UPNP vs USB

Posted by: LarsDK on 01 September 2018

hi all,

as i dont buy cds anymore, my nas music storage does not change. I was wondering how it would work if i simply copy the nas onto a usb ssd and plug directly into the streamer. It would cut out the network, unitiserve, nas etc from the chain so much simpler...

1) is this same, better or worse SQ?

2) does using it/ browsing etc happen precisely as with upnp and its possible to do playlists across tidal and usb? Any usability downsides, eg speed of lookup

3) any recommendations on large usb ssd and cable that are well suited for this?

many thanks

lars

Posted on: 02 September 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk
LarsDK posted:

Thanks all for the replies! Simon I am asking because I dont know myself. Was not aware of the noise problems you refer to, but that is good to know. 

Hi LarsDK, it is not so much a problem, but simply  a manifestation of how USB works that where there is just a single twisted pair  unbalanced pulses are used for signaling which will create small amounts of EM noise, and the USB interfacing tolerances are quite loose so as to keep costs low. 

Other than that USB has certain  similarities to Ethernet at the physical level.

Posted on: 03 September 2018 by LarsDK

Thanks for explaining Simon!

Posted on: 06 September 2018 by Granthar

The only draw back is the number of tracks it can access via USB.

Posted on: 06 September 2018 by nbpf
Granthar posted:

The only draw back is the number of tracks it can access via USB.

How many? Where does the limitation come from? I would expect the number of files which can be accessed to be determined by the file system of the drive. Everything else would be rather arbitrary and a bit silly, it seems to me.

Posted on: 06 September 2018 by LarsDK

I read 10000 songs somewhere and 25000 somewhere else, I hope its 20-25k. Dont know what drives the limitation