Streaming from iMac

You really need to take advantage of the Uniti's streaming capability using either an iPhone or iPad to control playback. It will literally change you life.... well... your music listening life at least.

Here is what you need...

- A UPNP (Universal Plug and Play) program... you download this and install it on your mac. I use Servio (free download) as my "Go to" upnp server, and elyric music manager as my back up. Both are free downloads.

- You will need to either hardwire an ethernet cable from your router into your Uniti (best option... especially if you will be streaming hi bit rate music), or stream wirelessly over the air (acceptable for CD or 320 kb music... but may slow down your wireless network for web surfing).

- Install the "N-Stream" app on your iPad or iPhone. N-Stream is a free app, created by Naim, available on the Apple App Store.

Once all this is done, you will be able to change inputs on your Uniti using the N-Stream app, select music from your music stored on your computer to play on your Uniti, create custom playlists, etc.

It's really not that difficult to set up... just read your manual, download the apps, and you will be good to go. Without enabling this feature, you are really missing out on the best aspect of your Uniti product.

Good luck!

Another thought... if you are having a hard time grasping the benefit of streaming, just visit your local Naim dealer and have them do an in store demo of the Uniti Streaming capability. Once you see it in action.. you will get it.

They may even be able to walk you through how to set it up, and if you are really IT shy... I bet you could pay them to come to your home and get it set up for you.

Thanks for your advice. I notice there was another post soon after mine from 'glasgowbernado' asking much the same question and so I've been reading that thread too. My wife Kate and I both have iPhones and iPads and we have been using N-Stream. On the iPhone the GUI has a representation of the handset control- but our iPads don't - the apps appearance is much more basic. The iPhone also shows the duration of CD tracks but the iPad doesn't. Is there a setting we need to change on the iPads? Also, when playing CDs, there's no artist,track name or cover art. Does that only feature when streaming from a upnp device?   btw we bought the system in UK and now live in NSW. Our nearest Naim dealer is 600km away and, since we didn't buy from him, I feel a bit guilty about asking for advice. Thanks again for your time.

Narooma - you need a UPnP server running to use nStream. For the Mac the simplest is to google Yazsoft Playback and download this to run on your Mac. This is an excellent UPnP server which will integrate with and serve your iTunes library to the Unitilite. When i had a Naim streamer, this is what i used and it worked very well. 

James

Hi James, thanks for that. N-Stream does work in the limited way that I described in my last post. Our Telstra router appears in the list of upnp devices as a media server. It would appear to have some limited capability to store music/movies etc. I will explore Playback and Servio. Thanks again.

Martyn

Thanks again for advice. installed Yazsoft Playback on the old iMac and was streaming music to the Unitilite in less than a minute, was worried it would be more difficult than that!

I can already see the argument for a separate NAS.... when the iMac goes to sleep it disappears from the network.

Unfortunately our iTunes music library is all AAC and the difference between that and CDs is astonishing on the Uniti. We will have a new iMac in a couple of weeks and will probably get a NAS at the same time. Is ripping from the Mac to a NAS in ALAC good enough?

ALAC is okay, though I find AIFF to be better.

The whole ripping format thing is a real can of worms.  You will find plenty of comments and opinions on it on the forum.  In theory there should be no difference between ALAC and uncompressed AIFF, WAV, etc.  But ...

FWIW my advice would be try ripping a couple of CDs in ALAC first, listen to them, then repeat using AIFF (with no compression) and see which you prefer.

I would definitely recommend you do the NAS thing rather than have server software running on your iMac.  More reliable in my expereince and as you have noticed you don't need the iMac on the whole time.

This is all very helpful thank you. Just been reading up about AIFF. Since I've now decided to use a NAS, there's no need to compress - (the new iMac will only have 1TB and space could become an issue). So, AIFF seems logical. Is there a particular piece of software that is favoured on the forum for ripping from iMac?

thanks again guys

Good stuff - glad Playback worked for you. I use XLD for ripping but i still use a Mac to run iTunes for library management. For this i run a headless mac mini with my music stored on a NAS. All is controlled remotely by the iTunes Remote app on my iPad or iPhone and other Macs in the household can share the library via iTunes sharing. 

James

And I thought of moving in opposite direction (... having seen London recently)

From my own experience, James offers excellent advice here.

We have a substantial number of Apple devices in this household, so anything we do has to be compatible with both Naim & Apple.  Others have different priorities, so have chosen other paths which works equally well for them.

So, for a Naim & Apple household, the following seems to work very well, if you choose not to buy a Naim Unitiserve:

Synology NAS drive

An Apple imac or mac mini with cd & DVD drive (either built in, the Apple superdrive or another make of decent external disc drive)

XLD software for ripping the CDs on to your NAS drive

I use a Naim DAC-V1 DAC, so use itunes + the Bitperfect app to play music.

However, if you prefer to stream to your unitilite (which makes sense), then Playback on your mac works perfectly well.  You can also use the DSM software on the Synology NAS drive if you prefer, though the user interface may be a bit clunky.

When ripping CDs to the NAS drive, there is much debate about which codec to use. If you are in a Naim & Apple household, then ALAC and AIFF are the 2 that are easiest for all your Naim & Apple devices.  In theory, they should sound the same, as the data is identical.  

However, the extra processing required to de-compress the ALAC file seems to (somehow) make a difference in perceived quality of replay to some people, though not to all.  It made a difference to Agricola and to me on our systems. AIFF seems to deliver either the same or better perceived quality as ALAC.  As it costs no more than ALAC, it seems like a no brainer to go with AIFF.

For more excellent tips and advice, I would commend a search for posts by Guido Fawkes and Simon-in-Suffolk.  These extremely knowledgeable gentlemen were kind enough to share a little of their wisdom, enough to get me up and running.

Hope this helps, FT

Great thanks .... though we are getting to the point where I'm having to read the posts twice to understand them!

New iMac ordered this morning with external SuperDrive, needed to buy this anyway because the old one is on the blink.

Have looked at Synology NAS but too expensive for us just now. EVERYTHING is more expensive in Australia except petrol and (oddly) Apple products.  e.g. Unitilite A$3750 (£2270) excluding DAB/FM.

May settle for a WD MyBook live 2TB unless anyone would advise strongly against that? And will read-up on XLD software for ripping today.

Incidentally, got into a bit of trouble pronouncing 'router' as 'rooter' in the usual English way ----- turns out a 'rooter' is a 'shagger'.  Strange people.

Anyway, moving on, even though we are on the bottom level of the Naim ladder with our Unitilite it really has totally transformed our enjoyment of our music library. It's the first good hifi we've owned.

thanks again for everyone's input.

Minimserver works well on a Mac - set flac to transcode to wav24

Tog

Thanks Tog, I shall read up. Looking at VortexBox at the moment too though it seems that these are made under licence in each country using the same basic structure but locally chosen components. Not sure yet whether the unit available here in Australia is of the same quality as those offered in UK.

Thanks Wat, every responce I get to my posts is helping to build my understanding - which started at ground zero.

I installed Playback on our old iMac (new iMac arrives tomorrow) and it worked perfectly via the N-stream app, but I don't really want to leave a computer running. All of our CDs were ripped in default AAC and, having listened to CDs and iRadio Paradise on our new Unitilite I realise that re-ripping in a lossless format is a no brainer.

When I first Goolgled 'VortexBox' I found the results very confusing. Using the same name for a software package AND a piece of hardware seems like very poor marketing - especially if they want to reach people like me.

To keep things simple at this stage I have decided that we will either get a NAS like a WD MyBook live (slightly put off by very variable reviews) and rip from the new iMac or get a Vortexbox with it's own optical drive. We listen at one end of the house and the router/NAS/Vbox will be at the other. Streaming will be wireless at first but an ethernet cable will follow (35 metres)

I have had very rapid email response from VB Australia to my first enquiry and am waiting for a few more answers.

UnitiServe would be perfect I suspect but too expense for us, about £2500 here in Oz

All advice VERY gratefully received

I've used VB for a long time now and it remains rock solid on my custom server. Using Bliss to manange files and any of my Macs to monitor and administer the server. Backing up is ridiculously easy; I rotate USB HDDs and tell the server to backup. I might at some point install the linux version of minimserver but to be honest I suspect improving the SQ may involve moving to a better streamer ( NDX) than doing anything on the server side.

At the moment - it is simple, easy to mange, upgrade and backup.

Tog

Thanks Wat and Tog. I have a much better understanding now of how VB software - and later bespoke VB hardware came about.

I will have a chat to the chap at VB Australia - let him know that he may be getting a 'high maintenance' new customer, at least just for the set up stage. He, Peter Hocking, made it clear in his email that they could build into a range of cases and so I've sent him a couple of pics of other builds that I like the look of.

So, as a Mac user, would it be better to rip in AIFF or FLAC ..... or is the Mac aspect not relevant?

thanks again

Martyn

On the other hand, you have Macs and iPads so sound a pretty apple centric household. I'd go the iTunes solution myself (good as Vortexbox is). Far better if you need to manage your library and sync to multiple apple devices. A headless mac mini can be set up to rip and serve automatically and can be accessed via screen sharing from another mac if needed for any maintenance. 

James

Thanks James.

We only really listen to music when it is emanating from the Unitilite , and that's almost every evening at the moment!

TV in Australia is truly dire and we hardly ever turn it on except for BluRay movie evenings. There was a time just a year ago when my iPod was the only thing that kept me sane during my four hours a day commute in and out of Central London - but life has changed completely since our move to Australia.

I like the VortexBox idea, it seems a very elegant solution for us. I had a good chat with Peter Hocking (VBox Australia) this evening and have placed an order. He is going to set it up so that in rips in FLAC as a default. We should have it in a few days, which is ideal, my son will be arriving from UK on Saturday for a couple of weeks and he is great with this sort of stuff, he is a networking specialist.

Thanks again for taking time to respond to my posts, I know my questions are very basic and not very interesting for the forum at large.

regards

Martyn

Glad you've got it all sorted Martyn. I agree the VB is an elegant solution and if was starting from scratch it's probably the route i would have gone. 

Cheers

James

James - Vortexbox has its own iTunes server based upon forked-daapt that will serve up your main library.

Not as elegant but it does work.

Tog