Hi Folks,
l'm hoping you can offer some advice;
Following a worrying issue with my current NAS and subsequent mistrust of it I now have a Synology DS716+ on the way.
Rather than my usual MO; plug in, poke around and find path of least resistance then come here and see what I should have done, I thought I'd use its transit period for some research.
it will have 2 WD Red 3TB drives installed and its primary, if not sole purpose will be to feed my ND5 XS.
I'm not overly concerned with the resilience offered by various RAID configurations but as my music only occupies 500MB currently I may as well mirror them as the 3TB should be more than adequate for the foreseeable future. As part of the upgrade I will create another copy of the music files and retain the existing WD Mybook live as a further backup, perhaps with scheduled updates from the new box. The Rovi features had a big influence on me choosing the ND5 over other DACs & configurations considered so the most reliable synergy with this, the iOS apps and the music server are my aims.
My questions to the experienced here are around which music server app on the NAS will give me the best experience with the Naim iOS apps in terms of accurate metadata / album covers / Rovi performance and search options. I understand it has its own music server you can configure or I've heard mention of minimserver and asset. As I've lived with Twonky so far I'm hoping any will be better but would like your help in the choice please.
The second question is around the file format / to transcode or not; I have about 400 CDs I still need to rip having done about 100 to WAV already. I have a further 1000 or so I'd ripped to FLAC, mostly uncompressed. Most is at 44.1 with some at 96 and a few above this up to 192KHz. I'm not concerned with space as its relatively inexpensive so what would be the best configuration for native vs transcoding (to WAV presumably) and the resulting recommendation for how I should rip the rest of the CDs?
To add a little system and setup context in anticipation of related questions;
System currently comprises ND5 XS as main source, NAT02 Tuner, CD3.5 with Sonic Bliss dual PSU also feeding power to 102 alongside NAPSC into NAP180. The speakers are Audio Note AZ Three Hemp with Mogami 2972 cables. Interconnects mostly standard supplied grey SNAIC, all plugged into Heretic Audio Copper Star mains block. I expect this to Change soon only in replacing the amps probably with Audio Note. (Am I allowed to say that here? :-o ) but that's another story.
The switch is a Netgear GS108, new NAS will be the Synology DS716+ in the same room with (cheap) Belkin cat6 in between. I may be talked into better power supplies for these perhaps but probably not exotic Ethernet cables.
My music taste is biased toward acoustic / modern folk/ adult pop and more recently "gentle" Jazz & some blues. Eg. I am Kloot / Ray Lamontagne / Ry-X / Sia / Marc Johnson / Otis Taylor are amongst my current regulars.
Sorry for rambling but hope this gives you enough to work with!
Darren
Posted on: 29 September 2016 by Mike-B
The only choice with Synology is their own Media Server or 3rd party Minimserver, both are pre-installed in the DSM-6 Package Center. There are a mind boggling other software packages that Synology pre-install in the Package Center, but only one or other of these two is all you need to play music from NAS to Naim. You can also install them both & see what you like best, but with FLAC the only real UPnP with Synology is Minimserver. Media Server is dead easy to install, all you do is open up the package & set the button to running. Minimserver is a bit more fiddly as it also needs a Java program installed as well, but the instructions are easy enough.
Synology will not support Asset & ditto Asset with not support Synology, shame really, but such is life. It can be installed & I've done it, but having used it on a mates QNAP NAS, it was not the same & it seemed a bit unstable so I un-installed.
I have my Synology on Media Server & I play WAV, it does this faultlessly. WAV is (IMO) the best sound quality with Naim, however as you already have some FLAC you will be better off staying with that, but you will need to install Minimserver as that can transcode FLAC to WAV & also it will transcode & play gapless perfectly (Media Server does not). Once you have decided on FLAC please set to default compression (5) as it saves a lot of space. The NAS unpacks the compression, transcodes & streams WAV to the Naim. Your DS716 has plenty of OS power & it will do all that without any problems.
Regarding ripping CD's, do I understand you have ripped some CD's to 96 & 192 ??? or are they bought in downloads ?? There is absolutely no point in ripping CD's to anything other than the same as the CD format of 16/44.1, ripping to something higher is just taking up a chunk of storage space & filling it with nothing. I use dBpoweramp to rip CD's & convert any bought in other codec to WAV. In dBpoweramp the ripping program has menu boxes where you can change sample rates, the best plan by far is to keep these set to "as source".
Best of luck setting it up & enjoy the new toys, I expect you have more questions pretty soon ..... no probs & a pleasure if we can help
Posted on: 29 September 2016 by Dazlin
Hi Mike,
If there's no downside to transcoding (extra cpu work, heat, fan noise?) it sounds sensible to take the space gain going forward with the convenience of transcoding the existing FLACs. The existing WD occasionally buffers on my 192 tracks without any processing and that's one of the reasons I've upgraded, do you think it will keep up transcoding my high res FLACs without causing issues ?
All the hi res files are downloaded from Naim /HDTracks etc. I only ever rip to 16/44.1 with db poweramp but certainly worth asking.
Thanks so far guys.
Posted on: 29 September 2016 by Mike-B
Hi Mike,
If there's no downside to transcoding (extra cpu work, heat, fan noise?) it sounds sensible to take the space gain going forward with the convenience of transcoding the existing FLACs. The existing WD occasionally buffers on my 192 tracks without any processing and that's one of the reasons I've upgraded, do you think it will keep up transcoding my high res FLACs without causing issues ?
All the hi res files are downloaded from Naim /HDTracks etc. I only ever rip to 16/44.1 with db poweramp but certainly worth asking.
Thanks so far guys.
There's no downside to transcoding, your CPU has bags of reserve, the 716 has so much more power than is needed for audio. I have never experience any heat issues with my DS214, it has never needed to run the higher fan speed & it lives in a small & somewhat restricted cabinet, I rarely see its thermometer any more than 10'c above ambient.
It will transcode your highest sample rates (24/192) without the slightest hint of buffering, provided its a fully wired network - which I see it is - & you also have a GS108 switch, so you are already in a good place. Have fun
Posted on: 29 September 2016 by Dave***t
You'll also want the related bits of software, minimstreamer (which enables transcoding IIRC) and minimwatch (which lets you control the server from a computer).
It all fits together more easily than it may sound like it does, there are plenty of instructions on the minim site.
I also found it useful to add some semi-custom tags via minimwatch to show whether files are CD quality, HD etc (I have a fair few old mp3s and so on). Again, instructions are on the site I think, and if not the forum over there has loads of tweaking info.
