To rule out the files themselves, you could copy them on an usb stick and try to play from that device locally.
Use Mp3tag in Windows to show the “Mode” column, which will simply say Mono, Stereo, or Joint Stereo.
Looks like these are all joint stereo apart from the last one, so I’ll try them on the qb.
Many thanks, Robert_h. I have done as you suggested and, taking a sample of 10 mp3s, 6 were stereo mode and 4 were joint stereo mode. Once again, I guess I ought to repeat that they have all previously played OK on the first generation devices.
You’re right, Mike-B, in that I am indeed using media server. I have checked and I am using the latest Synology software and the latest version of media server (And would have been very surprised if I wasn’t because I have tried to be conscientious about keeping up-to-date).
I tried the files, as you suggested Pieto, via a USB stick and they played. BUT, weirdly, each of the tracks had a “false start”. By this, I mean that within the first few seconds, each track momentarily stopped and restarted from the beginning and then played to the end. I have no idea what this is about!
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That sounds like a bad rip.
Try ripping again to see if that gets rid of the false start.
If not best rip using a ripping software packge such as whatever is free on the web,
Or better still, get yourself dBpoweramp, its the best & does everything the Naim Star ripper doesn’t.
Out of interest what are you using to rip ?
I’m the person who created the first post that was linked about the issue, I think at one point Apple Music changed from stereo to joint stereo, it can be set back to stereo in the preferences.
If you can’t re-rip there is a fix using asset in my original post.
dBpoweramp, ripping to FLAC on Azuz USB DVD drive/Dell Windows-11
Originally ripped to WAV, then batch converted all to FLAC
Play from Synology DS214 with Asset UPnP
I don’t have MP3, I might get a copy to check I like the album, but get a FLAC, preferably 24bit, ASAP.
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I suspected so, but it was “addressed” to me as you touched the ‘reply’ tab associated with my post
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Actually, the MP3’s in question are not my rips. They are predominantly purchases from Amazon. (Though, for the record, I use dBpoweramp for my ripping.
@Rogert366 Your only fix may be to convert the files from joint stereo to stereo or use Asset on the NAS to convert from joint stereo to stereo on the fly as per the second post here :-
I might be missing something here, but it seems to me that the Joint Stereo issue is not the root cause of my problem. Of the 10 file sample of “non players” that I looked at, less than half were Joint Stereo.
Do you have backups of your MP3’s - hopefully yes, in which case can you try and restore just a couple of the problem tracks from the longest period ago that you can?
Thanks GadgetMan. I do have backups, and duly tried your suggestion at the outset, assuming it was some sort of file corruption issue. But without success!
While I’m usually all in for trying to find (and fix) the root cause - if you’re having no joy, then transcoding the offending files to flac will likely get you out of the hole.
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I think Andy’s suggestion is certainly worth a try, and you can do that with dbpoweramp. It will make the file larger, but in terms of diagnostics, worth spending a few minutes trying it.
It does sound like a firmware issue though, and ultimately you could consider raising a ticket with Naim, which will hopefully allow them to receive a copy of a problem file, and test it their end on different devices.
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Thanks Andy R. I can see that I may have to settle for a pragmatic workaround – which is better than no solution at all! I have duly tried it, and it works. And I shall take your advice too, GadgetMan, and seek to raise the issue with Naim. Thank you both.
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By way of a PS to this dialogue, I duly took GadgetMan’s advice and referred the matter to Naim. I received brilliant technical support from Duncan Roberts (to whom I am so grateful). He advised me to re-save (ie. Export audio) the offending files through Audacity, with the following explanation:
"What this does, is saves the audio file but not the embedded metadata tags. Sometimes, when you have files from sources like Amazon, they embed a tag in the file that links it to them. What can sometimes happen, is these tags are read, and because it can’t be verified by the original source, the file refuses to play. "
And, it worked!
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