Set it up to rip to a Music Store on a network share (the first time I attempted to add the share it reported it was read only - false. Bad start, it added the next time I tried)
Ripping CDs is giving all sorts of problems - see screenshots,
Twice it has gone into “cancelling” state on rip monitor, requiring a power cycle to restore function.
Several CD on first insert have immediately gone to “rip failed”, or failed immediately on track 1.
Several CD have failed multiple times, but on different tracks.
The opera CD set was literally brand new, straight out of paper sleeves. All other CD cleaned before insert.
I have never tried to use a network share as a Music Store. It should work ok but networks are funny things. (Autocorrect tried to make “things” into “thugs”, which in some ways would be quite an apposite change of word.) I would be a bit concerned about it refusing to add the first time and perhaps what is happening is that your Core is randomly finding that the network share is now read only.
Looking at your failures, it’s worth remembering that if there isn’t a Music Store then the Core can only rip one or two tracks of a typical CD because it has only a very small internal ripped music buffer. If that buffer fills, then the ripping stops (so cancelled is likely right, cancelled by the Core’s ripping software). Similarly lookups may fail because the whole operation has been cancelled. I think (although I’m not certain) that if you turn the Core off and restart it, then the ripping buffer starts from empty again, which would explain why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
So what to do? An obvious thing is to put an HDD or SSD in the Core’s internal slot and make that the Music Store, at least for the time being. That should work well and without errors, although metadata lookup can sometimes fail on classical due to Rovi not being uptodate. But that is not Naim’s fault nor the Core’s.
To save having to wait for the answer to another likely question, you can use pretty well any HDD for test purposes, but it will be formatted by the Core so you will lose anything on it. The HDD runs 24/7 unless you put the Core into Deep Sleep, so ideally you want an HDD that is intended to be used like that, eg for video surveillance. Naim used to recommend Seagate but I don’t know what their current recommendation is. NAS HDDs aren’t necessarily the right things to go with, but will work. Better would be to put in a Samsung SSD. The 870-EVO is the one that most often gets recommended now and what I use myself. A 2TB SSD is quite reasonably priced now. And of course they run totally silent and cool.
If you don’t want to go down the internal disc route, then you will need to get close and personal with your network settings and your NAS firmware. I’m not the expert to advise you on that, but others here will come along.
@Richard.Dane I suggest this thread should be in the Streaming Audio room where Core and network aficionados are more likely to see it.
We did wonder if using a network share as a store was causing the problem, but it’s a supported setup so expected it to work. Had hoped not to need an SSD initially. Might try a share on another ethernet connected storage device.
Also the fact that a few disks failed instantly was causing concern, as that hasn’t even gone as far as needing a store.
We will source and install an SSD and try again, but this has not been a very positive first experIence of a device retailing for over £2k
If the buffer is full from a failed rip and you haven’t power-cycled the Core since, any more attempts at ripping a CD will fail from the get go, unless the network share suddenly remembers that it’s supposed to be friends with the Core and empties the buffer.
The buffer should never be full, so that would be coding for an error situation but not actually help with the error since it’s an error arising from outside the Core. Anyway good luck with sorting it out.
Something you need to know is that the rips in the Music Store Music/MQ folder are locked. For a reason: If you do edit them, which you can obviously do by changing the file or folder attributes, then you will likely break the indexing and the app may not see them anymore. You are supposed to edit the Core’s own rips in the Music Store using the metadata editor in the app. You get to it by going into the track list of the album you want to edit and pressing the three dots at the top of the screen. One of the options will be “Edit metadata”.
If you do break the indexing then in the settings in the Core page in the app is an option Rebuild Database. This takes a while depending on the number of albums, but 1000 albums would only take a couple of hours normally or less so it’s entirely doable.
There’s lots more subtle stuff that you might want to know. If you look in the FAQ you will see a topic on the Core and apart from the Naim video which is Janet and John stuff, the posts that Richard links includes lots of information that you would probably take a long time to discover on your own.
You can of course set up a network NAS folder as a Music Share and the Core will then index all that music and make it available over upnp under control of the Naim app.
The stuff in the Music Store and the stuff in the Music Share all just get integrated together into a composite list.
It depends on whats in your unitiserve. It will physically fit as the core can take 2.5 or 3.5 hdd/ssd. But the recommended drive for a core would be eg samsung 870 evo 1tb or 2tb ssd.
Also you would have to format the drive so everything on it (the music for example) would be lost. If you just put it into a Core, nothing will actually work.
Furthermore the Unitiserve would now be worthless. If you formatted the drive in the Core, it could never work in a Unitiserve unless Naim had it back for the £500 service. A working Unitiserve isn’t worth £500 these days.
Okay thanks good points although the unitiserve is now also not working.
Small side step question:
Is it so that playing a ripped cd for example with a uniti core through the ndx2 better is in sound quality than for example playing it on the cd5x with HC?
