How do I play a file full of aiff music via Naim Uniti Core?

I have a Naim Uniti Core with a 1 tb internal SSD about half full of my ripped CDs in WAV format. And currently no non-Naim generated WAV files.

I’ve just acquired a tremendous gift, hi-res (192/24) copies of 160 of my LP albums, about 400 records, formatted as aiff on a Seagate 3 Tb external backup drive. The files occupy about 1.2 Tb of disc space.

I just don’t know how to play them!

Do I need to convert them to WAV? Or can I just attach the external HD to the Naim Uniti Core via the USB port? Or do I need to copy some of them onto the Naim’s internal SSD (which which is too small right now to hold the full quantity)?
Janet

You can just connect the USB drive to the Core, or if you prefer, you can copy the files to the Downloads folder, so you can keep the USB drive as a backup. The Core should play AIFFs, so no need to convert to WAV.
Do you know how the USB drive was formatted? If the wrong format was used, it may not work.

At the moment, no idea how it was formatted. I’ve inserted the drive into my Windows Desktop via USB port and it doesn’t bring it up for viewing so now you’ve got me worried about the format. I’ll double check on my husband’s desktop before I panic. I’m guessing my Santa Claus uses Mac products, else why would he choose aiff?

Why not just connect it to the Core and see if it works?
If you need to re-format the drive, that erases the data, so you would first have to copy it to a different disc.

I tried the portable drive on husband’s computer and unless I’ve forgotten how to do something (!) it should automatically announce its presence and all I should have to is click on it and open it and read it just like an internal file. But it’s not acknowledged on either of our Windows 7 desktops.

Nor is it announcing itself on the Naim. I’ve never before tried to play anything from the USB port of the Core, so I don’t know what to expect, but I’ve looked through all the menus and see no sign of it.

What format is it expecting? NTFS?

I would stick another drive in the Core USB port and see if it works, just any old memory stick would do. Use the Core to format it if necessary, then put some music on it just to confirm that it all works.

XI’ve discovered the music files. Sort of. It turns out the external drive is a powered drive. I am used to the little Passport drives which don’t need a power source, so I didn’t tumble to the problem. My husband opened the box, and didn’t take out the wall wart power supply and it was only when I peered inside the Box to look for directions that I saw the power supply. So it definitely helped to plug it in to a power source!

But otherwise, not an ideal situation. All the files are titled with the label number and not the music title. It’s only when I open a file that I can see track contents and guess at the Album Title.

So it looks like I’ll have a lot of editing ahead of me.

But aside from that, there are other problems. I see the albums on the external drives interspersed in my album display, easily picked out because there is no cover art, only an outline with the label id. If I choose that album, I see a display that looks like this.


While it helps me identify the album, it doesn’t have track info. That’s a problem, but what’s really odd is that I can scroll down and see this:
These are different albums from the one I’ve selected and am playing. And even weirder, it’s always the same group of albums, no matter the selection just above on the display. I haven’t figured out the logic of this at all.

More work for me tomorrow when I try again to plug it into my Windows Desktop. Hopefully, I can learn more about how it’s organized and how I can edit the files. He told me that he has scanned copies of album cover included. I hope I can find a way to get them to display.

As for hi-res quality, I can’t say I’m bowled over. But the sound is very clean and I can’t hear any clicks and pops so that’s good :blush:. Also, thanks much for the hand holding!!

There’s lots of programs that may help with tagging (metadata).

Yes, it looks like you need to open the files in a metadata editor. I find Metadatics very good, but it’s Mac only. For Windows, I believe mp3tag is a popular one. Then you will be able to add artwork and other metadata to make sense of the files.

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