Transcoding NAS

WiltsRM posted:

I like the look of Synology's NAS units, but I'm just looking for some advise about how high up the range I need to go to be able to transcode up to 24-bit/192KHz files from AIFF to WAV without any problems.

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply.  I really appreciate it.

I'll go with the more basic NAS and spend the saving on some more music!

I'm not particularly tied to Asset; it's just what I've settled on at the moment, and I hear good things about Minimserver, so I'll probably give that a go.

Thanks again!

Synology is good, and so is QNAP. Either is equally good as far as I can tell. Many QNAPs will work with Asset, so if you're used to that, QNAP might be the better bet. 

I've just added a QNAP NAS drive to our 'family' of NAS drives.  I got the TS-453 pro with 8gb ram.  For your use the standard 2gig unit should be fine but I'm using the visualisation features as I plan to decommission a Windows server.

I chose the QNAP as it allows you to use Asset or Minimserver.  I've gone for Asset as I've used it before on a Windows server and a Raspberry Pi.  It trans-codes perfectly and browsing a medium sized library (1400 albums) is very quick.

I'me over the moon with the QNAP, compared to my Netgear ReadyNas RN102 and RN104 it is so much quicker, and so it should be as it is more expensive!

You could probably drop down the range and still be pleased.  We use ours for business use so the extra capability appealed.

Richard

It's worth bearing in mind that the Synology media server will not transcode gapless albums properly. So if you get a Synology and want gapless, you need MinimServer. 

I've not used a QNAP, but the Synology is easy to use and the online help is very good. 

Just a question to the OP. Why are you so set on transcoding the files. I rip all of my music as AIFF, and play it as AIFF on my UnitiQute because it supports AIFF natively. There is no need to transcode and AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

As for NAS drives, any Synology or QNAP made in the last 3 years will be more than adequate for transcoding audio files, it's when you need to transcode 1080p video, that the lesser NASs fall short. This is why I just picked up a QNAP TS-453 pro with 8GB RAM, just like trickydickie did. Now I can run PLEX to my Apple TV.

DomTomLondon posted:

 AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

As for NAS drives, any Synology or QNAP made in the last 3 years will be more than adequate for transcod

The argument/discussions over the relative SQ of WAV & the other formats is ongoing,  whatever to my ears on my NDX it is preferable to FLAC - & thats not transcoded BTW,  I now only keep WAV.  

As for WAV not carrying embedded metadata, that is not correct;  WAV can be embedded with any kind of metadata, XMP or more commonly ID3.   I use dBpoweramp to edit my WAV files & have never encountered a problem.

+1 for both HH's and Mike-B's replies.

Mike-B posted:

DomTomLondon posted:

 AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

As for NAS drives, any Synology or QNAP made in the last 3 years will be more than adequate for transcod

The argument/discussions over the relative SQ of WAV & the other formats is ongoing,  whatever to my ears on my NDX it is preferable to FLAC - & thats not transcoded BTW,  I now only keep WAV.  

As for WAV not carrying embedded metadata, that is not correct;  WAV can be embedded with any kind of metadata, XMP or more commonly ID3.   I use dBpoweramp to edit my WAV files & have never encountered a problem.

 

 

hi Mike-B, I was not referring to FLAC files (which although are lossless, are compresed). I never heard of an argument between the SQ of WAV and AIFF, both are linear PCM file formats.

I was not aware that WAV files could hold Metadata, At least not when I used XLD to rip and tag my CDs. Perhaps on the Windows side there are apps that can do that.

I suspect the WAV vs AIFF argument is rarely discussed because not that many peeps use AIFF around this forum, it always seems to be WAV vs  FLAC & I would probably bet on FLAC being the most popular;  but it always seems to get transcoded to WAV & tat has always been a mystery to me, why not store it in WAV considering the price of storage.  I personally have never tried AIFF, I really have no need but maybe one day one will pass my way.

FLAC is compressed - plus it can be compressed at various levels or not compressed at all - but it is "unzipped" & delivered to the renderer uncompressed.

Don't know much about Mac & diddlysqwat about XLD,  but dBpoweramp do a Mac (& PC) version & it will edit WAV

DomTomLondon posted:

Just a question to the OP. Why are you so set on transcoding the files. I rip all of my music as AIFF, and play it as AIFF on my UnitiQute because it supports AIFF natively. There is no need to transcode and AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

I prefer AIFF as it also allows integration with iTunes as well which means easy exchange between my iPod whilst retaining metadata across all devices and programs including Audirvana in iTunes integrated mode. Although you can add metadata with e.g. DBPoweramp to WAV files, in my experience iTunes seems unable to recognise this metadata as does my iPod and iPhone. So I prefer AIFF as I find it the most universally inclusive format whilst retaining the best sound quality. I did spend time comparing WAV, AIFF, FLAC and ALAC before deciding to convert all my files to the most suitable format and found that WAV and AIFF were indistinguishable. ALAC and FLAC were inferior, losing a bit of sparkle and sounding a bit flat in my opinion. I did feel that ALAC was ever so slightly better than FLAC though.

Useful info Mayor West,  I doubt I will dip my toe in the AIFF pond as I am not a Mac user & although I've tried it I now avoid iTunes as I'm not happy with the big brother ways of Apple - Win-10 is bad enough !!  

Ha Mike-B, I'm the same... I hate the big brother nature of the big companies. I must confess to being a recently converted Mac user however

DomTomLondon posted:

Just a question to the OP. Why are you so set on transcoding the files. I rip all of my music as AIFF, and play it as AIFF on my UnitiQute because it supports AIFF natively. There is no need to transcode and AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

As for NAS drives, any Synology or QNAP made in the last 3 years will be more than adequate for transcoding audio files, it's when you need to transcode 1080p video, that the lesser NASs fall short. This is why I just picked up a QNAP TS-453 pro with 8GB RAM, just like trickydickie did. Now I can run PLEX to my Apple TV.

 

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you (and the rest of the forum); I've been out of action for a few days.

It's a good question.  I'd understood that Naim streamers were designed to work best with WAV files, and that there were sonic benefits to streaming WAVs as opposed to any of the other supported formats.  I've tested the difference between WAV and AIFF, and although I thought there was a slight difference, I'm not convinced that this wasn't just expectation bias. I couldn't rig up a blind test to verify this though.

What is the general view from everyone's experience?  Are WAV and AIFF sonically equal?  If so, I could remove a layer of complexity by not transcoding.

Thanks also for the advice on the specification required.  That's really useful.  I don't plan to be doing any video transcoding anytime soon!  I'll have a look at the QNAP units too.

As always, thoughts and advice very gratefully received.

Richard

Solid Air posted:

Synology is good, and so is QNAP. Either is equally good as far as I can tell. Many QNAPs will work with Asset, so if you're used to that, QNAP might be the better bet. 

Thanks for the information; that's really useful.  I'll have a look at the QNAP NAS drives too.  I don't have strong feelings about Asset, but I have found it easy to use and very reliable, so perhaps it's work sticking with it.

Thanks again!

Mayor West posted:

DomTomLondon posted:

Just a question to the OP. Why are you so set on transcoding the files. I rip all of my music as AIFF, and play it as AIFF on my UnitiQute because it supports AIFF natively. There is no need to transcode and AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

I prefer AIFF as it also allows integration with iTunes as well which means easy exchange between my iPod whilst retaining metadata across all devices and programs including Audirvana in iTunes integrated mode. Although you can add metadata with e.g. DBPoweramp to WAV files, in my experience iTunes seems unable to recognise this metadata as does my iPod and iPhone. So I prefer AIFF as I find it the most universally inclusive format whilst retaining the best sound quality. I did spend time comparing WAV, AIFF, FLAC and ALAC before deciding to convert all my files to the most suitable format and found that WAV and AIFF were indistinguishable. ALAC and FLAC were inferior, losing a bit of sparkle and sounding a bit flat in my opinion. I did feel that ALAC was ever so slightly better than FLAC though.

Thanks for sharing your experience of comparing the different file formats; that's really useful.  I'll listen again to some AIFF files without transcoding them and see if I can tell any difference! :-)

Mayor West posted:

Ha Mike-B, I'm the same... I hate the big brother nature of the big companies. I must confess to being a recently converted Mac user however

Yes, I share this worry too, although I don't really think Apple are any worse than anyone else in this regard.  I often wonder what sort of profile can be built up from the records of the various streaming music and film/TV services.  You could learn a lot about someone from what they like to listen to and watch.

Perhaps though this is just an attempt to rationalise my fondness for physical media! :-)

Although I've downloaded a few 24-bit albums, I general prefer to get the LP or CD and put them on the computer myself.

I have both Foobar 2000 and Asset uPnP on my PC/Muso app reading off the same NAS. I seem to perceive a difference in sound quality between the two playing the same track. This, I would have thought is strange. The only thing I can narrow it down to is the transcoding of the file to WAV, which I may have got set up differently in each program. I am not sure. 

Unfortunately I prefer the SQ of Asset but due to my rather shoddy tagging (over 10 TBs of music) I prefer accessing via a folder structure which Foobar allows me to do.

Check out the new Synology DS716+

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS716

After much research I ordered a few weeks ago for my new streaming Naim system. It's very fast and feature rich for not much more $. I picked up 2 6 GB red drives as well. 

I haven't used it yet but should be a great transcoding nas.

Staxxx posted:

Unfortunately I prefer the SQ of Asset but due to my rather shoddy tagging (over 10 TBs of music) I prefer accessing via a folder structure which Foobar allows me to do.

In Asset, Advanced Search >> File and Folder Browsing

@staxxx - the differences are unlikely to be in the digital domain unless you have set them up to transcode to a different standard (eg upscaling). If they're both set up to transcode the same way then the data will be identical, and any differences are caused by something else. 

WiltsRM posted:

DomTomLondon posted:

Just a question to the OP. Why are you so set on transcoding the files. I rip all of my music as AIFF, and play it as AIFF on my UnitiQute because it supports AIFF natively. There is no need to transcode and AIFF sounds just as good as WAV, only it also allows for embedded metadata. So I actually prefer it.

As for NAS drives, any Synology or QNAP made in the last 3 years will be more than adequate for transcoding audio files, it's when you need to transcode 1080p video, that the lesser NASs fall short. This is why I just picked up a QNAP TS-453 pro with 8GB RAM, just like trickydickie did. Now I can run PLEX to my Apple TV.

 

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you (and the rest of the forum); I've been out of action for a few days.

It's a good question.  I'd understood that Naim streamers were designed to work best with WAV files, and that there were sonic benefits to streaming WAVs as opposed to any of the other supported formats.  I've tested the difference between WAV and AIFF, and although I thought there was a slight difference, I'm not convinced that this wasn't just expectation bias. I couldn't rig up a blind test to verify this though.

What is the general view from everyone's experience?  Are WAV and AIFF sonically equal?  If so, I could remove a layer of complexity by not transcoding.

Thanks also for the advice on the specification required.  That's really useful.  I don't plan to be doing any video transcoding anytime soon!  I'll have a look at the QNAP units too.

As always, thoughts and advice very gratefully received.

Richard

Naims own literature states that there "may" be sonic benefits from transcoding before passing the stream to the streamer.  The suggestion is the streamers CPU would use slightly less power which means the power supply is working less.  I'd like to see just how much power a CPU would draw from transcoding but transcoding itself is a very straightforward process for a processor.  It doesn't take much effort at all.  If we're going to worry about that level of power usage then CD player aficionado's must be kacking it at the power draw of those motors and moving parts!

 

...

Naims own literature states that there "may" be sonic benefits from transcoding before passing the stream to the streamer.  The suggestion is the streamers CPU would use slightly less power which means the power supply is working less.  I'd like to see just how much power a CPU would draw from transcoding but transcoding itself is a very straightforward process for a processor.  It doesn't take much effort at all.  If we're going to worry about that level of power usage then CD player aficionado's must be kacking it at the power draw of those motors and moving parts!

Power consumption of a CD can be less than a streamer as I pointed out in another thread.

Power consumption:
My streamer:                     60VA
My CD player:                    25VA
My Computer CD Drive:  <11W DC

The moving parts / vibration argument is valid though!

.........  a slight deviation ...... sorry folks

Not measured it (and rather not try @240V without a non-contact meter!).

The case temp of the ND5 is much higher than the case temp of the CD player  +9°C vs. +4°C  (the CD player never gets more than a few degrees above ambient, +4° is typical operating).