Streaming music from a NAS

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I have recently purchased an Arcam solo neo and Buffalo Linkstation Duo 2TB with the aim of ripping all of my cd's to the NAS and streaming them through my Arcam.My problem is I am ripping them in iTunes in the wav format to keep as near cd quality as possible but when playing the album it will only play single tracks not the complete album as if it were a cd.I have tried various options and found if I rip in aac my Arcam will play the complete album,also I can rip to a memory stick in wav and play a complete album and will also stream from my laptop in wav, it seems only when I rip to the Buffalo in wav that I cannot play the complete album without having to play each track seperatly which is a shame as there is hardly any difference in sound between the original cd and streaming in wav.Any help/advise would be appreciated as I am being passed back and forth between Arcam and Buffalo.
 
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Anonymous

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I am trying this from another angle.Does anyone out there own an Arcam solo neo and/or a Buffalo linkstation and use it for streaming music and if so do they have any problems like I am encountering as at the moment I don't know what to try next.Any helpful advise would be appreciated.
 

The_Lhc

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WAV files don't supporting IDTags in any sensible way, it might be that the Arcam simply can't tell that the files are part of the same album. Playing them with iTunes will work because iTunes keeps its own details but that won't get passed to the Arcam.
 
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Anonymous

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Thanks for your reply.This is all new to me so don't understand fully but can you think of any reason why the Arcam will play a complete album in WAV from a memory stick but not the Buffalo ?
 
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Anonymous

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if you want near CD quality, you should use FLAC if possible. This is just compressed and does not reduce/remove any data. It also holds full ID3 tag information. Question is, does the Arcam understand FLAC ?
 
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Anonymous

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Thanks for your reply.Yes the Arcam will play flac but as this is all new to me I don't know which would be a good program to use, just to note I am using windows vista.
 

JamesOK

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Will the Arcam play AIFF or Apple Lossless? Why not go for one of those formats? I recently did a test and there is little to no audible difference between 320kbps and Apple Lossless or AIFF. And you can do all these formats through iTunes. Why not experiment with those formats instead?
 

JamesOK

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JamesOK:Will the Arcam play AIFF or Apple Lossless? Why not go for one of those formats? I recently did a test and there is little to no audible difference between 320kbps and Apple Lossless or AIFF. And you can do all these formats through iTunes. Why not experiment with those formats instead?

Hmm just looked on Arcam website - only AAC out of those Ive mentioned is available! What about trying 320kbps AAC?
 

Gerrardasnails

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smartymb:Thanks for your reply.Yes the Arcam will play flac but as this is all new to me I don't know which would be a good program to use, just to note I am using windows vista.

Rip to FLAC using dBpoweramp.
 

peter@57m

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Something else you could try is to use MediaMonkey to provide Artist, Album and Track info in the WAV file.

As has been said when iTunes rips in WAV, iTunes keeps note of this data but does not write it to the WAV file. The WAV files are simply written to disk in a directory structure of top dir -> Artist -> Album -> tracks with no embedded data. So it maybe that the Neo just sees the tracks as separate files. By embedding the artist, album etc. info in the WAV file, the NEO may recognise it as an album.

I use MediaMonkey to prepare WAV files on my NAS drive for use with a Sonos ZP90 and it works well. Sonos does also give you the option of playing a folder so you can still play the files without doing this but it makes it much easier plus you get artwork and all the other embedded info. You don't have to type all the data, you can search libraries for artist/album and import that data.
 
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Anonymous

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Thanks for all your helpful advise,I will look into all the options suggested but am still confused as to why I can copy the same album in WAV to my memory stick and the Arcam will play the complete album no problem !
 

peter@57m

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When you use the memory stick, do you just have one album on it or more than one in multiple directories.

If its only one album, it may be that the Neo just plays everything it finds on the stick.

If its more than one, then I don't know why it should differentiate between the stick and the NAS drive
 
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Anonymous

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Good point,I have just checked the memory stick and has only the one album on it so I will add more and report back thanks.
 

eternaloptimist

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Can I suggest looking at the articles on www.computeraudiophile.com ? This site is dedicated to "bit-perfect" digital playback through DACs etc.

This is one of the recommended (PC) approaches: (Mac is also a common approach but I don't like having to use proprietary codecs like Apple Lossless...)

1. Rip CDs to FLAC using EAC (Exact Audio Copy). This is free and once configured (follow the primer) it works very well. Don't use ripping through iTunes etc... not as accurate. EAC rips very, very slowy (between 0.5 and 2.6 X on my system) as it checks for errors and compares the end result (a hash value I think) with an online database to judge accuracy. Also gets the track info etc online automatically. FLAC is a non-proprietary compression format that is "lossless" ie no info is lost and the wav file can be perfectly regenerated. Generally I find the file is approx. 50 - 60 % of the original wav file size.

2. I use J River Media Centre 15. I had never heard of it before a month ago. Is easily the best I have heard. Costs $50, there is a 30 day free trial. I have tried multiple includding Foobar and MediaMonkey (hadn't heard of these either until I had looked into audiophile level digital music!). Configure as per the Computer Audiophile site instructions for J River MC 14 - is actually quite straightforward. Make sure you use Windows 7 (or Vista if you must) which includes the WASAPI API (I had never heard of this until a month ago also...). This describes which protocol is used to "get the bits off the disk through the OS and to the digital output of the soundcard (or USB if the DAC has USB in or a USB to SPDIF converter is used etc)". I find WASAPI as the most pleasing sounding setting (rather than the also commonly used ASIO).

3. Enjoy!

I have a laptop connected to the USB DAC input on my Cyrus PreXPd preamp which runs J River. The files are on a server and streamed. I control this via Remote Desktop as I don't want to have the screen up on the laptop but is fine to control directly from the laptop. Alternatively, can have an external display connected and use any Window Media Centre Control (will control J River).

Good luck!
 

Andy H

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Gerrardasnails: Rip to FLAC using dBpoweramp.

+1 for dBpoweramp. Since you have already ripped your music, you could batch convert to flac to save you doing it all again, but I'm not sure about the ID3 tags.
 
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Anonymous

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Thanks for all your very helpful tips and leads.I am now going to spend some time looking into these and will report back hopefully with a fix thanks again.
 

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