What use is UPnP?

Dear DQ,

I managed my first efforts with iTunes as an experiement - completely solo - on my last PC, which was a fairly noisy tower, but I quietened it down a bit by removing the ambiant fan, and leaving the one side off! Probably not a recommendable method!! I did this without any asistance, and was up and running in not much longer than it took for the free download, and rip half a dozen CDs. At this stage it was a complete experiment. I used the on-board soundcard, which was definitely the Achilles Heal as far as quality was concerned. At the time I had a Lavry DAC, but this had no USB compatibility, and the PC no co-axial SPIDF output. So I sold the Lavry, and bought a budget USB DAC, which was surprisingly fine, and still doing sterling service today.

If I were to attempt an upgrade it would be with a more up to date USB DAC now, such as the [roughly £350] halide, which incorporates some of the latest thinking on jitter reduction and async USB impementation as a plug and play device for any modern PC or MAC.

What scares me about UPnP on a budget [rather than the sorted streaming systems from Naim [or Linn], which no doubt really are plug and play with only minimal necessary "how to" advice], is things like sorting out IP addresses and a seeming miriad of settings for reliable use. No doubt it is a learnign curve that would eventually educate me in the ways of computers far more than my rudimentary abilities now!

It is a choice, and this choice may be made for many reasons - not the least being from the position one already is in.

But when I read here of much brighter people than myself struggling with it all, then I think I made the right choice for me. But it is a choice quite rarely advocated here, probably because Naim schemes are either one box like the HDX, or completely sorted out UPnP systems. Probably I should be looking on some audio computer forum for help, but apart from a friend building my new PC and making very helpful suggestions, I have found that I have succeeded largely by actually just doing it myself. And if a computer numpty like me can do it, then it cannot be that hard!

ATB from George

The ideal solution for me would be an entirely self-contained one-box system incorporating a hard drive or solid state storage. Seems strange to me that such solutions appear virtually non-existant. From Naim the closest things are the Unity family, but they have no internal hard drives. The HDX has a hard drive, but no amplification.

In fact the machine that comes closest appears to be the Brennan, but that doesn't have an on-board tuner and I don't know how good its amplification is.  The other thing is that to my mind any machine incorporating internal storage should have the facility to attach an external monitor so that the stored library can be browsed comfortably. Again, as far as I'm aware, such machines do not exist.

I can only hope that with the passage of time more and cheaper solutions will become available. In the great scheme of things we are still very much in the Jurassic Period of digital (computer) replay.

Peter

Dear Peter,

I think that this digital streaming/computer audio thing has come up so quickly that it has caught the designers off the pace.

In a while, perhaps within a year, then economically priced high quality totally integrated compact units will appear as it is obviously the way forward for many people. In a sense I would advocate - for compactness' sake - using an external USB drive to rip CDs, and agree with you that there should be a provision to plug in a suitably large computer monitor. I find those little screens on the current machines, completely useless in trying to search for the desired music.

Using a conventional keyboard and a monitor makes the search easy to manage, but these things could be optionally plugged in or not according to the needs of the individual user. For example I hate touch screens!

Once we get to integrated machines then issues of how it is managed [UPnP, or whatever] become a thing of the past for the operator/end user, who will not need to be acquainted with the system to use it. Just as with a CD player the user does not need to understand the transport control systems to use the player perfectly well ...

ATB from George

Dear George,

I think (and hope) that you are right about the introduction of totally integrated units.

We seem to be at a curious halfway-house stage where it is still largely necessary to buy music on CD in order to convert it to digital file format. As you pointed out, even if one lacks the facility to play CD's directly on the hi-fi these still need to be retained as the ultimate back-up.

In a strange kind of way I'm glad that my spending power is severely limited at present, as I have the feeling that any of today's shiny new digital toys will quickly become tomorrow's worthless junk - about as much use as a Sony Betamax videocasette recorder. Such is the incredibly rapid progress in digital technology. If I had the kind of money to invest in hi-fi that I did a few years back then I doubt that I'd be able to resist the purchase of a Unitiqute right now, despite my serious resevations about streaming!

On the other hand, for those that have the money to spare the question is how long to wait before making a serious comittment to digital file replay, whether via a computer or a dedicated piece of hi-fi equipment. Your own implementation seems to have been incredibly successful for you and at a price which doesn't involve spending ruinous sums of money. I think you have got the balance just about right. You are able to enjoy the benefits of hard disc replay now, but should the technology change significantly in a few years time you will be able to update your set up to something at least as good without needing to hold up a bank! And you have all the digital files ready for any future system.

It will be interesting to see what Naim are selling in a few years from now for digital replay.......

Best wishes,

Peter

Dear Peter,

Interesting times, indeed!

And like you, the budget did not allow for expensive equipment. If I had had the money I would have bought a CD 5x player and had done with it, but even a second-hand CD 3.5 was beyond me, so I got the Lavry [which was a mistake] for a good price without realising properly how it could connect with a PC as I never really considered this option at the start. The Lavry was at least as much a headphone amp as a DAC in my case!

Initially I used it with a very modest Sony SACD/CD player bought second hand for £50 that had SPIDF out as co-ax. But the transport was on the blinkus, so I started considering making my computer work harder for its bread! Glad I was short of money so that the biggest mistake was only the Lavry, which though good quality was not suitably connective for my ancient PC.

Then I discovered USB, which I prefer in most situations to co-ax, as you don't meed a great and expensive soundcard to get good results. And if you fit a good sound card to a computer, and then replace the computer later, you cannot be sure that the motherboard slots will remain standard allowing further use to be made of the sound card. They have been changing over the last few years I think it is correct to say.

ATB from George

An iPod or equivalent Sony device possibly with some speakers with built in amplification (possibly some digital speakers with a built in DAC) 

Can an iPod drive SBLs, nSats, Kans, or ESLs? If not then an iPod probably will not do.

ATB from George

True 

Interestingly, i do both a direct connection to my PC (Chord toslink) as well as UPNP.  Unfortunately for this discussion I cannot comment on SQ deltas as I only use UPNP for remote streaming.

I use a direct connection in my Naim kit at home for a few reasons:

1) I use my HDTV for a Display and I am not going to run HDMI cable all over the house

2) I don't have a streamer and the ones I have tried aren't gapless with J River.

2.5) I wont spend more than the cost of a nice PC on a streamer

My new PC, as of a few weeks ago, is super quiet and smaller than a Mini (in volume), so I have zero issues with it hanging out nearby my Naim gear.  FYI, in case you are wondering, I bought an ASRock CoreHT 252B - i5, Sandy Bridge, 4GB RAM.  It is totally kicking ass.  Built in IR is sweet.  It is extremely quiet and will be even quieter once I slap an SSD in that puppy.  My external Seagate HD is louder than the PC.

Why do I like and use UPNP?  For streaming music to a computer or iOS device when away from home. I can stream ALL of my content, including videos and pics, to my iOS devices.  I have JRiver set-up to transcode on the fly to 320 kbps mp3.  It works wonderfully. 

The best thing here is that concurrently I can:

- Have someone can be playing something at home on my Naim gear

- Stream something different to my iPhone on the road

- My GF can steam whatever she wants to her iPhone at work

I can easily send out more streams than I could use.  All of which can be playing different streams and/or media.  It is really sweet.

I guess I do use UPNP at home a little bit.  I have a few PC speaker set-ups that I tether my old iPhone 3G to.  I use this for the back yard when barbequing etc.  In this scenario I tap into my "Full FLAC" server.  Of course, hires is not supported on the iOS devices but given what I am playing into in these circumstances I dont care.

I realize that this is probably not of interest to you.  But there is really no other way to do it for me.  My days of converting things and syncing up my iOS device are over.

Cheers!

Patrick

Dear Patrick,

No post of yours lacks interest for me! I cannot always claim to have fully understood your words, but that is my problem! But above you are easily understood by me. Basically it is horses for courses ...

Have a look in the Music Room. A plenitude of great music making brought to this place while I am away for a few weeks, just sorting out different internet arrangements - nothing to worry about!

I have a cycling weeking [unless it rains in which case only a beer weekend] coming in a few days, so the old Carlton will be excercised by a friend while I struggle along on the ancient three speed [Sturmey Archey hub] Elwick! Well it good to do penance sometimes, and the Carlton will be washed of my taken for granted view after that!

Best wishes to you all for now, and see you towards the middle or end of May!

ATB from George

Nice post Pat.  

IME, UPnP also just works.  Multiple rooms, people and devices.  And via on-the-fly transcoding, multiple formats (FLAC to WAV, FLAC to MP3).   

It is an elegant architecture, and not a big surprise that it just works.  The UPnP Forum is up to almost a thousand member companies, and these open standards have been evolving since 1999.

The other nice thing about UPnP is that it is not mutually exclusive of other technologies.  I also use AirPlay.  From the same iPad that runs n-Stream, I will use Rhapsody and YouTube, and send their audio output to an Airport Express (which is connected to my DAC with an OptiChord).

Hook

To me also, UPnP has been a very simple, "clean" and elegant solution:

- storage of files on a central server with UPnP media server natively installed (Qnap/TwonkyMedia)

- streaming via wireless to a Naim unit, using a router that I have had all along.

Why bother with PC replay, given all the parameters to implement and all the possible impacts on sound quality if something is missed...

Using UPnP, I never had to worry about PC soundcard, digital versus USB connections, DAC questions, fan noise level, which media player to use, clocking vs re-clocking, jitter and other debates like that.

Using UPnP, either you do not get the signal and there is no sound, or you get it and the sound quality is there.

In my case I never had problems of connectivity, UPnP worked out of the box and the promise was fulfilled from day one.

UPnP on a Vortexbox just works too. 

It is a little bit more complex than just using a Mac Mini because you need to set up a network, but if you have a home network then it is not hard at all. 

The advantage of UPnP is it can stream to multiple things at the same time. 

Apple's DAAP is more or less the same, but thankfully I think we'll end up with one standard rather than many as seems usual in the computing world. Is UPnP perfect - no certainly not - but does it work adequately and with lots of things - yes. 

There is no best way - just a few ways to play computer audio and all can work well. 

Please forgive my ignorance everyone, but I'm very confused.

Does UPnP require internet connectivity, or is it something that just works over a local network? For example, if I bought a UQ and it was configured to stream from a NAS, would it still work if I was disconnected from the internet? Also, with iPhone apps etc. again, once set up to control a device, is continued internet connectivity necessary for the application to work?

Sorry if these questions seem daft, but it's something I simply haven't been involved in so I'm very much in the dark.

Peter

DQ,

Many thanks for that - it was something that I hadn't quite managed to grasp.

Cheers,

Peter

Yup.  It is fairly easy for App devs to incorporate Airplay.  The JRemote will have it in its next update.  Plugplayer can do it now.  In this case those wanting Airplay can have the best of both worlds.  They can stream multiple streams to different devices AND send something to an ATV or AE, or Airplay enabled Naim player

-Patrick

Right, but to be fair you did have to drop some serious cash on a player....  assuming you are using a Naim device.

I would also really consider moving to a non-computer digital output if I could retain my HDTV interface and, most importantly, gapless playback.

I have tried MANY ways of getting the audio to my DAC with no meaningful differences.  Right now I am using the mobo toslink output from my new PC.  I can find any differences from the Juli@ other than the mobo doesn't support 88.2 which i have VERY few of.  JRiver takes care of that by bumping any 88.2 up to 96.

I am considering trying a SB Touch again to see if it betters the mobo.  I am going to give my new PC a month or so then try the Touch again.  After a few extended demos of my Juli@ vs Touch (with and without a computer in the room), I couldn't tell them apart.  If the Touch=Mobo, I will probably ignore a renderer for a little longer.

$2500 for a Qute is simply too much for me.  I would like to demo one though.

Cheers!

Patrick

I bought a NaimUniti (demo), starting the system from scratch. Gapless got implemented in the Naim applications and firmware, so that is taken care of.

Serious cash? Yes that is how it feels when buying...then you have to bring the car to the garage, fill the tank, pay the insurance bill, go to the supermarket and it goes on and on and never stops... Then finally comes the moment to complete the tax return for the year and send extra payment to the Treasury (Just did that yesterday: now this was actually serious cash!)

In your case, I think we can fairly say that you enjoy PC replay and have developed an expertise in this area. Even though you are using "cheap" hardware and more or less free software, in reality you probably have "paid" the system with weeks and months of your time: testing, learning, experimenting.  So at this point, after investing all this time and implementing the perfect PC based solution, why should you now decide to spend your money for an alternate approach that brings you the same sound quality? In the process you would also deprive yourself from the fun you are having with the PC? This would make no sense...

For me if I had to start again, I know it would be "cheaper" to simply buy a UnitiServe and a SuperUniti and not bother with any research on the ripping/tagging/streaming/playing and so on.  As there was no UnitiServe a couple of years ago, I had to got through the software research and learn some of the subtleties around the ripping and tagging. It was fun, cost me no money, but I think I could have spent my time in a more productive manner. Now at this point, am I going to buy a UnitiServe when I can use EAC for free? No way. 

I wouldn't be totally changing my approach.  I would simply be trying to upgrade my digital output with a Qute or QuteLite (without amps).  I have been told by a few, including peeps here, that a Qute, solely as a digital source, is unlikely to better the Juli@.

I would still like to try it out though.

In the event I get something, whether it be a Qute or a Touch, I will continue to use JRiver as my server and player.  It is so powerful and amazing it is indispensable.  At the very most I would move my PC to the office and send HDMI back through the wall for my display.

I would still control with JRemote but simply send along to the Qute "Zone"

If you have a PC you must try it out.

Cheers!

Patrick

FWIW I use an SBT as the network interface for an SPDIF DAC Kit I built for fun and use in a second system. This is not a mickey mouse DAC but has excellent performance potential. For that reason I evaluated the relative quality of the SBT SPDIF vs a Uniti and a Linn Sneaky DS ( Both about 1K in price).

I could hear no real performance benefit from either of the more expensive streamers over the SBT. The SBT has been doing a great job for a while now and is great VFM in my opinion. The Logitech software is solid and their i-device / Android UPnP control point works well.

Geoff