Your laptop does all that a NAS does and can do a lot more too. However a NAS is usually permanently on and available. Just think of it as another small cut down computer on your network that’s permanently on. If this is a good thing for you then great.

so its only benefit is as a hard drive, on all the time yep?

and where do you access the interface? laptop? tv? or both? can you get a phone app to access media and play through the speakers? or do you need to do it via laptop anyway?

thanks

You can run services on the NAS, much like on a PC. You typically set these up via a web interface. They usually provide a media server service (usually twonky on most NAS) that allow you to stream media directly from the NAS. You then need a client on whatever device you want to play the music. This then can connect to the media server and play tunes, movies etc. Loads of media player client apps available on all sorts of devices.

so its only benefit is as a hard drive, on all the time yep?

It’s just a small computer, typically with a lot of storage, that’s on all the time. That you then typically control and manage via a web interface.

There are cheaper alternatives to SONOS. I currently use Raspberry Pi’s running PiCorePlayer which is basically squeezebox players. Synced music around the house using the amps/speakers (HDMI or audio jack or HiFiBerry) that are in the rooms already. It can also do internet radio and other musical things. Server runs Logitech Media Server for this.

SlideShow: I use an Apple TV and have it connected to the iTunes Server on the HP Microserver via HomeSharing. Which means you can have an unlimited number of slideshow photos rather than the limit of 80 via PhotoStream

Most NAS’s have a DLNA Server, so you need a DLNA client to access it. Most smart TV’s have DLNA clients, you can download apps for your phone to access it too. Alot of Audio Amps now have DLNA clients and Airplay too.

gravity-slave – Member

Sonos Connect, DAC, decent amp and speakers streaming lossless from the NAS? As much substance as you want!

Ah. Didn’t realise that Sonos did a device that wasn’t ‘speaker in a box’ type affair. Will have to investigate this further.
Presumably the DAC would only be required if using the digital outs on the Sonos? I could just plug the Sonos Connect straight into my amp using the analogue outs and not bother with the DAC?

I only intend on getting this going in the living room, but I suppose with the Sonos I could add a speaker upstairs at a later date, whereas with a different music player (Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6, for example) it wouldn’t be expandable.

Whether NAS, DNLA, Smart”inset object” or otherwise – it all comes down to interface and how easy it is to operate.

My DNLA interface for my Sony TV is a pain compared to Sonos

Plus a lot of it comes down to sound quality – My Sonos is so much better than the BOSE CD player it replaced. I dread to think what a Rasberry Pi device is like – put perhaps I’m picky

I think Bushwacked has hit the nail on the head, it is all about the interface that is accessing the NAS, if it’s clunky difficult to use, you won’t.

Bushwacked, the Pi can be as good as you want it, HDMI is digital sound, 3.5mm Jack is terrible. Unlike Sonos Play, with a Pi you can add a USB or I2C soundcard or use the HDMI to transmit it digitally to an amp, it will play 24bit files, FLAC’s, Lossless, etc. But the Sonos interface is very slick, although not as fast as LMS.

I’m using 4x Raspberry Pi’s, (1x HDMI Audio 24bit, 3x I2C HiFiBerry 24bit Soundcards), with LMS Server on HP Microserver. Synced music around the house. – Poor Mans Sonos that sounds better if you have decent equipment. 😉

Just started down this streamed music route after seeing a mates v snazzy NAS-Linn DAC – high end amp and speaker set up.

I wanted a sound bar too so have started with the sonos playbar which sounds as good as the reviews said it would for both tv and audio. Plan is to then get a sonos connect/dac to put into my nice amp and speakers in the study.

Really liking spotify but also got it linked to itunes library/playlists – but as this is on wifes laptop currently was considering a NAS.

Mentioned to the IT guy at work and he said if you have a usb port in the router you can just plug an external hdd into that. Cheap. Always on. Transfer music files, point itunes and sonos at that location to serve to misuc to sonos.

Does that sound like it would work as long as you maybe backup those files back to the laptop once in a while?

I wanted a sound bar too so have started with the sonos playbar which sounds as good as the reviews said it would for both tv and audio.

Good to know. Am contemplating one for TV watching (non-TV audio is via my 2 channel hifi).

I’m also in the market for a NAS for music streaming, network storage & RAID backups.

Looking at using a Marantz M-CR610, as we want streaming, DAB & CD player, but its a matter of which NAS.

Reading reviews it looks like Synology are the ones to go for BUT £160+ for an enclosure with no discs seems all a bit rich….

Mentioned to the IT guy at work and he said if you have a usb port in the router you can just plug an external hdd into that. Cheap. Always on. Transfer music files, point itunes and sonos at that location to serve to misuc to sonos.

This would work just fine. You could even get an USB RAID enclosure and get the disk redundancy too.

Ah. Didn’t realise that Sonos did a device that wasn’t ‘speaker in a box’ type affair. Will have to investigate this further.
Presumably the DAC would only be required if using the digital outs on the Sonos? I could just plug the Sonos Connect straight into my amp using the analogue outs and not bother with the DAC?

They do the Connect or Connect Amp.
The Connect has optical, coax and analogue outputs so you can connect to an amp or add an optional inline DAC if required, so lots of options.
It also has line in inputs so you could connect an input then stream that round your Sonos gear – a CD player on MP3 player, for example.
Seems really flexible, hope so as I have a Connect on order.

Good to know. Am contemplating one for TV watching (non-TV audio is via my 2 channel hifi).

It’s good, I love the playbar, sounds great but a couple of things to be aware of – it’s only got one optical in. Most TVs only pass through stereo sound from the optical port even if the input is Dobly 5.1, so you only get stereo, upmixed to 5.1. No DTS support at all either.

As a one box solution it’s very convenient for streaming music and TV watching but it falls a bit short for the home cinema solution it hints to be (unless you have a 5.1 input and add a pair of Play 1’s and a sub for another grand!)

They’ve now got a budget model, £120 for the enclosure.

http://www.synology.com/en-global/products/overview/DS214se

The Connect has optical, coax and analogue outputs so you can connect to an amp or add an optional inline DAC if required, so lots of options.

The guy at Richer Sounds (whose advice I trust) said that just the Sonos connect works perfectly well but adding a relatively cheap DAC (Cna’t remember the small whit one that looks like it comes with the connect – yamaha maybe)really does take it up a notch if your amp/speakers justify it.

That’s good to know. To start with my Connect will be playing through my AV amp using digital coax but a move to DAC and Hifi amp would be nice.

Cheers allthepies

It ticks the budget box but doesn’t have the wake up on lan or timed shutdown functions.Can’t find that many reviews of it either

Are synology really that much better than the competition?

*Arise thread! Live once more!*

With Synology, I think the adage “You get what you pay for” holds true. The extra money seems to have been well spent (according to a mate with one) on the UI and software. His is apparently still getting firmware updates regularly after several years, which is pretty damned good.

However, it is a fair bit of cash and, despite wanting something myself that can put films, music, etc on the TV and PS3, I’m not sure I can stretch to the cot of an enclosure and disks. However, I do have a Raspberry Pi and found this link on how to set one up as a DNLA server: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=16352

My plan is to try this over the weekend with the USB disk I have at home and see what happens. If it works (and works well), then we’ll see what happens. I might need to do a bit of fiddling with the disk though, maybe get rid of the NTFS partition and put it on exFAT or something.

Good luck, keep us posted on how it goes

My experiments showed an rPi to be too slow to act as a server with more than one client. This could have been due to the 10/100 networking, or it could have been down to other hardware. I am now running Plex Media Server on my Mac Mini and have one raspberry pi running as a client for this, as well as the MacMini itself often being used as one as well as one PS3, and two laptops on the network.

I do have a NAS (ReadyNAS Duo v2, RAID1), but these days it’s just used as mass-storage for the MacMini, and for some TimeMachine backups as well (however, these are on an external USB disk).

Mentioned to the IT guy at work and he said if you have a usb port in the router you can just plug an external hdd into that. Cheap. Always on. Transfer music files, point itunes and sonos at that location to serve to misuc to sonos.

I’ve just changed ISP and a fringe benefit is a new router with a USB port so have just got around to this and it works! Plays music to the sonos perfectly. As long as. I back up to another computer I can’t see why I need a nas.