Audio Streaming and Music/Movie Network Storage

[petmotel]

I 100% agree with this which is why I always wonder about use of RAID in a media server NAS. What is the point? That is a legit question and I am not saying there is no use for it. I just don't know what it is.

There are different types of RAID implementations, the mirroring style makes a copy of the data on a second drive. Of course although this style doesn't increase capacity, there are some very large capacity HDDs available these days. I was seriously considering a unit that uses SSDs (solid state drives) but they are expensive for their capacity compared to hard drives. This, processor type, and RAM quantity were questions I was hoping to get some guidance here.

I'm looking at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089WKDKQK...v_ov_lig_dp_it
and
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085J1HKW8...v_ov_lig_dp_it
as possible candidates

Jay

[JustaSheep]

The idea of RAID is the keep the system in production or get it back into production faster rather than wait during the time it takes to restore. RAID can also help with performance.

Thanks. I can see how the redundancy can get it up quicker and I guess if you have many tb's of data, perhaps speed (and I suppose with mkv's, that is entirely possible). I've always thought of RAID as critical systems/data protection and to me, entertainment media does not fit that category. And, as you said, you still need a copy of the important stuff somewhere other than the RAID.

[JustaSheep]

Thanks, Jay. I will check it more closely before dismissing the idea completely. If the RAID simply improves performance on a multi-bay nas (and it is free), that would make sense.

[jwarthman]

You too, Jay.

Edit: For music streaming, I am currently just using AirPlay, but as others have mentioned, it is compressed. We're still getting settled in a new house and priorities were significantly shifted out of our control.

I’m very interested in this, because I use AirPlay 2 to stream music to a variety of devices, including my Denon AVR. After doing a bit of research it appears that AirPlay 1 and 2 are both capable of lossless streaming of 16-bit/44.1kHz material.

So Apple recently added support for lossless 24 bit at 192 kHz on Apple Music. But it’s unclear what AirPlay will do with this.

For more info, see this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...2#255357461022

Interested in others’ experience here.

Thanks,

Jim

[jwarthman]

Ok, this article answers quite a lot! Here are a couple snippets:

Can I listen to lossless audio on my HomePod or HomePod mini?
HomePod and HomePod mini currently use AAC to ensure excellent audio quality. Support for lossless is coming in a future software update.

How to listen to lossless on your Apple TV 4K

What you need
Update your Apple TV 4K to tvOS 14.6 or later.
Connect your Apple TV 4K to an AV receiver using an HDMI cable.
How to turn lossless on or off
Go to Settings > Apps.
Select Music.
Select Audio Quality.
Select or unselect Lossless. Apple TV 4K currently doesn’t support Hi-Res Lossless (sample rates greater than 48 kHz).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212183

Enjoy,

Jim

[JustaSheep]

Ok, this article answers quite a lot! Here are a couple snippets:

[INDENT] Can I listen to lossless audio on my HomePod or HomePod mini?
Apple TV 4K currently doesn’t support Hi-Res Lossless (sample rates greater than 48 kHz).

Jim

Interesting, Jim. I just got an update on my android phone today stating new lossless version available. It has a qualifier you need an external dac to use hi-res. Probably the same is the case for the Apple TV 4k. It probably cannot do it because you cannot bypass the internal dac and cannot choose to bitstream to an external device.

That is me just taking a guess. I'm not an apple guy and only have one apple device, but what I said makes sense, I think.

My AirPlay use is over an airplay enabled AVR, and for now is just fine.

[jwarthman]

Hi Dan,
The Apple support article I linked to says that AppleTV 4K only has an issue playing hi-res lossless at sample rates greater than 48 kHz. It doesn't mention using an external DAC, so that's probably not an option.

When using an Android device, the article also mentions "To listen to songs at sample rates higher than 48 kHz, you might need an external digital-to-analog converter.*

*To see if your Android device requires an external digital-to-analog converter, check with your device's manufacturer.".

That seems to be consistent with whqt you saw.

Thanks,

Jim