Tidal transcode on the fly to wav as input for NDX

I don’t believe it’s possible. I tried Tidal and the sound quality was not good enough for enjoyable listening, so I ditched it. 

did you switch to another streaming service, and is the sq better?

Dr Evil posted:

I use minimserver on my nas and it transcodes my flacs and dsd files to wav on their way to my NDX.

Hi Evan,  welcome to the krazy world of Naim.   Besides NDX,  what else do you have,  why not file in your profile.   

DSD doesn't transcode,  its only done with the PCM formats like FLAC, ALAC & AIFF.  If you look at the app screen when its playing DSD  it will show DSD 2822.4kHz 5644kb/s

BTW.  I choose not to transcode,  I play straight WAV (& DSD) 

thanks, ill update my profile in a minute.

Actually i do transcode dsd to wav 24/176.2 on the fly using minimserver, works like a charm!

i believe NDX dac doen`t natively support dsd and converts it to pcm internally, analogues to the flac i thought id let minimserver do that too. Sq difference is less big though..

By the way DR isn't an evil technology, my CD555PSDR and NAP300DR both work very well!    

Dr Evil posted:

Actually i do transcode dsd to wav 24/176.2 on the fly using minimserver, works like a charm!

i believe NDX dac doen`t natively support dsd and converts it to pcm internally, analogues to the flac i thought id let minimserver do that too. Sq difference is less big though..

Interesting,  my Synology media server doesn't have the option to transcode DSD,  but the Naim end seems to do that very well.  When you say the SQ difference is less big,  do you mean compared to DSD via Naim direct.

Question:  a big bugbear with DSD (DoP) has been the end of track click/pop on some (not all) tracks,  it's caused by the DSD stream unable to be resolved in exactly 16 bit samples.  Naim have quietened it to a level that its hardly audible but I notice other software forums have chat about it.  How does Minimserver perform.  

Hi Evan - short of writing your own code to do this I am not aware of any published software that does this - you would probably need some sort of SBC / proxy and but it could interfere with web radio etc unless you did some sort of more intelligent inspection which could get involved.. the actual Tidal media transfer is a regular FLAC media transfer and is identical as far as the streamer is concerned to a local streamed FLAC file. Tidal can  sound outstanding when you decouple the network host and FLAC decoder from the DAC... but when all running in one system it can seem to upset the SQ somewhat.

Dr Evil posted:

did you switch to another streaming service, and is the sq better?

I just listen to downloaded music that lives on my nas. If I want a streaming service I listen to the radio. BBC HLS sounds far better than Tidal. 

WRT the thread topic, I have little to add to the comments above.

But I did want to say props on the Bobby Liebling avatar.  I've seldom seen anyone capable of pulling such wonderful faces during concerts (despite having seen a lot of people try!), and as far as I can tell, a really nice guy.  Played at a couple of festivals with Pentagram, and although I didn't speak to the man himself, had good fun watching them.

Mike-B posted:

Question:  a big bugbear with DSD (DoP) has been the end of track click/pop on some (not all) tracks,  it's caused by the DSD stream unable to be resolved in exactly 16 bit samples.  Naim have quietened it to a level that its hardly audible but I notice other software forums have chat about it.  How does Minimserver perform.  

I never heard this click using minimserver. Also when i played using asset, so dsd into ndx I never heard this either..

Dave***t posted:

But I did want to say props on the Bobby Liebling avatar.  I've seldom seen anyone capable of pulling such wonderful faces during concerts (despite having seen a lot of people try!), and as far as I can tell, a really nice guy.  Played at a couple of festivals with Pentagram, and although I didn't speak to the man himself, had good fun watching them.

Thanks! Indeed! No horror film on the backdrop needed when he is on stage!

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Tidal can  sound outstanding when you decouple the network host and FLAC decoder from the DAC... but when all running in one system it can seem to upset the SQ somewhat.

Thanks, how would one go about decoupling? Not sure I understand completely, but am i right that adding an nDac  would be an example of that?

Dr Evil posted:

I never heard this click using minimserver. Also when i played using asset, so dsd into ndx I never heard this either..

OK,  but it is there, its only on some albums & not on all the tracks.  I could joke that you need bigger & better ears & crank up the volume.  But if you don't hear it,  all itz good.   

Like I said  lot of different forums were talking about it when DSD first arrived,  Roon JRiver etc  Naim had it tamed it to a very low level with new firmware.