Close to buying Atom, couple of questions

1) You have several options including:

iTunes - simplest option and can rip to a variety of lossless formats, I'd personally use ALAC - in many ways quite adequate though not sure it embeds artwork as well these days - will probably rip accurately providing the disc and optical drive are in a reasonable state.  Error correction can be enabled but will slow down rips and won't be formally verified.

If you want confidence that rips are bit perfect use one which accesses the AccurateRip database:

http://www.accuraterip.com/software.htm

XLD (X Lossless Decoder) is very good, as is dBPowerAmp which is very popular.  Some of the other apps listed may have seen little development recently.

XLD:    https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

2) Yes, the Uniti Atom/Star/Nova can serve the content of connected USB devices to Muso/Muso Qb

The server mode can be set on or off, if off the Atom can access local content via the USB inputs, though I often find it's listed under network servers anyway on my Nova.

One issue you will have is that although the Atom can serve the audio on the USB connections you cannot access the connected USB device over the LAN to add new files - that will involve powering down (ideally) and hooking the USB device up to the Mac to transfer the new files each time.

Many simple options for servers to be honest until you can get a dedicated NAS (if you feel you need one!).

Asset on Mac is free to use as a server, just point it at the files, you can run multiple instances too.  A few features are not available except in the purchased version - see dBPowerAmp pages (same company).

A raspberry Pi is potentially a small format cheap device to use running Asset or similar software with a connected USB drive - you can run headless over the LAN using VNC to control it.

You might also want to test drive Audirvana for Mac and Roon.

Wow,

thanks for for the comprehensive reply! That’s encouraging to hear that it can act as a server. I don’t buy CDs much at all these days, so only have a relatively small collection that I would rip (250 CDs roughly). Once done, I wouldn’t envisage adding more rips to the SSD (though seems straightforward to do this if necessary).

Presumably, if server mode is set to “on” in order to stream to a Muso, then the Atom cannot play other sources? Or am I misinterpreting?

Thanks again!

Mark

dbpoweramp is good and I've ripped lots to a USB SSD, you can rip to any flavor you choose and metadata handling / editing / artwork is good too, you can get a free trial for a few weeks and after that its only a few quid to buy

MortalWombatUK posted:

Presumably, if server mode is set to “on” in order to stream to a Muso, then the Atom cannot play other sources? Or am I misinterpreting?

Thanks again!

 

Mark

To be honest Mark I've never tried as my other sources that can play from DLNA/UPnP servers are in the same room currently, however I'm virtually certain it will have little issue serving to other devices while playing audio itself - just wait for someone to confirm, but the server is a background task for the device's operating system rather than a mode you set the Atom/Nova too that takes over the device.

Also, the options I mentioned above are not exhaustive and I suspect you'll get other helpful suggestions.

In an ideal world I'd have a nice dedicated quality NAS serving audio or a Uniti Core, but I suspect you'll find the Atom will suffice for that number of albums - I'd probably just let it have a little while to catalogue the albums before trying to play anything.

Cheers all for your responses! 

Mark

I’d second Alley Cat’s comments, put a USB hard drive or memory stick in the Atom, and it will work fine as a server to the Muso. That may be all you ever need, but there are advantages to a NAS. For example, you can set it up to have an automatic backup, and you will ge able to add to it and maintain it without disconnecting it. 

Another alternative is to use either internal or USB storage on your Mac, and put a server on that. If you move to a NAS, just run the same server on that. 

Thanks Chrissu, I had completely overlooked the memory card option. Our Mac has fairly heavy use from all family members (with their own accounts) so running any kind of server off the Mac may not be ideal with all of the user switching that goes on! That being said, I do enjoy tinkering, so might look at server options on the Mac as research for a future NAS solution.

Mark

As you have such a small collection of CDs I would not bother with a NAS. Just get an internal SSD and a caddy (I think I paid £7) to house it that has on on/off switch. This is the arrangement that I have and it works great. I remove the SSD and transfer from my Mac to the SSD and then just reconnect. The reason for the on/off switch for the SSD is so that the relay on the Atom is not left on powering the SSD when the Atom is not in use. Obviously you will not it on if using the SSD as a server. 

Neil

You may find some external SSDs on offer with Black Friday deals, I have a few Samsung T3 and T5 SSDs.

The 500GB T5 is on offer at £120 at the river and perhaps other places like Currys:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsu...amsung%2BT5&th=1

Although it would be cheaper to get a bare SSD and a caddy these T5s are very small and have a nice build quality and have USB C and USB A leads include.

One thing with bare SSD and a caddy is that it might be more prone to interference - I had one once which really seemed to affect my wi-fi speeds on the computer, though I suspect USB 3.0 is noisier than USB 2.0.

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

badlyread posted:

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

If you enable server mode, the main transformer keeps running to make the server/USB drive constantly available to other devices. So just turn off server mode, and the Atom will stop powering it when in standby mode. 

All good info... any drawbacks of a good spec thumb drive? Purely from aesthetic point of view, not having a drive dangling out the back of the Atom...

Mark

I just bought a sandisk metal one 128gb for 35 notes from mr memory...it’s tiny and sounds perfect

MortalWombatUK posted:

All good info... any drawbacks of a good spec thumb drive? Purely from aesthetic point of view, not having a drive dangling out the back of the Atom...

 

Mark

They will naturally be slower to write/read than SSD but should be more than adequate for audio playback rates and serving to other devices (though multiple devices with different tracks playing could potentially be more challenging, though I suspect fine in practice - network transfers are likely to be more rate limiting).

I bought a few of these very compact SanDisk flash drives and have one in the front USB slot for easy access with some HD audio purchases on it.  Main downside was they got extremely hot, even when idle, though newer ones may be less prone to this but comments seem to vary:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDi...usb%2B128gb&th=1

Suspect those who have purchased more recently will have good suggestions, I do like these though as they're so compact and unobtrusive.

250 CDs ripped lossless to compressed FLAC or ALAC would probably fit easily on a 128GB card, depends how many new ones you might buy or if you'd be buying downloads in the future.

badlyread posted:

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

Even with server mode enabled with a solid state drive/thumb drive I'd imagine power consumption would be negligible, a few watts at most perhaps.

https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...tom-power-in-standby

I use a Mac at home as well. I would AVOID iTunes, in favor of XLD or dbPoweramp.  Both of the latter have a more robust error-detection system, and given their low cost, (XLD is free), I'd use one of those.

You'll want to edit your metadata and for that I highly recommend Metadatics. It's on the OS X app store.  I use it.

For album art, I download the best version I can find on the web and then just use Preview to edit the basic image attributes (exposure, contrast etc) and then the size if it's too big a file (keep below 1 mb).

iTunes was off my list already... nightmare piece of software.

dbPoweramp seems the way to go...

ChrisSU posted:

badlyread posted:

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

If you enable server mode, the main transformer keeps running to make the server/USB drive constantly available to other devices. So just turn off server mode, and the Atom will stop powering it when in standby mode. 

Ok, I've just checked this I think you are wrong. 

Had Atom in Server Mode and switched off Atom. The blue light on the SSD was still flashing /on as you would expect. Switched off the SSD and there was and audible click from the Atom like a relay switching off. I then did exactly the same thing with the Server Mode off. Got exactly the same results.

Conclusion: the Server Mode does not stop an external SSD being powered when set to OFF. Happy got someone more knowledgeable to correct me. 

The Naim Atom is a wonderful cuboid of Magic by the the way so just go ahead and get one!

badlyread posted:

ChrisSU posted:

badlyread posted:

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

If you enable server mode, the main transformer keeps running to make the server/USB drive constantly available to other devices. So just turn off server mode, and the Atom will stop powering it when in standby mode. 

Ok, I've just checked this I think you are wrong. 

Had Atom in Server Mode and switched off Atom. The blue light on the SSD was still flashing /on as you would expect. Switched off the SSD and there was and audible click from the Atom like a relay switching off. I then did exactly the same thing with the Server Mode off. Got exactly the same results.

Conclusion: the Server Mode does not stop an external SSD being powered when set to OFF. Happy got someone more knowledgeable to correct me. 

The Naim Atom is a wonderful cuboid of Magic by the the way so just go ahead and get one!

To be honest I didn’t check the light on the USB stick, but if you are in ‘network standby’ the smps will still draw a little power, as this ensures that the unit is still discoverable by the app and remote. With server mode enabled, you can still hear the main transformer humming in network standby, which I understand is to enable the server to continue to run if another UPnP device wants to use it. If keeping the USB powered up removes the need for it to be scanned and indexed again, I guess that would be a reason to keep it powered when server mode is off. 

Hej,

I put my experience with regard on power/external drive/server mode from my Atom here:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...05#77033102951762805

In short:

I have my collection on an external SSD. Since I don't need the server mode, I deep-sleep the box during longer periods of non-use. (And the HiFi faction will tell me, I lose sound quality by that if used soon after wake-up).
The wake-up does not take that long (though I have to physically press the button, App/remote access does not work, box has to boot), it does not take any real power during the deep-sleep plus the indexing of the music on the external drive stays intact. (Booting up is faster than re-indexing, e.g. if you remove the drive to add more music. I still do that from time to time to add music, and it's not a big bother unless you are in a hurry to listen to the new music.)

If you intend to use the server mode (to use the music server feature on other another MuSo, ...), the external drive should anyway stay on (so you don't need a switch on it); otherwise the music won't be available, when you want to stream it to other devices. This way the Atom will stay somewhat "powered up"; but if you have multiple streamers on standby and want to have anyway a "music server" running, it should still be an efficient option for that.
Still, if you're out of home for longer, you can still use the deep-sleep.

BR/Philipp

PS: Nice box, indeed. 

ChrisSU posted:

badlyread posted:

ChrisSU posted:

badlyread posted:

But can you switch these external SSDs off so no power is being drawn from the Atom in standby mode? Not aware that they have a switch. 

If you enable server mode, the main transformer keeps running to make the server/USB drive constantly available to other devices. So just turn off server mode, and the Atom will stop powering it when in standby mode. 

Ok, I've just checked this I think you are wrong. 

Had Atom in Server Mode and switched off Atom. The blue light on the SSD was still flashing /on as you would expect. Switched off the SSD and there was and audible click from the Atom like a relay switching off. I then did exactly the same thing with the Server Mode off. Got exactly the same results.

Conclusion: the Server Mode does not stop an external SSD being powered when set to OFF. Happy got someone more knowledgeable to correct me. 

The Naim Atom is a wonderful cuboid of Magic by the the way so just go ahead and get one!

To be honest I didn’t check the light on the USB stick, but if you are in ‘network standby’ the smps will still draw a little power, as this ensures that the unit is still discoverable by the app and remote. With server mode enabled, you can still hear the main transformer humming in network standby, which I understand is to enable the server to continue to run if another UPnP device wants to use it. If keeping the USB powered up removes the need for it to be scanned and indexed again, I guess that would be a reason to keep it powered when server mode is off. 

That would make a lot of sense as indexing a larger drive might take some time.