ND5 XS2 wont play music other than artists commencing with letter A

Streaming Audio
1

Last week I purchased a Supernait 2 and ND5 XS2 to replace my Cyrus amplifier, CD player and streamer.

I have connected the XS2 wirelessly and also inserted a USB stick into the front port and a connected portable hard drive to the rear port. However, no matter which I option I choose to play music or which track I select on the Naim app, the XS2 fails to play my selection and always selects a track from artist names commencing with A.

I have to say that the Supernait 2 is a huge step up from my Cyrus amplifier but the XS2 is complete pants at playing FLAC or WAV files beyond the letter A from any source.

Am I missing something or is the XS2 as bad as I’m finding it or it the app that is useless?

Any suggestions to get it to play music from artists from B to Z would be very welcome.

2

Not come across this on the forum before. Have you tried completely powering down the streamer, also your ipad or iphone, even deleting and reinstalling the App? Others on the forum may have better suggestions, but the above is quick and easy to do.

3

Are you using the USB input via the Naim app? If so, go into the settings menu, enable Server mode, and look at the music files via the Server input.

1 Like
4

Thank you for the prompt replies and advice.

I have checked the settings and server mode is ticked.

I have all my music stored on my PC and also on a mini portable hard drive in a folder on each titled music. Within that folder are two other other folders with one titled WAV and the other FLAC. Within each of them are music tracks from CDs I have ripped. I have only ripped the tracks I like from the cds rather than the full cd and ripped them to FLAC and WAV so I could compare them to decide if WAV sounded better.

When I select servers from the naim app it finds the folder on my pc titled Local Music and within that folder are a range of options including albums, artists, genres, newest cd etc. If I select artist or albums, all that appears are the two folders titled WAV and FLAC. When I open either folder, each track I have ripped is listed but in no apparent order i.e. not alphabetical by artist, track or album e.g. 1. is A-ha - Take On Me, 2 is Abba - Dancing Queen, 3 is Belinda Carlisle - In Too Deep, 4 is Abba -Super Trouper. If I then click on any track from the list and then click play from the drop down list it plays the track. This works for every track from A to Z but only the title and not the artist name appears in the list tracks to play.

In addition despite me using Tagscanner to add the album art to each track, the same album art for the first track played appears on every single track and doesn’t change from track to track. Incidentally, I ripped the WAV files using EAC and then added full album art via Tagscanner.

If I select USB front or rear directly from the app, I see the same WAV or FLAC folder but instead of a list of individual tracks as I see via the server route, I see an individual icon with the artist name. If I click on it the artist and song title briefly scroll along the bottom of my phone on the app as if it is about to play but it immediately changes to a song by an artist commencing with the letter A. I might be wrong, but it’s as if the ND5 can’t process a single folder containing a large number of files and only sees the first 30 or forty tracks. Furthermore, the tracks that do play still don’t show album art within the app whether they are FLAC or WAV. That said, the tracks that do play sound great.

I haven’t changed any of the music folders on my PC or the content of them and everything worked fine with my Cyrus streamer and before that my Sonos. By fine, I mean I could filter by artist, song title or album.

is there something I’m missing about the Naim app or is it just not user friendly? If it is the latter, is there an alternative way to use the ND5 without the app? I can’t scroll through a list of over 4000 tracks every time I want to find the one track I want to play. Alternatively, do I need to set up the files on my PC differently i.e have a single individual folder for every track or cd I have ripped.

At the moment I am extremely disappointed with the usability of the ND5 and if I can’t resolve the problems it will be appearing on a well known auction site very soon and I’ll connect my Sonos to the Supernait 2. I’m also now regretting selling my Cyrus streamer to a work colleague.

5

have you tried to desinstall and install again the naim app. Restart your router, wait till the ethernet is back, restart your nd5xs2?
sometimes there are bugs and restart all or just the app will work.

6

Thank you. I will try all of those later today. Unfortunately my router is in a different room to the ND5 so connection by ethernet isn’t an option unless I run a cable externally outside the house.

7

Sounds like you need to a visit to your dealer who you got the XS2 from.

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8

I’d suggest that the issue is down to the slightly eccentric way you have your files arranged. The standard way is a folder for each artist, then a folder each albums, with the tracks within that. Try setting a few up like that and see if it works.

If you were to move to a Nas running Asset or MinimServer you can keep all your files in flac and set it to transcode to wav on playback. Or just have them all in wav. It’s really not necessary to have both flac and wav.

9

I don’t use usb sticks or drives but where you are talking about streaming from your PC it sounds as if you don’t have any server software running? Try downloading and running the free version of Asset on your PC, tell Asset where your music folders are and maybe things will improve.

10

Thank you hungryhalibut.

Thank you also for going easy on me with the ‘eccentric’ description of how my files are arranged.

This evening I have played around with the network sharing settings on my computer and the ND5 now sees my FLAC and WAV folders on my computer and it also allows me to select via artist, track or album and plays with out issue. USB and portable hard drive connected to the front or rear port also now plays all tracks from A-Z but it still only lists the tracks in random order not via album or artist.

Now the streaming element is working I am going to follow your advice and set up a folder for each artist and each album by that artist and drop the relevant tracks into the folder.

The FLAC files all show album art but all the WAV files show is WAV on the track icon. is there a way I can get album art to appear on my WAV files?

I note your comment about NAS but currently don’t have one. I also know nothing about them but am open to trying one. Are they easy to set up and can you recommend one?

Thanks in advance.

11

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your reply. I don’t have server software running on my pc. Now that the ND5 is now seeing and playing from my music folder on my pc, would Asset negate the need to buy a NAS drive?

12

If it’s now working for you with the PC you don’t need Asset or a NAS. The advantage of a NAS is that you leave it on all the time so don’t need to turn on the PC when you want to play music. NASs are designed for continuous use and low power consumption.

13

Sorry, I can’t help with your WAV files and album art. I find them hard to use and therefore only use flac. I use Asset to transcode to wav, which to me sounds better. I use a Qnap TS 253A which works well. There are lots of others of course. One thing I like is being able to plug in a USB on the front and back up at the touch of a button.

If you use streaming significantly it’s far easier to have a nas. You hide it away and it just goes to sleep when not in use. When you open the Naim app and start searching, it wakes up. It’s so much better than having to turn a PC on all the time. I had a bit of help to set it up, but it’s pretty easy.

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14

I don’t understand what you’re doing here. If the music is visible in the streamer, via the Server input on the app, you must be running a server somewhere. If the server is called Local Music, that’s the Naim server running on your ND5XS2 that sees the locally attached USB drive, not your computer.

15

Thanks Jonathan,

My PC is on 24/7 as I never power it down. However, I will look into a NAS drive as it would be good to stream TV series and movies through it.

16

Thank you Hungry,

I’m not yet savvy enough to understand transcoding from flac to wav so will have a read up on it. I’ll also check out the QNAP NAS drive you mention. I’ve had a quick read already and am trying to figure how many bays to go for and what RAID set up to use.

17

Chris,

I’m now successfully streaming from my PC to the ND5, I guess that means I’m using my PC as a server?

18

yes. As a nas and server. However you would have a better sound quality with a dedicated server/ nas. A nas like qnap or synology, or something like an innuos zen mini ( if you don’t want to involve a pc ).
Or roon nucleus, roon core if you are roon africionados.

19

Yes, but there must be UPnP server software running on your computer, as this is what will be seen in the Server input via the Naim app.

20

So, I’ve now recorded my file system and have two folders. One with tracks ripped to FLAC and the other ripped to WAV. Within each I have an artist folder then an album folder. Despite reading lots of posts on the net about them being identical in sound, to my ear WAV sounds better.

Unfortunately, whilst the FLAC tracks show album art, the WAV tracks just show the standard WAV icon within the Naim app. I therefore have some questions:

  1. Is the fault of the tablet I’m using as it is a number of years old?
  2. Is it the Naim app at fault ?
  3. Is it neither of the above because you cannot add album art to a WAV file?
  4. If you can add album art to a WAV file, how do you do it?

I also have a further question about speakers. I currently have a pair of Castle Acoustics Stirling Mk 3 which are circa 12 years old. If I wanted to upgrade, what floorstanding speakers would you recommend to go with the Supernait 2 and ND5 XS2. My listening room is quite small at 3 mtrs by 2.8mtrs.