Naim DAC USB playback order

In my experience it seems to follow alphabetical order. There is an order. You can experiment with the file naming.

Bottom line it is not meant to be a mass volume music player. I am thinking of getting a dozen old small USB sticks to load a couple of albums each for listening.

Thanks JYOW.

Will try with naming in letters, not numbers.
It seems to have problems with numbers. Numbering from 01.wav to xx.wav causes the described "random" effect.
I do not try to use the DAC as mass volume music player, thats whats my squeezebox is for. But if you settle down on an quiet evening with a glass of single malt, the extra "goodness" the DAC is able to produce when fed via USB makes all the difference.

Regards,
Hannes

Could someone from Naim's technical staff provide guidance on how files should be saved or named to ensure correct order of playback ? Alphabetical ordering didn't work for me.

Thanks

Jan

This may be the answer.... is it possible they are playing them in the order in which the exist on the usb itself?

Try transferring them over to the USB in order, one at a time.

Out of curiosity? Why is everyone using USB sticks rather than digi output from the computer?

Using USB from PC [XP and iTunes] to DAC here, and I am left wondering why anyone would use SPIDF - either co-axial or optical!

Plug and play simplicity and superb quality. No one told me about this. I discovered it for myself by accident, and am delighted. Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply! Marvelous. {:¬)+<

When I get SBLs powered up again, any here will be welcome to come and try it out!

ATB from George

I have 10 songs on a usb stick. They are all mp3's I purchased from Amazon Music store. I have them named in this exact format order.
01 - Lebanese Blonde.mp3
02 - Mad About You.mp3
03 - Hurt.mp3
04 - Personal Jesus.mp3
etc.

They play in the numbered order. If I rename Lebanese Blonde.mp3 as 02 and Mad About You.mp3 as 01, the order changes appropriately.

I wouldn't think it would be different for .wav files but who knows?

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Plug and play simplicity and superb quality.... Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply!

Seconded ; perhaps the novelty will wear off, but for now it's a blast to just plug in and hear hi-res music. I'll never look at a USB stick the same way again!

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Using USB from PC [XP and iTunes] to DAC here, and I am left wondering why anyone would use SPIDF - either co-axial or optical!

Plug and play simplicity and superb quality. No one told me about this. I discovered it for myself by accident, and am delighted. Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply! Marvelous. {:¬)+<

When I get SBLs powered up again, any here will be welcome to come and try it out!

ATB from George

George,

I get that. I would like to do the same. Unfortunately you cannot use the Naim DAC in this way. USB is for sticks and iPods only.

quote:

Originally posted by TheThingFromTheFrog:
E.g. coping a riped album (the tracks are named 01.wav to 12.wav or similar) on a USB stick and plugging it into the DAC will not start playing 01.wav, but in a seemingly random order.

Are you sure about that? This naming convention works for me. My DAC plays songs prefixed with 01, 02 and so on in that order.

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Using USB from PC [XP and iTunes] to DAC here, and I am left wondering why anyone would use SPIDF - either co-axial or optical!

Plug and play simplicity and superb quality. No one told me about this. I discovered it for myself by accident, and am delighted. Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply! Marvelous. {:¬)+<

When I get SBLs powered up again, any here will be welcome to come and try it out!

ATB from George

George,

I get that. I would like to do the same. Unfortunately you cannot use the Naim DAC in this way. USB is for sticks and iPods only.

I think he meant : Problem solved by transferring files from PC to USB... George ?

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
This may be the answer.... is it possible they are playing them in the order in which the exist on the usb itself?

Try transferring them over to the USB in order, one at a time.

I tried copying six files in order, but playback gave me 6,5,1,2,3,4. A second try after erasing the stick gave me 6,1,2,3,4,5. (Perhaps third a try would have done it.) No correlation with time of writing to USB stick or with file size.

After experimenting with file numbering, prefixing track names with 01, 02, etc followed by a space gave reliable results (tested up to track 16 so far...). Without the space, the files seem to be read by order of the resulting number-letter sequence, so the space, or hyphen as Develyn suggested, matters.

Will explore further.

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
Out of curiosity? Why is everyone using USB sticks rather than digi output from the computer?

If you want to use your PC as a storage device only, and want to get rid of the complexity of operating systems, audio subsystems, spdif transmission, grounding issues, network issues, player software issues, software upgrade issues, smps noise and radiation issues plus want to listen high-res recordings while you keep your cd transport/player you like ----- there is no better solution than using USB sticks as a storage and a transport device. If you can get over the navigation primitivity and the inconvenience of copying, than there is no better or more economical solution. Think of it as a transport/source which can be powered from an XPS2 or 555PS for peanuts :-)

Probably because of the way how the Blackfin DSP handles the USB port it works much better in the Naim DAC as it works in the Uniti or in the HDX or in case of a PC/Mac. They are just average, but the way how the DAC handles the sticks is really exceptional. The DAC probably reads the data from the stick on a different way, using different burst reading and puffering than the HDX or Uniti or your PC/Mac does, layers of different buffering/interpretation mechanisms are left out in case of the Naim DAC which probably sends the data using the shortest path to the DAC chip, making the clocking is a breeze. I do not know, just thinking loud.

The Naim DAC with its wav reading capability from the USB memory is way ahead of its time, as I am sure there will be a new generation of high-end audio digital transports/players with memory card reading capability too.

quote:

Originally posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Using USB from PC [XP and iTunes] to DAC here, and I am left wondering why anyone would use SPIDF - either co-axial or optical!

Plug and play simplicity and superb quality. No one told me about this. I discovered it for myself by accident, and am delighted. Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply! Marvelous. {:¬)+<

When I get SBLs powered up again, any here will be welcome to come and try it out!

ATB from George

George,

I get that. I would like to do the same. Unfortunately you cannot use the Naim DAC in this way. USB is for sticks and iPods only.

I think he meant : Problem solved by transferring files from PC to USB... George ?

Sorry to cause comfusion. What I was trying to say us: to send the digital information from a PC output via USB cable to a DAC. This takes the internal sound card out of the equation I believe. I think that using USB memory sticks would be hopeless for me considering that I have about 25 days' worth of music stored in my iTunes folder!

Sorry to have been unclear.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

quote:

Originally posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Using USB from PC [XP and iTunes] to DAC here, and I am left wondering why anyone would use SPIDF - either co-axial or optical!

Plug and play simplicity and superb quality. No one told me about this. I discovered it for myself by accident, and am delighted. Problem of top quality replay in an economical source from PC solved so simply! Marvelous. {:¬)+<

When I get SBLs powered up again, any here will be welcome to come and try it out!

ATB from George

George,

I get that. I would like to do the same. Unfortunately you cannot use the Naim DAC in this way. USB is for sticks and iPods only.

I think he meant : Problem solved by transferring files from PC to USB... George ?

Sorry to cause comfusion. What I was trying to say us: to send the digital information from a PC output via USB cable to a DAC. This takes the internal sound card out of the equation I believe. I think that using USB memory sticks would be hopeless for me considering that I have about 25 days' worth of music stored in my iTunes folder!

Sorry to have been unclear.

ATB from George

So - have you actually done this with a Naim DAC? If so, can you provide more detail of how?

Definately not done with a Naim DAC. Only a little budget DAC come headphone amplifier, but one that sounded very fine feeding [via line out] a 552, new SNAXO, two 300s, and SL2s. A chance to fall over if ever, and it did not.

I suspect that with a DAC of the quality of the Naim one, then the USB route would make many perfectly normal PCs and MACs provided a USB input were fitted [to the Naim DAC] as fine a storage option as could be wished for. One might wonder why this is possible with a most budget sort of DAC, but not with a Naim DAC.

Sorry not to be able to confirm that the Naim DAC can do this!

ATB from George

The Naim DAC cannot be used as an "External Sound Card Type Device", as would be needed for it to play directly from a PC or MAC via USB.

Apparently they could not find a suitable way to incorporate the bits inside an M-audio Transit, or other converting device, into the DAC somewhere. Which is strange given its attention to the USB input and the Blackfin chip.

-patrick

Dear Patrick,

I bet the company will examine the possibility in time though!

It would be the solution to a great many customers' requirements! Given that I discovered this by accident, I have no problems saying how effective it is for wider understanding of what might be. No doubt this arrangement could take in "Hi-res" in time as well, though nothing beyond Redbook concerns me.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
Apparently they could not find a suitable way to incorporate the bits inside an M-audio Transit, or other converting device, into the DAC somewhere. Which is strange given its attention to the USB input and the Blackfin chip.

Although the lack of USB input on the DAC has been discussed to death, I do find it bizarre if 'lack of room' is indeed the reason why the DAC arrived sans USB line input....Especially, as you say Patrick, Naim has given the connection attention enough to justify TWO USB ports....!

Cue DAC.2, in 'roomy' reference sized casework, with said USB input/facility....to be released just when enough folk have purchased the current DAC......!

Does make you wonder, for £2k, why the DAC went in a 5 series casework...

Steve.