UnitiServe.... Really?

We've had this discussion recently: https://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/202200-unitiserve

Hi Zipperhead, since you ask we may as well indulge your curiosity.

From my personal point of view the U-Serve achieves all the things that I wish a ripper/storer/server to achieve with no fuss or faff and in one box.

One very important criteria for me from the outset was that I did not want to turn on a pc to listen to my music, the thought of having to fire up a pc just to hear my music seemed to me, wrong. It represents both an emotional feeling and a general mental attitude. In addition, the thought of fiddling with tagging and getting all tense over what bit rate to rip files to, asking the fickle Forum which ripping engine is best, (because I-Tunes is apparently not up to the task according to many audiophiles). Downloading various third party softwares, spending wasted hours considering tedious options for this, that and the other, leaves me very, very cold.

Then when you have done all this faff, or 'wasted time' it's back to the Forum to then get confirmation from the Forum that what you have done is superb and gives you the very best SQ, only to be told that, No! you have just gone and ripped all your music in a good, but not good enough way, and the server software you are running on your NAS is pants (Wonky Twonky). And now you are going to spend the rest of the evening all tensed up not talking to your partner or kids because you are chasing your tale trying to change stupid tick boxes on your ripping engine software or downloading another server software to replace the one that you have spent a million hours trying to configure to achieve the best SQ possible so that the Forum will praise thee.

Time: this is very important to me and I have better things to do with it than worry about tedious things which has already been taken care of for me. Naim have resolved all these issues by spending an awful lot of R&D producing the U-Serve, what you are trying to achieve exists! Don't waste your time trying to attain the one goal than you probably want achieve anyway, and if you do you will have 'wasted' valuable time not spent with others.

Ultimately, if you are a misanthrope, do not buy the U-Serve.

As far as the SQ from the U-Serve is concerned, you can be guaranteed from the outset, that it will serve up excellent sounding audio files. How this compares to other NAS/Server combinations I don't know and I don't care either...because I don't need to care. The U-Serve has taken all that lost time and tenseness out of my hands. I don't need to return to the fickle Forum to seek justification for any one choice that I have taken in an attempt to get audio nirvana. Just like other products in the Naim range, one can relax and listen to music with the knowledge that Naim have provided a top class 'audio' optimised piece of kit. It seems to me that those who make negative comments about the U-Serve seek justification for their own non U-Serve choice.

So as far as the SQ compares over say a Mac Mini based ripper/server solution of Nas/Asset set up...we don't know and those that own a U-Serve don't need to know. Leaving one to sit back and enjoy the music.

If you are interested, there is one article that I know of, and which has been posted on the Forum a few times, which attempts to asses the SQ from a U-Serve.

(http://www.enjoythemusic.com/h...audio_networking.htm).

Some people keep calling for some kind of comparison and/or SQ assessment, the type which the article attempts to achieve, but it does not seem to meet their very particular requirements for an assessment. Like I say, its only a real 'concern' for those that don't use a U-Serve.

Their is one particular Forum member who says that he has heard a difference in SQ of the same audio file fed from different servers. And there are some people who claim to hear a difference between FLAC and WAV, personally I can’t.

I think the first question one needs to ask is; What motivates you to listen to your music?

If its computers, then by all means rip, tag, tick, faff, Flac.

If its music, then by all means buy the bloody U-Serve.

If you can achieve your motivation for listening to music by the method you have chosen, then you should be happy, but if you have achieved your motivation for listening to music by the method you have chosen and are not happy, then don't criticise other peoples motivations, because they probably differ.

Jason.

Jason, that must have taken ages to write, but beautifully said! I'm still waiting for my Serve after five weeks; it had jolly well better be good. 

And the Nserve app is the icing on the cake. Pulls everything together, easily usable by nearly anyone, and integrating Internet radio too!!!

It is a superbly thought out solution which takes out as much of the 'tech angst' as possible, leaving the music to shine.

I agree too.   Ripping is fuss free. But for me that was a nice-to-have. What I wanted was an always-on transporter to serve up music to my Naim Dac, which it does perfectly.   No regrets at all about getting it. 

Vortexbox (free download) on a silent mini PC...does the job for around £250. And it will output via USB so no crappy SPDIF to worry about.  Auto ripping & album art .....and mirroring of files if you want 

Jason, you are now (by unanimous vote) president of the UnitiServe Appreciation Society. The key will follow in the mail, but for the secret handshake, we'll have to videoconference. 

"Live long and serve"

Jan

(very well written BTW)

It's possible to ignore the forums without getting an U/S - or just by knowing what you're doing as well. There's no need to turn on a computer to listen to music if you're using a NAS or an always-on music server somewhere in the house (my case). While typing this, I'm ripping a CD with no fuss or boxes to tick.

I'm just saying that there's more than one way to achieve fuss-free streamed audio, and surprisingly you don't even have to be a misanthrope or be justifying your choice - that would make as much sense as my saying that those that defend the U/S are trying to justify their purchase.

It should be OK to not like a product concept without one's motives being called into question, wouldn't you say?

Besides, it would take less time to setup a proper ripping engine than what it took to write that post. Or this post, for that matter. 

I sometimes wonder if those who need a Naim server least (due to their advanced computer skills) wouldn't appreciate its brilliant execution the most, in extended use.

I have a fairly satisfactory Squeezebox Touch / Mac Mini setup; I like the way it sounds and works, especially with Spotify Premium.  I tried an HDX for a while and liked it, too -- especially the interfaces.  The last day I had it, I put a PL between it and the wall -- analog straight into the NAC -- and was really impressed with the beautiful sound.  

Still, I am a hobbiest, who likes to try all of the latest things, and the Naim servers are a little too "bolted-down" for me right now --  yet, that is also their strength.  

Priced right, for the right customer, and very desirable, IMHO.

Nick

I've understood so little of the above that a UnityServe must be right for me.

Chris

I just wonder what poeple, who currently use Naim server products, will do, when they decide that they want to use something else than Naim.

Have you ever thought about the fact that Naim is using a propriatary filing system with no tags attched to the files themselves? If you ever want to use your files in a 'normal' setup you will have to retag everything. Have fun!!!

Crappy SPDIF ? Strange I would use SPDIF where you can and fall back to USB when you have to. SPDIF was specifically developed and is optimum for the task in hand, and usually has less side effects and less sensitive to boutique cables than USB (in my expierience). The only interface that I would use over SPDIF is I2S, but that is not standardised at the external interface level.

Simon

Pink Hamster has a point. now there is nothing at all wrong with the US but you are tieing yourself into Naim's proprietary meta data management world. The thought of potentially re ripping thousands of CDs to re collect the meta data if I ever moved from a Naim upnp server filled me with dread and I decided not to purchase a US.

Now if Naim wrote the metadata into the WAV file at ripping stage as well as using its proprietary management system then that would be a different story. It is a shame as the WAV standard specifically allows you to do this, and of course there is the 'unofficial' ID3 extension as well.

Simon

One small contribution here.  I think the latest firmware - assuming it is ever released :-) - will allow you to use US to rip into FLAC format. So if you are worried about future portability to a non-Naim server then that may address it.

I have a US and have not regretted the purchase for a second.  As others have pointed out there are ways of getting to the same end for a lot less money, but if you want a product that works very well, requires a minimum of computer / network knowledge, with very good support, and you can justify the expenditure to yourself, then I would not hesitate to buy one. 

I am sure that a few searches on google will find a wav to flac batch converter checking for metadata if I at a time goes streaming. Many people    view the servers from Naim as very expensive ripping solutions wich is true, but they have evolved into streamers and internet radio players also. Look at this forum and see how many upnp problems people are having and how few Naim upnp problems that are reported. But of course if you by a Server and a streamer you could as well go for other pc based sollutions.

You may not like the metadata handling but that is true for other upnp solutions as well.

One problem maybe the biggest is the life expectency of a server basicly a pc, and the availability of spare parts in the future. This is probably worse than the problems stocking cd drives. Another limitting factor is  the resources at Naim for software development,  and the choices Naim decides, but that is true for all Naim products. Unlike many other software companies Naim tries to release functioning software upgrades not well tested betas. The 555 reference Dac I have designed in my mind will have async USB like V1 so you can get all serveces you like, maybe even bluetooth, instead of wireless.

Claus

Simon,

USB is fundamentally less prone to jitter /timing issues over the interface; this is because the timing of the data flow is determined by the receiving unit rather than the sender.  SPDIF requires that the clock be generated at the transmitting end, and then the clock signal must be embedded into the single wire, and then stripped out and reconstituted on the receiving end-this process is very difficult to do accurately, and the typical SPDIF receivers used in most DACs do not do a very good job of it.  An Async USB DAC has the clock onboard, and it can be very close to the DAC chip, powered by a good clean supply. 

I just use UServe as a ripper. I move the files out of UServe immediately out of the store and put them into another volume of the NAS (a Synology DS412+), which I rename the files in my own naming and categorizing conventions.

I use the Synology media server to distribute music to my various streaming device at home.

The auto-tagging of UServe is simply unreliable, especially when I have loads of Asian recordings which simply UServe can't handle and this won't change. I am used to wav files with no album art attached since when iTunes introduced cd ripping so it doesn't really matter for me at all not using the server features.

Jo, no not really, I think you are possibly confusing transport clock with sample clock. Both methods, SPDIF, and aasynchronous USB  usually use a method of the receiver identifying its nearest sample clock from the transport clock. The receiver can either use a set of fixed receiver sample clocks that it best selects or some receivers such as Naim can match an unusual transport clock  to a synthesized sample clock. This allows a wide range of synchronisation option, without this the DAC/receiver wouldn't  be able to sync with a slightly off transport clock.

I think another source of confusion is that very early  on in the history of consumer DACs and SPDIF adoption receivers had tiny buffers, and precision clocks were more expensive to provide, so jitter in the transport clock could more likely show up in the sample sample clock having to more frequently adjust (sample jitter), but in the last 15 plus years technology has hugely improved and costs reduced such that this side effect is largely obsolete for SPDIF and USB.

But the bottom line transport clocks and sample clocks are different albeit inter related , and certainly with SPDIF the sample frames are sent with different spaces of time between them, depending where they are in the frame sequence. I'd expect asynchronous USB to be similar. Effectively asynchronous USB mimics the function of the SPDIF on a point to point setup, where as synchronous USB is more like mimicking half duplex Ethernet.

The differences between SPDIF and USB largely comes from the physical differences and the greater propensity for reflections and EM coupling with the USB lead / plug / connector. The 75 ohm connector and plug as used by Naim and others in ProSPDIF (AES/EBU) uses either a precision BNC or the latter has an option of a balanced XLR connector.

Simon

Recently I performed a rather revealing test. My theory was that although files may be identical, the Unitiserve should sound better as it is a dedicated Music Server.

The set up: Compaq Presario laptop running Asset, music used was Algiers by Calexico, 24-bit 88.2k Wav files downloaded via hdtracks.com Serve with the exact same files stored via external HDD connected via USB. Playback through UPNP on a UnitiLite.

Within the first few seconds of playing 'epic' I could already tell that the Serve sonically decimated the Compaq. The timing was all there, the band were playing together, and the baseline was actually distinguishable. I put all of this down to the fact that the Serve uses passive cooling and doesn't have to do anything other that distribute music, no other running tasks taking up processor time.

This proved to me that the Serve is more than just hassle free ripping.