Hi all, life’s got in the way; good to have time to get back here, & I’ll take the chance to say: A happy New Year to you all.
Have a new observation/question:
I’ve purchased a ‘thumb drive’ & copied over all my favourite albums from my Synology nas: why does it sound much better than when ‘streaming’ (minimserver etc) from the nas??? I have reasonably good quality (chord) connections between nas, switch & NDX?
I look forward to your thoughts.
John
Hi John, welcome back.
I used a USB thumb drive to compare & fine tune my LAN with its Synology DS214 using WAV codec albums.
This included decent (& I don’t mean expensive) ethernet cables via a switch.
Its ended up with MeiCord Cat-6 from NAS<>Switch<>NDX & Blue Jeans Cat-6 between BT HH6<>Switch. Switch is Cisco SG110D.
I also have all the SMPS for NAS, Switch & BT Hub powered via an APC (UPS) that includes an internal isolation transformer, plus a lot of ferrite on the 230v & 12vDC cables. All this reduces the potential of SMPS noise affecting SQ.
I now have practically no SQ difference between USB & LAN/NAS
But the big plus is the very nice Naim app browsing with Asset UPnP on the Synology compared to the clunky USB browsing
Many thanks for your reply, the chord cables may need to be replaced then; I too have ferrites on the cabling (having a ‘ham radio’ background) - apc ups?? - could you explain please 
John
Ah ha! a ferret fan, much to recommended the furry little buggers,
I used to work in military marine & ferrite was de rigueur for anything resembling or in proximity of radio or radar.
APS is American Power Supply (Co)
UPS is Uninterruptible Power Supply. This is a box that supplies 230v 50Hz from the mains power but if the power fails it immediately switches in a 230v 50Hz (approximation of a sine wave form) to maintain services.
In my case I have to signal & manage a soft power down of my NAS thereby preventing HDD failure in the event of it being in a read/write mode during a power outage. Plus it also powers the wireless hub & phone so as to allow to save work & make calls with a power out.
I too experienced a USB stick being better than a NAS drive on an original NDX many years ago. I don’t know whether this is still the case with the latest Naim streamers.
Interestingly, I was browsing through a thread on the Auralic forum. With most AURALiC products as well as these two options, you have a third option of fitting SSD drives directly within the streamer, like an HDX. Where I thought this might be both the easiest and possibly best sounding option, the guy from Auralic stated quite categorically that with their streamers the best result was with a remote NAS so that the server was separate from the streamer. Second choice would be the internal SSDs and the third choice an attached USB drive. Of course this is with completely different streamers to Naim but went against my experience with the NDX.
Thanks for the information mike; now I understand & see why you have the ‘safety net’.
Also: they do ‘ferret out the noise’ 
Steeve: Good to hear it’s not just me. I would like, one day, to be able to try a ‘serve’ or better still a ‘core’, just to see if there’s a difference 
Sorry @jr007 I did not make it clear - supplies 230v 50Hz from the mains power but if the power fails it immediately switches in a 12vDC battery power source that converts to 230v 50Hz (approximation of a sine wave form) to maintain services.
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