Uniti Atom + Plex/Twonky + Apple Lossless

Most people use FLAC.  But unless it’s not supported by Twonky (it is supported by Plex) the Uniti Atom plays Apple Lossless (a.k.a. ALAC).

Many users of Naim streamers prefer the sound quality of WAV over FLAC, AIFF or ALAC although this may not be relevant to the Atom? Either way, it will play any of the above lossless formats, so take your pick. You can always convert albums to a different format in future if the need arises, but if you have an ALAC collection now, it will be fine.

[@mention:1566878603969011] Hmm. What I'm seeing is that when I try to play a recently-ripped Apple Lossless file on the Atom via the Naim app, nothing happens—the play button basically just doesn't do anything. This is true with Twonky or Plex on the server side. It'll play just fine in the Plex app on my iPhone.

[@mention:36201736949470193] If the file is lossless, why would the format make a difference in terms of sound quality?

For FLAC or WAV, how does one do the lossless rip on a Mac? 

You need to use a non-Apple ripper or converter such as XLD or DBpoweramp for FLAC. 

If the Atom can't see your ALAC files, it may be a setting in your server? Twonky is not a popular server amongst Naim streamer users, Asset or Minimserver might be worth a try.

dfeldman posted:

[@mention:36201736949470193] If the file is lossless, why would the format make a difference in terms of sound quality?

 

The theory goes along the lines that Naim streamers were designed to work with WAVs, and using FLAC puts an additional workload on them as they process it, which in turn can generate electrical noise that may have a subtle effect on sound quality. I would be more concerned about this on a very revealing high end separates system than I would on a Uniti, so probably not something to lose any sleep over!  

@ChrisSU thanks for the info. I did some more testing:

1. To clarify, the Atom can see the ALAC (m4a) files in Plex or Twonky, but won't play them. Tapping or hitting the play button in the app simply does nothing (though the Atom's display does show the music-notes icon).
2. I've verified via an AAC rip from the same CD that it's not something specific to that CD.
3. The ALAC files play fine in Plex's own app, and I don't see any evidence of transcoding.
4. I tried Asset, and it works properly there, but I'd love to get it working in Plex since Asset is audio-only and I've got movies as well.
5. I don't see anything in Plex's settings that calls out as a possible solution.

Any ideas?

Try putting some Apple files on a USB stick to see if the Atom can play those.

Not seen issues with Apple Lossless from Twonky but did with some AIFF files from Qobuz

No problem wir Apple Lossless and Twonky. Just ripped a couple of Audio-CDs yesterday. All using iTunes in Apple Lossless. The Twonky used the Music folder of iTunes as shared folder and all of the Apple Lossless files play just fine when connection my Atom to the Twonky as a UPNP server.

dfeldman posted:

@ChrisSU thanks for the info. I did some more testing:

1. To clarify, the Atom can see the ALAC (m4a) files in Plex or Twonky, but won't play them. Tapping or hitting the play button in the app simply does nothing (though the Atom's display does show the music-notes icon).
2. I've verified via an AAC rip from the same CD that it's not something specific to that CD.
3. The ALAC files play fine in Plex's own app, and I don't see any evidence of transcoding.
4. I tried Asset, and it works properly there, but I'd love to get it working in Plex since Asset is audio-only and I've got movies as well.
5. I don't see anything in Plex's settings that calls out as a possible solution.

Any ideas?

 

I don't use Plex, so I'm not sure there's anything else I can suggest here. In the absence of an actual diagnosis and solution to your problem, is there any reason why you can't just use Asset for music and Plex for video?

dfeldman posted:

@ChrisSU thanks for the info. I did some more testing:

1. To clarify, the Atom can see the ALAC (m4a) files in Plex or Twonky, but won't play them. Tapping or hitting the play button in the app simply does nothing (though the Atom's display does show the music-notes icon).
2. I've verified via an AAC rip from the same CD that it's not something specific to that CD.
3. The ALAC files play fine in Plex's own app, and I don't see any evidence of transcoding.
4. I tried Asset, and it works properly there, but I'd love to get it working in Plex since Asset is audio-only and I've got movies as well.
5. I don't see anything in Plex's settings that calls out as a possible solution.

Any ideas?

 

Try setting the server to transcode ALAC to WAVE.

Gavin B posted:

Try putting some Apple files on a USB stick to see if the Atom can play those.

Hi Dfeldman,

This would be my suggestion for the first thing to try too - the Atom should be able to play AAC and ALAC files (unless they are very old "DRM'd" files) so lets try to identify whether it's a file issue or what...

Cheers

Phil

Thanks all for the suggestions. I was indeed able to play ALAC via a USB stick, and some additional Googling and experimentation yielded a solution on the Plex side of things. This thread and these docs provide details, but the basic idea is you make a copy of Plex's generic DLNA profile and add instructions to interpret mp4 containers as m4a. The profile goes in ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Profiles/Generic.xml and should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Generic">
    <DlnaMediaProfiles>
        <DlnaMusicProfile container="mp4" mimeType="audio/m4a"/>
    </DlnaMediaProfiles>
</Client>

I don't know what side effects this might have, e.g., for other mp4 containers. One can create a more specific profile that only targets the Atom, which might help and which I'll look into if I encounter issues. I tried playing an mp4-based video using VLC on an iPad and it worked fine (but transcoded).

I also did rip a CD as FLAC to explore that option, and noticed it's about 3% smaller than ALAC, but ALAC has better compatibility with the Apple ecosystem. What are the relative merits of ALAC vs. FLAC beyond that?