Hi @Steinwerck … a network switch can bring improvements but it depends on a few other things.
Your wireless hub/router has its own internal switch set. These are not always the best, however if well spec’d with full duplex and gigabit ports, then probably there is no functional advantage with a separate switch. But that is not saying a separate switch won’t sound better.
Then depending where your router is installed, a network switch will reduce the ethernet cable numbers too/from the router to just one. So if the router is out and on view in the room, which it should be for best wireless performance, the one ethernet down to a hidden network switch is better than two or more.
I use an SSD attached to my NDX2 for when I (rarely) use the focal naim app and select via the server option rather than USB for the same reasons as other posters here.
I have an exact copy of the USB SSD attached to my 10 year old iMac that I use almost exclusively as a Roon core. I use wifi in all instances as I cannot run cables invisibly to the router without major works on the house. I cannot notice a difference in SQ either way.
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My specific use case I have my main modem router in the basement floos and cables routing via a switch to individual rooms and wifi mesh extenders across the house…No clue if I can expect improvement.
I enjoy using Roon as a UI, so I bought a Roon Nucleus a few years ago and it serves as both a nas (I have my almost-2tb of lossless music on it) and it runs the Roon Core server.
More and more I rely on Qobuz and hardly access the locally stored files these days.
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The question for me is why build an expansive NAS when you can have an SSD drive connected in the back of your 222 with no interferences from other unit, computer, applications and cost of like Audirvana or Roon? And the fact that your computer have its own soundcard processing your music, and then the DAC of your application, and then the quality of lan cables, etc……The exception is if you wish to access your music from other devices. I use to have a NAS. And when i connected the SSD directly, for me, it was an audio upgrade.
You cant do this with an attached SSD / hard disc, hence my comment in the other post:-
You’re stuck with the browse tree that comes from the Naim server.
Asset doesn’t cost anything and I can easily serve with all the relevant metadata views to any device on my network. And it doesn’t take that much effort or cost to optimize your network for SQ.
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Naim app is very good for me!
You need some kind of equipment at a cost.
I have 7,000 lossless albums on my NAS. NAS are relatively inexpensive as are good quality switches and ethernet spec cables.
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At 7000 albums, its obvious you need a NAS! It wouldn’t fit a 2TB SSD.
Yes so did you tag the album title with the Year - Album as per my screenshots of mp3tag ?
My screenshot from the Naim app from the Asset server didn’t have the albums tagged with year - album.
What’s your point? You wanted them in year order? There you go it is possible if that info is relevant to you.
I wouldn’t say noise, but sound quality was better when i cut the number of intermediate between source (SSD) and streamer Naim Atom in my case. I did that also with my Cambridge audio 851n.
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Did you even look at the link about tags, mp3tag is a program that edits music file tags, it just doesn’t just do mp3 files.
There is no way to sort by Artist and display the albums from earliest to latest album using the Naim core, Atom or NSC 222 without changing the album title to year - album.
You are right, the Naim app doesn’t do it on its own. But it is possible to do it another way if that info is relevant to you.
This doesn’t make any sense to me in the context of nas vs. a drive attached directly to a Naim player.
There is no “soundcard” involved in either scenario. Nor any dac other than the dac in the Naim player which does the same thing in either setup.
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As i said if you use a computer as a server…you need an app of some sort then the app DAC, in my case Audirvana. I was using a macmini. If you have a dedicated standalone NAS connected to your network, you still need an app to playback your music, or you are running it through the Naim app.
An app is just a controller for your physical streamer.
When using a NAS, or a naim UnitiCore, which is network connected the music flows direct from the NAS (or Core) to the streamer in ethernet packets. The NAS/Core do nothing other than split the FLAC file into network packets for transmission.
There is no DAC until the naim streamer reassembles the lossless audio bitstream from those ethernet packets and passes to the internal DAC.
The music doesn’t flow through the app, nor go anywhere near the device the app is running on.
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