HDX - question

Posted by: Peter Gear on 09 September 2008

I had a demo of the HDX through a SN this morning via ripped CD's that my wife and I took along. I was a little disappointed that the HDX was connected for audio only and not over a local network to the desk top client interface or to the internet. I was therefore unable to see how this side of the HDX operated - a key point as far as I was concerned.
We have around 400 CD's and after ripping this would potentially leave 'room' for ~250 CD's worth of data on the HDX hard disks. The dealer said the HDX disks could be filled with downloaded music via the desktop interface.
Is this correct?? I can find no information on this in the HDX reference manual and thought music material could only be downloaded to storage sytems external to the HDX.

Thanks for any help you can give.
Peter
Posted on: 09 September 2008 by Klout10
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Gear:
The dealer said the HDX disks could be filled with downloaded music via the desktop interface.
Is this correct?? I can find no information on this in the HDX reference manual and thought music material could only be downloaded to storage sytems external to the HDX.Peter


Hmmm, I think you are correct on this one. As far as I know one can only rip CD's to the HDX's internal harddisk.

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Regards,
Michel
Posted on: 09 September 2008 by pylod
why did naim not supply the hdx with wireless ? again cables and cables...am i missing something here ? all linn ds have wireless on bord
Posted on: 09 September 2008 by glevethan
quote:
Originally posted by pylod:
all linn ds have wireless on bord


Hmmm...are you sure? I think not.

Wireless to control them ... but not wireless streaming.

Gregg
Posted on: 10 September 2008 by pylod
yes, sorry i was wrong...

it was an answer from a linn dealer...

attractive though
Posted on: 10 September 2008 by John R.
@ Peter Gear:

Up to now the HDX only stores files on its internal HD that are ripped by itself. We will see what the upgraded software will come up regarding this issue. Operating the HDX via its desktop client ist very easy. Or you can operate the HDX with a browser (Mozilla or Internet Exolorer) that has got a Flash plug in. Unfortunately they are still working on such a plug in for the i pod touch.
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by Peter Gear
I've just had the definitive answer from Naim.

It's not possible to download and add to the HDX hard disc, the disc is read only. An external NAS or USB external drive is required.

This does seem to be a weakness to me as I would only half fill the HDX hard disc with ripped CDs. I really don't want the hassle of these extra drives and networking about which I know absolutely nothing!

Think I will get a CDX2 instead.

Peter
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by Erik
I think it would have been better without internal HDs, reducing the noise. And I really don't want to rip my collection again when upgrading the player. Hopefully next SW upgrade will allow to rip to an external drive.

/Erik
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Gear:
I've just had the definitive answer from Naim.

It's not possible to download and add to the HDX hard disc, the disc is read only. An external NAS or USB external drive is required.

This does seem to be a weakness to me as I would only half fill the HDX hard disc with ripped CDs. I really don't want the hassle of these extra drives and networking about which I know absolutely nothing!

Think I will get a CDX2 instead.

Peter


Yes, this is one of the strange things about the whole HDX development in that one will be forced to use an external drive at some point either because their CD collection requires more storage capacity than the HDX holds or because you need to store new additions to an external drive such as downloaded files. I have been told that a software update will be available to allow you to rip on the HDX and store to the external NAS from the software control, but I do not know about anything with downloadable files as the current set-up is read only on the HDD. It does make you wonder why the HDX was developed with the ripping and storage HDD. Given the above perhaps just a ripping station and no internal HDD would have made more sense, but clealry they were going for an all in one to avoid the other computer issue as you mention, but eventually you have to use an external NAS if you continue to buy music.

Money aside, make sure that you are certain that you prefe the CDX2 over the HDX as setting up and using an external drive is quite easy and you will also retain the ability to play 24 bit when they are more readily available. If you prefer the sound of the CDX2 better that is a different story.
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by jon h
HDX does broadcast itself onto the local network for file sharing, but the file sharing component is disabled. IE you will see a naim workgroup name and hdx box name if you browse your computer network.

so it is clearly doing netbios broadcasting on ports 135/8/9.

whether naim will enable read only access to the hdx volume (which is d:\vader by the way "the music is strong in this one....") or full read write is something for the future (or not). There might be problems with the way it generates the database of metadata which makes it damn awkward for you to drop pre-ripped music onto the HD without hdx's own software doing the rip/locate metadata/store metadata first

jon
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by David Dever
I believe the intention is to keep the contents of the internal drives secure–in fact, when you drop a disc into the tray, you are not loading this data into the server/player, the machine is!

Every piece of data on the server/player is generated and manipulated by the machine, whether it be metadata requests from the internet (AMG / FreeDB), disc rips or internal differential backups.

Network scanning exists (in addition to the USB connection) to provide a means by which external data can be accessed by (but not stored into) the player.
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by Phil Harris
The HDX (as with the NS series servers) rips directly to its own internal drives by default (the ability to rip to an external NAS drive is being implemented and will be added when stable to a future firmware update). The music folder is presented on the network (as Jon has pointed out) so that if you have multiple HDX/NS units on the same network they can see each others music and therefore pool all the music across multiple machines - thus each machine will be able to list and play all the music from all the machines.

It is not possible to add pre-ripped or MP3'd music to the hard disc of an HDX or NS unit ... this is partly because we wish to ensure the quality of the music on the server (if you want to have your MP3's etc. on a network share then teh HDX will happily play those as well) but mainly because of the additional databasing that we do on the servers to allow for the extended metadata that we download during ripping.

I hope that clarifies things a little...

Cheers

Phil
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by nocker
Why dony you down load music to your computer, burn a disc then rip to the HDX?
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by pylod
will the hdx be able to play radio i the future ?

my question still hasnīt been answered, if the xps 1 can be attached to the hdx over the black burndy ( not the sxps ) can someone comment on this ,please ?


just read the german stereoplay test.seems to be a fascinating machine Smile ...just because the hdx got the same points as the cd555 doesnīt necessary mean , that they are in the same league. for example the cdx2 is just one point away from the cds3. who cares...i would love to hear one , but unfortunately i got the message, that the hdx will not reach norway so far. just for order but not for listen demo.

well linn servers sells very well here. but they also do demoshows.

p
Posted on: 11 September 2008 by Claus-Thoegersen
[QUOTE]Originally posted by pylod:
will the hdx be able to play radio i the future ?

Yes internet radio should come in an upgrade to the HDX, but nothing has been said on when. I cannot answer your other question.
Posted on: 12 September 2008 by Paul Stephenson
ok, the xps lead will work but the sxps lead will sound better, NOTE if you use a 555ps you must use the sxps laed not the laed which is used to connet the 555 cd player.

I think you should let naim know direct about demo for the hdx, this should not be the case that you must order first, if this is what you are being told we would like to know, we would then take steps to make sure you can.
Posted on: 12 September 2008 by pylod
thank you paul..

i will maybe have a chance to listen to it , when i will travel to germany soon.

when i ma convinced , i maybe will ask about a home demo...

regards p