Over the past year or so I’ve been ripping my entire CD collection to an external hard drive. I’m using dbpoweramp to rip the CDs and I’m using Asset to stream the music wirelessly to my Naim streamer. I’m quite fastidious when it comes to metadata. I recently decided to unplug the hard drive from my PC and plug it directly into the Naim streamer but I notice that if I do that, there are huge differences when I’m searching for music on the Naim app. I have several classical CDs and they appear on the Naim app differently when the hard drive is plugged in to the streamer. Using Asset/dbPoweramp I have an ‘Album Artist’ tag as Kiev Chamber Orchestra; Roman Kofman. When I search using Asset on the Naim app this album will show up under Kiev Chamber Orchestra and also under Roman Kofman but when the hard drive is plugged directly into the streamer it only shows up as Roman Kofman despite the fact that the folder on the hard drive is called Kiev Chamber Orchestra. This is just one example. If when using dbPoweramp to rip my CDs I choose as the Album Artist tag soloist;orchestra;conductor e.g. Heinrich Schiff; Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields; Sir Neville Marriner using Asset I can search for all three but once again if I choose local server I only see it under the conductor’s name despite the folder name in my ‘Ripped Music’ folder being Heirich Schiff. Another example. Album Artist is András Schiff; Camarata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg; Sándor Végh. Once again, I can search for all three using Asset but only Sándor Végh shows up under ‘Artist’ in the Local server despite the folder on my hard drive being labelled András Schiff. The local server always seems to default to the last name in the Album Artist field. I can see that using the Naim app with Asset gives more options. There’s an Artist folder along with an Album Artist folder but i still don’t understand why the Local server always defaults to the last name. Ideally, once I’ve ripped all my CDs I wanted to just plug my external hard drive into my streamer and leave it and just use Local Server but I’m not so sure now. This doesn’t just apply to classical music, it applies to any album where I have multiple names for ‘Album Artist’ but it features heavily with classical music. Any thoughts as to why Local Server acts in this way? I hope I’ve explained this in a way that is easy to understand?
I guess it’s all to do with the streamer’s in-built Server not being as comprehensive as the Asset one.
The Meta data is clearly the same, so it must be the way the server handles it.
Asset is a much more comprehensive upnp server, with lots of options to customise browsing to meet your preferences. When connected via USB to a Naim streamer, it’s a much more basic setup.
I can see why you wouldn’t want the hard drive connected to the PC and to have the PC running when you listen to music. I’d suggest getting a Synology or Qnap NAS, putting the music on that and also loading Asset. You can then rip on the PC, copy to the NAS and everything is available to the Naim, without needing to have the PC running.
Hi. Thanks for taking the time to reply. At the moment I’m quite happy to connect the hard drive to the pc. I’m just thinking ahead here. I’m conscious of the fact that I’ll always need a pc to be able to do that. My Mac is 12 years old and I don’t want to spend a fortune replacing it just so I can connect a hard drive to it. I very rarely need a pc these days as I do most stuff on a tablet. Other people have suggested a NAS but once again, does that mean I’ll always need a pc? Once I’ve ripped my entire collection I was hoping I could ditch a pc all together. Forgive my ignorance. I’m not too knowledgeable on how a NAS works. Apologies. (My excuse is I’m old)
If you use a NAS you’ll need a PC or Mac to manage it, and also to rip any new CDs. If you buy downloads, they first go to your computer, and then you copy to the NAS. You couldn’t download from Bandcamp for example, directly to a NAS.
Once a NAS drive is set up and running, you would need a PC or Mac should you wish to add music to it, but only really in the same way as if you wanted to add music to you hard drive plugged directly into your Naim streamer.
I don’t believe you can do that on a tablet anyway.
Ok….so once I’ve ripped my CD collection onto a NAS, could I then ditch the pc and just access my music through the standalone NAS, also still allowing me to use Asset with the Naim app? Or does a NAS still always need a pc? Sorry if this is a dumb question. If all my music files are on the NAS and the NAS is connected to my network and my Naim streamer can find the NAS wirelessly why do I need a pc? Or, like you say, do I always need a pc (or Mac) to manage a NAS? Once I’ve ripped my collection, I’m done with CDs.
Your question has got me investigating. I’d always thought that one needed a PC or Mac to manage the Qnap, but I’ve discovered that there is an iPhone app called Q Manager that looks like it can do a lot of it. But how you’d download Asset updates to the NAS without a computer I’ve no idea. I suspect that in practice a computer is required.
If you want to add new music bought as downloads you are going to need a computer.
Yep, I realise that adding anything will def require a pc. I see your point about Asset updates. And if I choose not to use Asset I guess I’m back to my original question about the Local Server on the Naim app?
Tagging can be a nightmare if you have ocd tendencies and want to store classical and none classical music. I suffered for the cause but what helped me was treating composers as artists and deleting any AlbumArtist tags. Once they had gone life resumed to some kind of normality.
The uPNP servers built into naim products are very basic, low featured and interrogate only a few metadata tags. This is why we don’t use the uPNP server on our Core.
As others say above, Asset uPNP server is a far more capable server, which interrogates many tags in an intelligent manner and provides a great deal of customisation around how your search results are displayed.
We use a Synology 2 disk NAS as data store, running Asset uPNP, with the Core just used as a CD ripper (storing rips on the NAS).
All of Innuos new products integrate Asset as standard. Why reinvent the wheel, just use the best of breed!
Hi @Shpongle, you can’t download music files from, say, Bandcamp directly to an iPad or iPhone (it’s an Apple thing) for transferring to a NAS. I understand you can with other makes of tablets, but I have no personal experience of that. But since you’re commendably careful with metadata, you’re probably going to want to edit metadata of downloads anyway and that’s going to be easier on a computer.
Like you, I didn’t plan to buy any more CDs once I’d ripped my own collection, but then I found some music I really wanted was only available on CD. And sometimes CDs offer extras: I recently got the Unthanks’ new Christmas album which I could have bought as a download, but the double CD set came with a booklet with words and notes on the music and was beautifully presented. So I’d recommend maintaining a facility for ripping, which probably means a computer.
I’d go along with the suggestion to get a NAS and keep a computer (a cheap small laptop would do). Setting up the NAS may take a little time, but provided you follow instructions carefully should not present a problem. And if you do run into difficulties there are helpful posters on this forum and others.
Qfile for iphone or android will access the NAS file system. Does several other useful things as well.
The only thing i use a PC for is to edit the metadata with if needed.
But I don’t think you can download from, for example, Bandcamp directly to a NAS. And AFAIK you can’t download a file to an iPad for subsequent transfer to a NAS. Happy to give it a try if that’s wrong.
Yep. I already have the composer as the ‘Artist’. I thought it would be good to utilise the ‘Album Artist’ tag to incorporate Soloists, Orchestra and Conductor. But like you, I’m wondering how likely it is that I will search specifically for any of those. I’m much more likely to just search for a particular composer. Time to visit the ‘edit’ function methinks!
The one in dbPoweramp. It is quick and easy to use. Just highlight all the tracks right click then edit and it opens you can then edit them all at once or scrole through for individual tracks then click save and all is done.
