copying data from Uniti Core

Chris do you propose using a music server on that other network, or do you just want to put the music on a usb drive and connect that directly to the Star?  Because thematically, those are pretty much your 2 options.

Hi Bart as I have 500gb of data then I would plan to buy a NAS drive (assuming the Core can write to it and the Star can read it) and use that on the second network. I have seen the very helpful post which lists the NAS drives Naim has tested

Re the Naim list of recommended HDD's;  the last one I saw was a few years old & did not reflect the current marketplace.    The favourite for NAS use with most forumites is WD Red.   

chrisb56 posted:

Hi Bart as I have 500gb of data then I would plan to buy a NAS drive (assuming the Core can write to it and the Star can read it) and use that on the second network. I have seen the very helpful post which lists the NAS drives Naim has tested

The Star won't "read" a nas drive, rather, you need to run a server app on the nas drive. As you'll read in countless posts here, the standard approaches are a QNAP or Synology nas, running Asset or MinimServer as the server app.

Next question - you say you "burned" data to the Core.  Did you use the Core to rip directly from your cd's? If so, that data in its current format is largely unusable on a nas because of the way Naim do metadata. The better solution would be for you to have the Core create a flac format copy of the data, and then you can copy that data over to the new nas. Creating a flac copy of the data is a capability of the Core.

Hi Bart, thanks very much for your help. Yes I used the Core to rip directly from my CD's to its internal hard drive, in WAV format. So I will be able to use the Core to create a FLAC copy from that and then copy the new data to the drive? Can I use the Core to create the FLAC copy directly on the NAS drive?

And thank you for the guidance on the server app and nas

best regards

The simple solution is to open the Core music folder on a computer and copy it’s contents to a USB drive. Insert this drive into the Star, enable server mode in the Star settings, and your music will be there. 

What is your backup strategy for the Core? If you have a backup drive, either on a USB drive or a NAS, you might use that (or a copy of it) as a music store for the Star. 

If you store in FLAC on the Core, you will find the metadata is transferable to non-Naim servers, which may not work with Naim WAV rips. (Also, copying data will be quicker with the smaller file sizes.)

Hi Bart, I back up my Core to a USB drive. So can I just take a second copy on a second USB drive and use that directly with the Star? I am happy to stay in the Naim ecosystem and so stick with WAV

chrisb56 posted:

Hi Bart, I back up my Core to a USB drive. So can I just take a second copy on a second USB drive and use that directly with the Star? I am happy to stay in the Naim ecosystem and so stick with WAV

Yes, as per my post above, this would work fine as long as you use a Naim server, which you can if you put the USB drive in the Star. 

Bart

So many thanks for your help on all this, I am very grateful

best

Chris

Bart posted:

 The better solution would be for you to have the Core create a flac format copy of the data, and then you can copy that data over to the new nas. Creating a flac copy of the data is a capability of the Core.

With the Core you can choose to have rips made in FLAC or WAV at the ripping stage, but it won’t convert between formats later. This is different from the Unitiserve.

best

David

Dave, thanks for this clarification. My plan is now just to take a copy on a USB drive and use that as music store with the Star. 

best

Chris

David Hendon posted:

Bart posted:

 The better solution would be for you to have the Core create a flac format copy of the data, and then you can copy that data over to the new nas. Creating a flac copy of the data is a capability of the Core.

With the Core you can choose to have rips made in FLAC or WAV at the ripping stage, but it won’t convert between formats later. This is different from the Unitiserve.

best

David

Hmmmm, not good for anyone who wants to use Core rips in the car, on a portable player, or even, perish the thought, with a non-Naim NAS/server. You would need to re-rip your CDs!

Presumably this wouldn’t matter to ChrisB if using them with the Naim server on the Star. 

David Hendon posted:

Bart posted:

 The better solution would be for you to have the Core create a flac format copy of the data, and then you can copy that data over to the new nas. Creating a flac copy of the data is a capability of the Core.

With the Core you can choose to have rips made in FLAC or WAV at the ripping stage, but it won’t convert between formats later. This is different from the Unitiserve.

best

David

Uggh it won't? Yes my advice was based on my past experience with a UnitiServe. There is no facility to export as flac or convert its own wav rips to flac?  'Tis a shame.

Chris, you may well end up like me.  Once you are facile with how to do all this with a nas, you'll sell off the Core (I sold off the UnitiServe which was its predecessor) as you'll realize (a) music served by your nas with MinimServer or Asset sounds the same, (b) MinimServer and Asset permit way more control over metadata and the ability to edit it logically and reliably, and (c) you'll have invested MUCH less in this part of your hardware setup.

Then, maybe like me, you'll migrate further and use Roon, which to my tastes provides a better user interface than the Naim App in quite a number of ways.

Sorry to take you into this crystal ball gazing, but given that you have "only" 500gb of music at the moment it'l be easier to re-evaluate than if you have 2 tb of Core rips to deal with in the future.

David Hendon posted:

Bart posted:

 The better solution would be for you to have the Core create a flac format copy of the data, and then you can copy that data over to the new nas. Creating a flac copy of the data is a capability of the Core.

With the Core you can choose to have rips made in FLAC or WAV at the ripping stage, but it won’t convert between formats later. This is different from the Unitiserve.

best

David

Which sucks because, if one decides to rip his or her CDs in WAV, one gets all metadata locked into an undocumented, proprietary format that is old, obsolete and lacks support for classical music.

Perhaps Naim could make this very clear in the Core's documentation. Making Core users aware of the consequences of ripping their CDs in WAV format would be only fair and could help preventing later disappointments and unnecessary waste of time and resources.      

I'm coming round to the fact that the Core has very limited functionality and compatibility and this needs to be addressed by Naim, otherwise unfortunately I can see it as being a short lived also ran. My wife and I can personally hear a difference to the better when using the Core against my Qnap NAS but we appreciate that others do not. It's a bit like the the debate around Ethernet and other types of digital cable. If your existing systems up to scratch and you can't hear a difference then go for a NAS and you'll have enough money left over for a sizable album collection! Rich 

Rich 1 posted:

I'm coming round to the fact that the Core has very limited functionality and compatibility and this needs to be addressed by Naim, otherwise unfortunately I can see it as being a short lived also ran. My wife and I can personally hear a difference to the better when using the Core against my Qnap NAS but we appreciate that others do not. It's a bit like the the debate around Ethernet and other types of digital cable. If your existing systems up to scratch and you can't hear a difference then go for a NAS and you'll have enough money left over for a sizable album collection! Rich 

There could be in principle many good reasons to buy a Core instead of a NAS and I personally would never use a NAS to run a UPnP server, let apart a Roon server.

In much the same way as the UnitiServe, the Core was designed to provide an easy entry point to streaming for users who are not computer literate or who are looking for a turnkey solution to ripping, storing and serving music files. If it would fill this bill, it would be an excellent product.

Unfortunately it does not and one needs to be initiated into the mysteries and the idiosyncrasies of the Naim world to understand what the Core can do, what it can't and to use the device in a halfway proficient manner.

The good news is that there are excellent alternatives to the Core. The bad news is that, if one has used the Core to rip a CD collection in WAV format, the good news have come too late.

I can only echo these comments. I was recommended to rip 500gb of CD's in WAV format. They are almost all classical. The metadata is at best patchy. The sound quality of the Core and a Nova playing through PMC twenty five 26's is really superb. But I wish I had known the implications before I made the WAV choice!

What am I missing?  Please clarify  why ripping in WAV format is bad?

i have about 550 CDs ripped in WAV format and I am about to copy those WAV files to my new Sonic Transporter and trial Roon.  Is this going to be a problem for me?

Echolane posted:

What am I missing?  Please clarify  why ripping in WAV format is bad?

Nothing whatsoever is 'BAD' about WAV,  its just that the way Naim do it is not to the Microsoft/IBM standard 

WAV ripped with a Naim Core, UnitiServe or HDX are ripped in a different way w.r.t. metadata packing to the MS/IBM 'standard'.   'Naim' ripped files cannot be used in a non-Naim machine & must be converted to 'normal' WAV or another format.   The only way to do this is use the Naim ripper/server to convert to FLAC,  then using a PC/Mac/Laptop the file can be converted back to the MS/IBM WAV format or one of the Apple formats to use with any compatible streamer.

Mike-B posted:

Echolane posted:

What am I missing?  Please clarify  why ripping in WAV format is bad?

Nothing whatsoever is 'BAD' about WAV,  its just that the way Naim do it is not to the Microsoft/IBM standard 

WAV ripped with a Naim Core, UnitiServe or HDX are ripped in a different way w.r.t. metadata packing to the MS/IBM 'standard'.   'Naim' ripped files cannot be used in a non-Naim machine & must be converted to 'normal' WAV or another format.   The only way to do this is use the Naim ripper/server to convert to FLAC,  then using a PC/Mac/Laptop the file can be converted back to the MS/IBM WAV format or one of the Apple formats to use with any compatible streamer.

Sadly, that is contrary to what I was told by Naim, who said their WAV was standard WAV.  I so hope that doesn’t complicate my move to the Sonic Transporter.  I had a brief trial with Roon and it had no problems with my WAV files, at least nothing obvious, so I hope it will be no different when I ask Roon to process from the Sonic Transporter.

Echolane posted:

Sadly, that is contrary to what I was told by Naim, who said their WAV was standard WAV. 

Naim told you that !!!  or do you really mean a Naim dealer ???

Mike-B posted:

Echolane posted:

Sadly, that is contrary to what I was told by Naim, who said their WAV was standard WAV. 

Naim told you that !!!  or do you really mean a Naim dealer ???

I believe I asked that question of Naim Support via an email.  Here is a copy of some of that email conversation:  Perhaps I misunderstood the answer?

As a standard, WAV files do not contain any metadata. Some software, like DBPoweramp, can insert ID3 tags into the WAV files, but there are very few software packages available that can read these tags as they're non-standard, although the files will play just fine. 

So Naim do use WAV in it's purest form, often getting artist/album/track info from the file/folder naming conventions in the previous post. Alternatively on the Core I believe that a 'useredits' metadata file appears in the folder if you make any changes to the metadata.

In my experience, un-tagged WAV sounds a little better than tagged WAV. I can't explain why exactly, but it does! Perhaps this is why Naim chose not to tag their rips. 

Also, WAV is actually just a container format for audio information. So if you rip a CD, the PCM data off the disk is then simply packaged within the WAV container. 

I think you can even put MP3 data into a WAV container if you want to, but this seems pointless to me. 

Rich 1 posted:

I'm coming round to the fact that the Core has very limited functionality and compatibility and this needs to be addressed by Naim, otherwise unfortunately I can see it as being a short lived also ran. My wife and I can personally hear a difference to the better when using the Core against my Qnap NAS but we appreciate that others do not. It's a bit like the the debate around Ethernet and other types of digital cable. If your existing systems up to scratch and you can't hear a difference then go for a NAS and you'll have enough money left over for a sizable album collection! Rich 

That’s the same realization I e come to.    I was a complete novice to the digital world, took the advice of someone and bought the Uniti Core and thought I was set.  But as I’ve gradually learned more about streaming, I’ve become far more ambitious in what I want.  Internet radio.  Subscription music services like Qobuz or Idagio or Primephonic, etc.  The ability to send music to multiple systems simultaneously.  The Uniti Core does none  of this.  To be fair, not too many streamers do all of the above either, but most do more.  I cling to my Uniti Core, at least for the moment, because I’m comfortable with the way it rips and the latitude it gives me to edit vis IOS app.  I’ve done a LOT of editing on my mostly opera and classical music library and thankfully I don’t have to sit at my desktop to do it.   That matters a lot to me because my bad back doesn’t like sitting at my desktop.  Roon’s editing of metadata is done via Windows or Mac, which is a big disadvantage for me.  Enough that I will probably keep the Uniti Core around.