Hello. I’m new to Naim products so just starting the journey! Sorry for posting a new thread as I’m sure this sort of thing has been asked before but have searched for a while and couldn’t find all the answers. I was intending to mainly us CDs for playback but having discovered the ease of Apple airplay have been streaming quite a bit of music from my iPad. I was going to rip a couple of CDs into the Uniti unit itself as had assumed it had its own hard drive. Now I know I need to connect a USB drive it’s juts started me thinking about where to go next
I have most of my music of CD but have ripped it into iTunes over the years and listen via by iPod or iPad quite a lot. Therefore most of my digital stuff is at AAC at 256kbs (ripped CDs or iTunes purchases) plus the odd mp3 at 320kbs when bought from Hmv/7 digital etc. Anything I do then needs to continue to work with all my Apple stuff
I still intend to use CD on my HIFI mainly but wondering if ripping my top 10/20 favourite CDs in Apple lossless and streaming via my iPad will still be worth it. I guess it’s got to be better than the 256/320 AAC/MP3 stuff currently on my iPad / iPod and it would save me buying yet another bit of kit (although a USB won’t cost too much). In terms of quality have read / got confused with lots on the net but my basic understanding is the following in terms of best to poorest sound quality
Best
24 bit WAV digital files from sites like bleep.com
CD
Ripping CDs into WAV via Naim unit to USB drive
Ripping CDs via iTunes in Apple lossless and streaming via iPad / Airplay
Streaming 320kbs MPS via iPad / Airplay
Streaming 256kbs MP3 / AAC via iPad / Airplay
Worst
Apologies again as I’m sure this sort of thing has been asked many times before. Appreciate any help. One final question - read that WAV files don’t hold any data/album art. Is this only if rip via iTunes? Assume if I rip cd into Naim / USB it will find the necessary track name / artwork?
Posted on: 27 August 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk
You do need to be careful with Airplay as not all Airplay devices can operate at 44.1kHz sample rate but instead operate at 48kHz so I understand. This will add low level digital noise (artefacts) to CD play back... probably not noticeable on low to mid end .. but will certainly on higher end.
if you are ripping CDs to play from Naim streamers you are best to use a UPnP/DLNA media server such as Asset, ReadyDLNA, Minimserver etc.
USB memory stick clearly work but are often not always that practical unless for occasional or temporary playback.
in your list you have a mixture of lossy and lossless formats... clearly the latter are prefereable as audio info has not been discarded, and with Naim many feel WAV sounds the best as that is possibly the format optimised for max SQ when decoded/unpacked.
Posted on: 27 August 2018 by ChrisSU
Hi NJH, which Naim streamer do you have? Presumably one of the new models, but the answer to your questions might depend on which one.
In your position I would aim to have a single music library that you can access from all devices, and most importantly, rip to a lossless format. I prefer FLAC, but you can also use WAV, AIFF or ALAC. The only limitation is that FLAC is not fully supported by Apple, although this may be about to change, so for now, AIFF or ALAC is probably what I’d choose.
If you run a UPnP server on your computer, or on another device on your network, it will find these files and your Naim streamer will play them. The same files can be made to work with iTunes too.
Posted on: 27 August 2018 by NickSeattle
For maximum compatibility across all platforms, I rip all to AIFF. ITunes will down-convert to AAC if you want to use smaller files on your iPhone/iPad. Until recently, iTunes did not support FLAC. WAV presents metadata issues I would rather not deal with. ALAC is not universally supported.
I recommend using lossless files on a thumb drive as a reference — it should sound as good as it gets. Then tune your music server setup until it sounds as good. There are more ways a network system can go wrong, in subtle ways; but most issues are easily addressed.
Nick
