thrrowing it all away, but actually that is less important than you maintaing your own sense of balance and perspective.

I know this is easy for me to say and may not be easy to implement, and I hope you will take it in the positive way intended: at any stage when it is going wrong take a step back, go and have a walk or other exercise, trying to forget about this whole thing. After that  maybe play some music the old way, and then reflect on the fact that it is only just another approach to hifi, something to enjoy, and recognise the progress you have made, and the help on offer, and consider whether that really does mean you want to chuck it all in and stick with CD - if you do then all well and good, but if not just take a breather, and then try again, if necessary asking here for further assistance.