Dummies Guide to Setting-Up NAS for Streaming?

[Nico69]

Hi all. Does anyone have a guide to set-up a NAS for streaming music ripped from CD?

I have a WD MyCloud NAS at home mostly for backing up smartphone images and a laptop or two, but mostly unused. I thought I'd experiment with some ripping and streaming since I had the resource already. However, it is far from straightforward. I've done the usual web search for guides and some make no sense at all as they are pretty specific to that NAS and software rather than a general guide and specifically a WD MyCloud guide.

I can see the NAS from my PC. I can see the "public" folder. I've made a "Music" folder within that and have loaded a few CD's ripped to Flac into that folder. And here I have ground to a halt. I have something called Twonky installed, but this seems to freeze/stall when looking at the share. And I really don't know what I am doing.

Anyone able to help?

 

[nopiano]

The only article I recall was penned by Andrew Everard. He used to write for WHF and now Hifi News. He is also audio editor at Gramophone.

It was there that he wrote this now deleted article. Here is a link to the web pages archived.

How to build a NAS | gramophone.co.uk

The (almost) simple guide to setting up network storage for your music, and (at least some of) all you need to know about RAID and backups You know Parkinson's Law? The one that says 'Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion'? Well, the same's true when it comes to...

web.archive.org

I‘m sure there is something more recent somewhere. But were I looking to rip my own CD or buy downloads I’d look at the Innuos Zen Mini series. Only because I have a dislike of PCs in my listening room!

 

[nads]

Much of it does depend on how and what you plan to use.

rip the tunes in the format you want. Store on the NAS in the file format and position as required by your playback device.

simples.

 

[Al ears]

Much of it does depend on how and what you plan to use.

rip the tunes in the format you want. Store on the NAS in the file format and position as required by your playback device.

simples.

Read again what the OP has done and it obviously isn't that simple.
Unless Twonky is playing up and something better is required.....

 

[Gray]

Read again what the OP has done and it obviously isn't that simple.
Unless Twonky is playing up and something better is required.....

Yes, they're all very clever, but anything to do with computers....not always simple.

I've seen some of the greatest experts in action.
Lost count of the times that I've heard comments along the lines of, "Strange, it shouldn't be doing that".

 

[jamesrfisher]

The Andrew Everard article is still on this site

Home

How to build a NAS to store your music, and at least some of all you need to know about RAID and backupsYou know Parkinson's Law? The one that says 'Work expands so as to fill the time availab

www.whathifi.com

There used to be some very helpful videos on the site but can't see them.

Might be worth a search of Youtube or even WDs own site for info

 

[Vincent Kars]

A NAS doesn't exist, it is a concept.
You have very likely added a Linux vox to your network. Fortunately today they come with a web interface shielding you from hardcore Linux.

An obvious first is you have to create users and shares to make this box accessibel to WIndow boxes or Mac's in the network. As you have added some files, obvious this works.

Looks like Twonky is the default DLNA media server.
To get it to work it must index the audio files.
So you must configure it (point to the share where the audio files reside)
As it is a share, you must also check if it has the right to Read this share.
If Twonky runs as Admin, Admin must have Read acces to the share.

 

[Nico69]

My reason for trying this is because I'm still currently using an old Technics SL-PG570A CD player with my new Marantz PM7000n amp and Dali speakers. I'm liking the streaming from Amazon Music but I am thinking of upgrading to a Marantz CD6007 player. However whilst saving I thought I'd try to see what the difference between streaming and FLAC ripped CD's as the ripped FLAC files through the Marantz DAC 'should' be similar to that from the CD6007? These should be truer to life than an over-engineered and somewhat compressed file on Amazon's Cloud?

Since I have a NAS and the associated equipment then this exercis should cost me nothing. But it seems it might cost me life expectancy and hair though I've precious little of that left to lose.

It seems using the popular web search engine leads one down a myriad of rabbit holes resulting in spats on forums on what settings you shouldn't use or why orange socks are better than red... It's driving me nuts.

 

[Vincent Kars]

"difference between streaming and FLAC ripped CD"

You can simplify.
Put the FLAC's on a USB memory stick: https://manuals.marantz.com/PM7000N/NA/EN/OBAOSYoptpfmtw.php

If it must be streaming.
If you have Win, put the files in the Music folder. Win media sharing is DLNA so your amp should see it.

 

[nads]

Read again what the OP has done and it obviously isn't that simple.
Unless Twonky is playing up and something better is required.....

Yep. Over my head. It’s PC playback not using a streamer. no idea what twonkey is or how one would use it. Can media player play it? Media Monkey? VLC? I tunes? If they work fine then it’s RTM time for me.

 

[nopiano]

The Andrew Everard article is still on this site

Home

How to build a NAS to store your music, and at least some of all you need to know about RAID and backupsYou know Parkinson's Law? The one that says 'Work expands so as to fill the time availab

www.whathifi.com

There used to be some very helpful videos on the site but can't see them.

Might be worth a search of Youtube or even WDs own site for info

Brilliant. It didn’t occur to me to check here, though now you mention it, I may have seen it before. He obviously got paid twice for that one! Shhh!

 

[abacus]

Windows, Mac & Linux have there own streaming players built in, so just use what came with the OS, or if you want something not tied to an OS then VLC is the way to go.

Bill

 

[Nico69]

Windows, Mac & Linux have there own streaming players built in, so just use what came with the OS, or if you want something not tied to an OS then VLC is the way to go.

Bill

I'm not streaming from a computer. I'm streaming from a NAS hence the Twonky Media Server that is the recommended app on a WD NAS.

 

[Nico69]

Long story short - I did the classic and "have you turned it off and on again?"

Did that and after 30-40 minutes of rescanning the drive it has all become clear. Twonky works and shows the shares and the MUSIC folder shows in HEOS, along with all the audio backed up from my phone(s).

It works a charm. There was nothing to it. When it works!

Thanks for the help. You can all sleep easy now

 

[MrTeroo]

Long story short - I did the classic and "have you turned it off and on again?"

Did that and after 30-40 minutes of rescanning the drive it has all become clear. Twonky works and shows the shares and the MUSIC folder shows in HEOS, along with all the audio backed up from my phone(s).

It works a charm. There was nothing to it. When it works!

Thanks for the help. You can all sleep easy now

That can't be right?

Vincent Kars said a NAS doesn't exist?

Of course he may not know his rse from his elbow...

 

[Nico69]

I've been experimenting today with ripping some CDs to FLAC using EAC (exact audio copy) software on my PC then hosting the files on my NAS. I must say the results are pretty amazing. The sound is much bigger/fuller/more detailed than my old Technics CD player. So, yes an upgrade is required. Will I be ripping all my cds? No. Its too time consuming as EAC is very very slow as it does a lot of error checking and correction.
Good to experiment though.

 

[michael hoy]

I've been experimenting today with ripping some CDs to FLAC using EAC (exact audio copy) software on my PC then hosting the files on my NAS. I must say the results are pretty amazing. The sound is much bigger/fuller/more detailed than my old Technics CD player. So, yes an upgrade is required. Will I be ripping all my cds? No. Its too time consuming as EAC is very very slow as it does a lot of error checking and correction.
Good to experiment though.

How long per disc did it take. Not used EAC myself, i use dbpoweramp. Times are not excesive.

 

[Nico69]

How long per disc did it take. Not used EAC myself, i use dbpoweramp. Times are not excesive.

About 15-20 mins per CD! It rips them as WAV first then converts and writes them as FLAC after checksums on a database are compared, or so I read. Might try dbpoweramp as a next comparison

 

[WayneKerr]

About 15-20 mins per CD! It rips them as WAV first then converts and writes them as FLAC after checksums on a database are compared, or so I read. Might try dbpoweramp as a next comparison

You can set-up EAC to rip directly to FLAC if required. Personally I'd persevere with the ripping, say 10-20 every weekend, once you've broken the back of it you'll be glad you did it.

 

[Vincent Kars]

Using dBpoweramp it is about 5 minutes per CD.

 

[Nico69]

Edit: last cd with 16 tracks took 34 mins!
Must look into settings. Windows Media Player is quick but it also copies skips as I found recently.

 

[Al ears]

Using dBpoweramp it is about 5 minutes per CD.

I use XRecode and it's quicker than that.
Wonder what settings he is using?
there is no wsy a decent ripper should take that long. Perhaps CDs are knackered?

 

[Gray]

Windows Media Player is quick but it also copies skips as I found recently.

...that's why EAC was my preferred choice.
The 'E' part meant (for me) that it copied perfectly or (very rarely) not at all.

It seemed to take for ever, going over the same bit on some discs....didn't bother me - all part of my 7 months of fun 🤨

 

[Al ears]

Edit: last cd with 16 tracks took 34 mins!
Must look into settings. Windows Media Player is quick but it also copies skips as I found recently.

Use a different riper?

 

[WayneKerr]

Edit: last cd with 16 tracks took 34 mins!
Must look into settings. Windows Media Player is quick but it also copies skips as I found recently.

Blimey that's a long time, too long! If your CDs are in good nick then EAC is quick, 5-10mins max unless it's performing lots of error-checking, then it does slows down, but this shouldn't happen on every CD.

I take it you've found your CD drive in the library for offset etc.?

Edit: If no joy then consider a different ripping program.