Okay,thanks. I think the NDS have much better performance from reading USB sticks than HDX and the Naim nDac,even with those a USB stick outperformed the HDX hard drive.
I ripped my CDs, now 24,000 tracks on my PC “NAS”, but I have moved on from just streaming CDs by adding the streaming experience with hi-res Qobuz, hi-res Internet radio, hi-res digital downloads, music library searching etc. The USB approach seems a bit of a limited cul-de-sac.
AssetUPnP will also play your flac files (the best) as wav format better suited to the NDS 1st gen.
Impressive,indeed.
I choose better sound over convenience being used to play vinyl.
If there is a way to play from a Nas,that’s better than USB sticks without being very expensive,
I would love that.
While I had been deciding about the placement of my CD player, and first looking into streaming, I stumbled across some very clear streaming system set up guidance published on the Cyrus website. Sadly, I think it has long since gone, and equally sadly, I haven’t seen such a clear, simple explanation elsewhere, then I’m sure such must exist.
Plenty of suggestions above, to which I add these notes from my own initial experience of streaming, which was solely from my own store of files initially ripped from vinyl and CD.
I decided to go for the ND5XS, and based on what I had learnt at that point, I decided to put my files on a NAS. I bought the cheapest NAS, I could find (NSA325) and a couple of 500MB hard drives (specified for NAS type use - WD red maybe).
As the NAS was only for music use I put it in the same room as my hi-fi, with a network switch (Cheap one from Linksys IIRC) between it and the ND5XS on the one hand, and the rest of the house network on the other.
The NAS came with Twonky Media server, which I managed to set up okay, so it did seem less than intuitive, and rather quickly. (Maybe the clue was in the Twonky name!) I alteady had a bunch of ripped vinyl as .wav files on a hard disk at that point, so I copied them into the NAS. I connected everything, the ND5 saw my files, I could pick them and play them – always good!
I started ripping CDs (using dBPoweramp) and with all my files I use the same simple, logical, traditional filing system of genre as top-level folder (just my own division into classical, rock, opera etc), then artist (surname, first person’s name, or omitting, the word “the“ phone band names), followed by folder for each album, named by album (if multiple versions of an album, I added more into the name to differentiate). In there, I put tracks each with a leasing track number (with leading zero for single digit numbers like 02) and the name of the track. I saved in .flac format, and converted my vinyl .wav files to .flac.
Great, but quite frequently I had to restart the in the streamer and NAS because the in ND5 ceased to find the files. Not being happy with Twonky I decided to try a different media server, and downloaded Logitech media server (often known as LMS), free of charge. Not fixed all the problems, played well, justly periodic (Maybe a month or two) reboot of streamer needed to clear its memory, or whatever.
The one thing I was not keen on with my set up was that the NAS was physically noisy, having a fan who is noise was intrusive at very low listening levels. (One solution could have been to move it to a different place in the house, in my case, in due course I replaced it with a Mac Mini, running the free media server Serviio, before later changing various things beyond that.)
BUT I had built a problem for myself. When I started, I knew nothing about music file metadata. My vinyl rips had none, just their file names and file structure. CDs that I ripped picked up the metadata from the CD, and that was present. However, later I was to discover that CDs could have incorrect or strangely setup metadata. E.g. two recordings of the same classical piece, the genre might be assigned as symphonic for one, orchestral for the other. Or some CDs would put recording artist into composer tag, etc. This mattered not at all on the ND5XS, using the Naim app to play from either Twonky or LMS, however I have since discovered that the vast majority of library and playing software out there seems now to rely heavily on metadata – and in many cases solely reliant, some (e.g. Roon) not even seeing files that had no metadata, for some inexplicable reason unable to utilise file names and structure. So, absolutely essential is getting at least core meta data in place when you store files.
Once you have, as I do, several hundred rips with no metadata at all, and another several 100 with random oddities and errors as I have, it is an absolute nightmare to try to sort it out. What is needed is to check metadata immediately after ripping, whether after every track or after a session, and also check the metadata on downloads because I also discovered they are not guaranteed to be faultless. Done that way, it would not be a pain, just taking a minute or two, effectively a routine part of the ripping or downloading process.
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Correcting the metadata is something you will want to do in time, at your leisure. The most common, easy to use, and free tool is MP3TAG. Again a lot of people use it here. Normally you just point it to an album folder, then you can easily update the metadata within it.
Initially it wont bother you, but then you will find yourself wanting to get it 100%, and having to make decisions like what is the band really called. E.g you may have some tracks as “Beatles” and some as “The Beatles”, and this becomes a little frustrating, but all fixable over time.
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That doesn’t work for me, metadata editing will never be a leisure activity! I prefer to look over the tags on a CD rip or download straight away and just get it right from the start, otherwise I’ll probably never bother.
Metadatics is my go-to tag editor, it seems simple and intuitive so I’ve never bothered to look at any others, apart from Naim’s.
Sorry I should have been clearer, I was referring to the OPS existing library of ripped files. Any newly ripped files is, as you say, best done at the time of ripping.
I haven’t heard USB playback that surpasses network playback in SQ. Are you using a reclocker? At best they sound similar but USB lacks the ease of network streaming.
As for the OP, rip your CDs with dbpoweramp at the default settings so you don’t have to re-rip your library like I did. 
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No just plugged into the NDS.
That’s exactly what I do. I found it worthwhile when I started streaming to experiment a bit until I had devised a metadata scheme which really worked for my musical collection. That saved a lot of time in subsequent editing.
Roger
I buy most of my music on CD and use the cd drive on my pc to rip them to FLAC using Exact Audio Copy. The cd then becomes redundant. The files are stored on my Qnap TS251+ running MinimServer. They are arranged in folders, one per artist. If I need to tweak the tags I use mp3tag. The NAS is a very useful tool for storing photos, documents and of course music.
A massive “thank you” to all who contributed and make the transition to streaming a little less painful.
For now I’m using USB stick, but I can see this won’t last for too long, lol.
Once again, thanks guys.
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Great ! Do try different USB stick because some sounds better than others.
Please report if you find a solution that sound better than USB sticks.
When I had a Netgear switch, even powered by a linear ps, the usb stick on the Nds sounded very similar to the Unitserve/ expensive linear ps.
But when I got my Melco server, the middle one ( N1z2), the later gave the best results, by a good margin.
Vs a common Nas, I feel the USB stick is the best solution however.
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Thank you ! I will try a Melco Server some day.
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I haven’t had a USB stick that sounded better than network streaming and factoring in USB sticks aren’t sufficient for my entire library I’ve concluded they’re not worth the hassle.
Give it another try,it’s not difficult.
I don’t need to, it’s settled science afaic. You’re not getting the best out of your NDS.
USB sticks are better than a Nas I ‘ve
heard,but I will try a Melco Server when I have the money.
I have just downgraded the NDS from 555PS Dr to XPS and Nac 552 to Nac 82…
Well if you’re going that direction you might as well stick with the USB sticks.