Unitiqute source

Posted by: Nigel 66 on 15 July 2011

Hopefully this is a simple question. I have a lot of music saved on an external hard drive. Rather than streaming music from a NAS is it possible to take music straight from the USB hard drive, using say the Naim app on an I-pad?

My reason is that my router is some way away from the room I want to use the qute in, and don't fancy using wireless or such a long Ethernet cable run.

Many thanks
Posted on: 15 July 2011 by hfian

If you are thinking about taking your USB drive and plugging t into the USB input on your Naim, then browsing the directories and playing tracks from your iPad app, then yes it will do this but my experience is that you can't navigate a big hierarchy of directories.  It's more about putting a few albums worth of tracks in the root directory and playing them.  You can plug an ipod into the USB port though and navigate it all pretty effortlessly from the iPad app.  In the later case, I think the Nam taps into the ipod's database structure,  

Posted on: 15 July 2011 by Guido Fawkes

The USB input on the UQ is designed for USB sticks and iPods rather than USB hard drives - you may get it to play from a powered hard drive, but the navigation will be at best rudimentary. If you have your drive connected to a Mac (probably other computers too) then you can use a player to manage and play the music on your hard disc and send it out of the S/PDIF port to your UQ - this will sound OK - the best way is to send the music out of the USB port to an async USB to S/PDIF device such as the MF VLink. 

 

There is a device from Bryston that will do exactly what you want, but it costs more than the UQ.

 

A further option is to transfer your music to a Vortexbox and then use this to feed your UQ. 

 

All the best, Guy

Posted on: 15 July 2011 by Noogle

How about using HomePlug mains ethernet adapters?

Posted on: 18 July 2011 by 0rangutan
They will do the job, but are far from ideal as, by design, they inject noise into your mains with a detrimental effect on SQ.
Posted on: 18 July 2011 by pcstockton
Originally Posted by Noogle:

How about using HomePlug mains ethernet adapters?

Did you listen to the NDX yet?

Posted on: 19 July 2011 by Noogle

Not yet - demo set for a couple of weeks' time.