Introducing ND5XS SSD

Posted by: Stefan Vogt on 15 September 2012

Dear all,

I made an interesting discovery: I just connected a Samsung SSD-drive to the USB input of the ND5XS - and this sounds great!

 

Isn't this wonderful? Fairly large storage (quite affordable 256 or 512 GB SSDs are around), and this with zero network hassle!

 

So far, I used my iPodClassic, which is limited to 160 GB. Also, Steve Hopkins mentioned that he would expect the sound quality from an iPod to be not quite as good as that from a NAS drive - not sure why, and where a USB stick (or my USB-SSD) would sit there?

 

Any comments welcome!

Best,

Stefan

Posted on: 02 October 2012 by Bart
Originally Posted by Jon Myles:
Originally Posted by garyi:

Try downloading the album image from google at no more than 300px x 300px. rename it 'folder.jpg' and put it in the relevant album folder.

 

You might need to refresh the cache in nstream.

I've tried this many times and it never works for me.

No idea why.

Jon, something is amiss, as this should work and does work for me. 

 

Happy to try to help,

 

Bart

Posted on: 02 October 2012 by Russ

Stefan: Please forgive this as slightly off topic, but when I first became interested in a Naim system, I posted the question why anyone would choose the Unitiserve in SSD as opposed to the HDD.  My thinking was that it is better to have the hard drives built in rather than pay extra for a NAS.  However, my thinking as evolved to the point where I suppose that if one gets past the threshold question of whether a Unitiserve is worth the extra money, there is a good argument to made that if one has to replace a hard drive that has exploded like a Klingon ship with its shields down---it would be better to replace one in a $500.00 unit than in one 7 times that price.

 

But I'm sorry--what is Ama?

 

Best regards,

 

Russ

Posted on: 03 October 2012 by Stefan Vogt

Hi Russ,

I meant the famous online dealer, - you do not have to go anywhere near as far (!) as the river with the same name.

Best,

Stefan

Posted on: 03 October 2012 by Jon Myles
Originally Posted by Bart:
Originally Posted by Jon Myles:
Originally Posted by garyi:

Try downloading the album image from google at no more than 300px x 300px. rename it 'folder.jpg' and put it in the relevant album folder.

 

You might need to refresh the cache in nstream.

I've tried this many times and it never works for me.

No idea why.

Jon, something is amiss, as this should work and does work for me. 

 

Happy to try to help,

 

Bart

Hi Bart,

 

Many thanks. What I do is download an album image as .jpg (at less than 300x300), rename it as folder.jpg and then place it in the folder containing the music files. The artwork never shows up on nStream.

I feel I must be missing a step here somewhere.

Any help gratefully received.

 

Jon

Posted on: 03 October 2012 by Stefan Vogt

Hi again,

I have just compared Tierney Sutton Band:

a) from CD5XS with ext. PSU

b) ND5XS SSD (AIFF rip via iTunes/Mac)

No difference to my ears - both breathtaking!

On the artwork, I am with Thorsten: if I do not get it to show in n-stream, this is a very minor imperfection, well worth accepting for the beautiful simplicity of the SSD solution. Mind you: artwork is not shown on the ND5XS display anyway, and I happen to prefer using this display, along with the standard naim remote, over n-stream in everyday usage.

Cheers,

Stefan

Posted on: 03 October 2012 by Russ

Gotcha, Stefan.  Thanks.