Paul's Posts — 01 October 2012
By Paul McGowan
Computers are like vehicles and software’s like the gas they need to go. One without the other doesn’t work and the quality of the gas makes all the difference in the world.
We’ve were discussing the NAS and then I goofed and got the posts out of sequence. Sorry.
A NAS is a hard disc drive that connects to your network through an internal computer. On that NAS there’s a computer and an operating system that runs the the hard disc and communicates with the outside world. Because NAS do not have any video monitors or connectors to support a monitor, communication is usually through a webpage that’s built into the NAS. But communicating through a webpage requires another computer and the entire purpose for a NAS is to allow users to operate without a second computer. What possible value is there to owning a NAS if you need to use another computer to operate it? None, so that’s why NAS have software built in that handles this task.
Computers use software as a means of making something on the computer happen. There’s software programs every computer uses to do every task and the job of getting music from your NAS to your DAC is no exception. The biggest vendor of this type of software is called Twonky Media.
The name Twonky probably came from a video game called World of Warcraft where one of their wizards is called the same name. This is just a guess on my part since many programmers like video games. None the less, the vast majority of NAS use this software to permit access to music on a NAS. Twonky has never had any aspirations of being high-end, not from a sonic performance nor from a user perspective. My guess is they want to be the Microsoft of the connected media software – selling to as many people as possible and in the process, watering down the usability of the product for specific needs – like high-end music.
Add to this issue the fact that the computer Twonky is running on costs a whole $50 and is basically a slug, you can start to see why we no longer recommend widespread use of NAS for music applications.
Your best bet to streaming and storing music is through a full blown computer running reasonable software like J River, our own eLyric, Foobar, VLC or any number of software programs. Storage is always better through attached USB 2.0 or higher devices – because it’s cheap, easily backed up and stored. Because it’s connected to your computer it’s also fast.
There are a few dedicated music servers – that are actually NAS in high-speed clothing – and although expensive they are just dandy to use if they have decent software on them.
Just as you wouldn’t consider playing high-end music on a cheap consumer component, don’t think software is any different. In fact, consider software in exactly the same way you would separate components and choose the ones that offer the best performance. I always think of such things as functional blocks – and choose the best functional block for the job.
That your functional block is a bunch of bits or a piece of hardware doesn’t really matter if it gets the job done right.
Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers
Related Articles
Share
About Author
(8) Readers Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Dmitrylo
I use a custom desktop computer as a digital transport. So NO PROBLEMS with any NAS. No Twonky or other software servers. Music is played directly fron nework drives (NAS with RAID) or copied preliminarily to RAM drive and then played directly from the memory. No USB! Only coaxial from good audio interface like ASUS Essence ST.
There are many nice computer cases to install in Hi-Fi-stand. For example:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=330&area=en
colokoch
For the last few years I have been using a Western Digital NAS tied to my PS Audio Bridge connected DAC. I agree that the Twonky software is slow and the sound somewhat muddled compared to loading software on my computer that converts my FLAC files to WAV to feed the DAC. I have also had issues trying to install and use Asset or Elyric or windows server software in place of Twonky on the NAS. While it may appear on my I-pad as a server option, if I try to run it rather than the Twonky, the system will crash.
However, I do like the idea of a headless server running most of my media aps, including high end music from a central out of the way (basement) spot. Here are two recent articles about the upcomming Windows 8 and how its best functionality may be as a Server. I am now building a Windows 8 server to replace the sluggish WD NAS.
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/a-cheap-effective-home-server-using-windows-8/
http://www.wegotserved.com/2012/07/03/building-windows-8-home-server-introduction/
Know anybody who would would like to buy a used NAS loaded with wonderful high quality music lovingly downloaded and stored in FLAC?
trombotine
Hello,
I also use a desktop computer with windows XP that is tuned for audioperformance. several services are stopped and the computer is dedicated for the best audioperformance. The music can be played form the harddisk or from a netwerk storage The music is played through usb to my external dac.
I use CPLAY (cisc memoryplayer) in combination with ASIO4ALL. This is graphicaly limited but in my opinion delivers one of the best audioqualities that i have experienced with computeraudio, becaus it loads your tracks first into your RAM and thus is a memoryplayer.
The player is free and can be downloaded at the website from ciscmemoryplayer.com.
Sot his is a good oppertunity to try it out
alexiusl
Hmmm…..
I just had my Perfect Wave DAC upgraded with the Bridge and to version II as well….on PS Audioäs homepage it says about the bridge: “Network audio is the future and the PS Connected audio system places you at the forefront of technology in the high-end.” Thus it is a clear contradiction in terms to hear Paul say: “……….you can start to see why we no longer recommend widespread use of NAS for music applications.” I am in the process of ripping my 3000+ CDs to a harddrive and were to put them on a NAS and play them through the bridge…am I supposed to play them via my computer with a USB connection instead, or what. What piece of today’s post didn’t I get??
Paul McGowan
Network audio IS the future of high-end audio and we’re ardent supporters of it. Nothing has changed other than our stance on what’s the best way to store and stream over the network. You certainly do not need a NAS to stream over a network, for that you need only a computer connected to the network. Go back a few days on the posts and read the entire thread if you have a chance.
Soundminded
“what’s the best way to store and stream over the network”
The cloud! Why buy when you can rent? Audio on demand. Napster eat your heart out. Instant access to over 1,127,000,000 catalogued recordings from around the world covering over 100 years of recording history and growing plus access to over 100,000 linked external recording libraries. Access time to any of them… under 1 second. All liner notes and cover art included. Price….$9 per month. Good-bye Amazon.
Paul McGowan
Boy, wouldn’t that be cool? If something like that existed for uncompressed media we’d be in – and it will. Mark’s correct that the Cloud is where it’ll be someday – I think I mention in one of my posts we’re still perhaps 5 years or so out, but it’s coming for sure.
bondmanp
Although I am a novice at computer audio, I know enough that I was able to skim most Paul’s series on computer audio. Not wanting to cobble together my own computer audio set up, but also not able to spend a lot of money, I found the Vortexbox appliance to be ideal. Paired with a decent wifi player (I use a Squeezebox Touch) and DAC, the results are pretty good. Not Perfect Wave good, but good. After resisting computer audio for several years, my audio buddies shamed me into doing it. I am very glad they did. Even though I only have about a third of my music on the server so far, I instinctively reach for the remote to the SBT rather than go looking for a CD. Note that I have found the freeware MP3tag and the inexpensive dBpoweramp programs indispensible, along with a network connected laptop for convenience. But the whole shebang ran me roughly a grand. Not bad, I think, for a turn-key solution.