I am trying our Plexamp for music streaming from my NAS. It has a nice app to stream from my NAS. I like dedicates apps for some reason: Tidal for Tidal and something for NAS files and I like the interface Plexamp offers.
It seems my NSC222 does not support Plexamp in a ‘Tidal connect’ fashion. Now I can select the Naim streamer as Cast device but that is not lossless is it? Is there a way to connect in similar fashion to Tidal/Spotify connect where I select the Naim as device and it takes over from there?
As a Plex user for over 10 years, I think it’s great. It’s the heart of a very serious home cinema. Basically, Plex is awsome.
I mention this upfront so my next comment isn’t taken the wrong way. Plex and Plexamp are absolutely rubbish for audio. They don’t play nice with most high end UPnP streamers. They still don’t support some basic lossless file formats, and to cast ditectly both sides need a Plex client.
I’d ditch it for local music on a NAS. I run Plex for video, Asset and Minimserver for audio all on the same NAS. The functionality of the latter two is excellent but as with most things Naim, you need to use the Naim app for your local library… Or you can do Roon.
My NAS is a Synology DS224+ and I am not sure it will run Roon. As I understand Roon is resource intensive and people tend to have a dedicated server. The requirement for the Synology NAS are, among others, that the processor needs to be 64 bit and X86 architecture. Preferably Intel I3 or I5. That would exclude any NAS. Not sure why a i5 would be needed for audio software.
But honestly the pricing is hard to justify for my use. Another 13 USD per month?
For me Tidal suffices to stream to Naim. All I want is a more streamlines and prettier interface to stream my local files.
Then 13 USD per month and 156 per year is quite a fee for the use case that basically sends my local files to my Naim streamer. I also have Asset UPNP and functionally that does the same (I just dislike to total lack of album art and black & white interface in the Naim app).
Now I understand Roon also has some bells and whistles. But for my current use I need to buy a Roon server (please let me know if the DS224+ would suffice) and pay the Roon license fees. Seems a but much.
Why is Plexamp “absolutely rubbish”? Can you elaborate? I got Plex running on my NAS in no time and have my NAS files on my phone in a slick interface. All is recognized and works. The only issue I face is that it cannot stream to my Naim streamer with native support from Naim.
Plex doesn’t support wav passthrough. As a lot of audiophiles store their music on wav, Plex will only transcode those to other endpoints at 48Khz. The other format it has issues with is FLAC. Plex claim it is fully supported but the number of issues people have getting it to play back is pretty high. Certainly, when I mount my music share to Plex (entirely wav and FLAC like 99% of audiophiles I imagine) it has never been able to stream any of them. Not to my Naim streamer. Not to my Plexamp client on Android.
In short, it’s behavior when handling audio libraries and playback either through a Plex client app or third party app for a streamer is just an inconsistent mess.
But in any case, Plex has no control point app. It has server and client. The client has to run on the device actually doing the playback. The Naim app is a control point app, as is the Tidal app. They tell the streamer what to fetch and stream. Those apps don’t actually access and play audio files. The Plex client does.
Like I said, I’ve used it a long time and for video it is superb. I even manage the packaging of Plex for a NAS distro. I think 95% of Naim streamer users go via the Naim app and the other 5% via Roon.
FWIW, artwork appearing in Asset always works. For FLAC it should be embedded in the files. For wav, Asset looks for a file called folder.jpg for each directory containing an album.
I switched from Plex to Emby a while back due to account issues. Emby handles both video and audio (FLAC) fine, but I’m currently trialling Minimserver (free) and will see if that’s better.
Minimserver is okay. I don’t find it as good as Asset on functionality or simplicity. But my TEAC streamer only supports Minimserver for some bizarre reason (it’s a documented requirement). So my 4 Naim streamers and one Ifi streamer connect to Asset, the TEAC to Minimserver, and two Fire 4K boxes and an nVidia shield to Plex Media Server.
I have both Minim and Asset, but prefer Minim, perhaps because I started with it, perhaps because it’s written specifically with classical in mind and that is a large proportion of my music. It does perhaps have a steeper learning curve but worth climbing it IMO.
There are solutions to the problem insofar as using different ways to play music go. Plenty of other users don’t use a Naim streamer but an old nDAC or non Naim DAC and connect it to a PC or Mac using ASIO USB. And then drive the whole thing with something like Audirvana or Roon (though Roon can also control a streamer). Because of the functional and quality limitations, Plexamp still is not really a good substitute here but plenty of other things exist.
I did this a while back with a tiny fanless Lenovo thing running Audirvana. But to be honest, I preferred the Naim app. But the point is, there are other ways. but really your unified approach when using a Naim streamer is the Naim app or Roon.
One thing about the apps though is they do change and without notice. I’m not sure anyone should get overly attached to any of them. The Naim app used to support a variety of backgrounds. Now it is just light and dark mode. But as it is effectively just a remote control, once I’ve selected my music (and the ordering and grouping is controlled by the server, not the app - so you’d configure that in Asset/Minimserver) I can’t say I spend any time looking at it.