FuzzyJake

Have you tried mapping the share on the NAS as a local drive? I don't use Jriver, so I don't know exactly how it works. Usually though, mapping the drive can cure some strange behaviors.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with this. I returned the Pioneer this morning. It was an interesting process - the Pioneer as a dac was quite good. It's actual value as a media player seemed somewhat useless. It appears that the control apps for these things currently define how flexible they are. That in and of itself is also a little sad. If you already have a compatible phone or pad - great - if not you're looking at another $300-$400 expenditure. As far as I can see, none of these players compete with a decent laptop and your dac of choice - be it a $300 or $3000 model. This is a bit like what I went through several years ago trying to find a decent video player. Those from computer oriented companies just beat the crap out of anything from a consumer electronics manufacturer. It seems that these network/audio players will take a couple of more years to reach useful status. Thanks for all the replies and thanks for the reference to 8player. I might try another one these players and it seems like that app has potential.

I would only offer that as far as the 16/44.1 version goes, if a CD had already been released, the file was already available - it is a sunken cost. If someone was required to set up for another tape transfer (irrespective of the tape's provenance), the generation of a new 24 bit file would have some additional cost. As far as 96 vs 192, there shouldn't be any difference. The 96kHz files are most likely decimated 192 files. As others have referenced, the cost of these "premium" files are what the market will bear.

Hi all, I'm new to the forum as a member, but have been visiting regularly for a year to try and keep up with things. I hope some of the more experienced folks can help me understand. I currently have on loan a Pioneer N-50 network audio player. I've been fiddling with it since Sunday. It seems to work just fine except for the one thing I was interested in - creating playlists (NAS music files). After some digging here and a few other forums, it appears that playlists are something that it can't do. Curious, I perused the manuals for the Marantz models, including their new 11S1. Apparently, it doesn't do playlists either (unless the IOS app that you can download includes that function - I couldn't tell from the description). The Pioneer IPAD app does not do playlists - I have it on mine and while the app generally works OK, it really doesn't do much more than the remote/front panel of the N-50. Now, I'll admit I'm an old guy (late 50s) and perhaps I'm just not "getting it". For me, the ability to create and save playlists is something I've been doing for more than 10 years - using a PC and an appropriate program. My wife and I like to listen to a wide variety of music and also to be able to select maybe a dozen or so tunes of our favorites. All my digital files are lossless WAV and reside on both local PC storage and a NAS. I see a few apps over at the IPAD store that may or may not work. A google search doesn't bring up anything other than apps that play AAC tunes from your phone or pad. This doesn't do much for me. I've seen references to various solutions, but they all involve having a PC connected. If I'm going to turn on my computer, why have one of these players? I thought the whole point was to be able to NOT use a PC. I've been playing digital files off my computer (local storage and NAS) for a number of years - first through a usb to s/pdif converter and more recently through a usb dac. I've seen a number of reviews on these network players over the past 3 years and was intrigued by the concept. After additional searching, it seems that a number of these players do not support such a simple function as a standalone device. Is the lack of this feature something that doesn't bother most people? Is it something that younger folks do not care about? I'm just not seeing much value in these players versus a computer and one of the excellent dacs that are available now. What am I missing? Any insight would be appreciated. Also, please excuse the one big, run on paragraph - for whatever reason, my RETURN key was non-functional in the post message box.

I'm new to the forum, so please bear with me. I'm trying to understand where a laptop would be worse than a desktop. All computers are inherently noisy - be it from the low frequency (400Hz to 1kHz) switching power supplies to the various medium frequencies (RF type) to UHF type interference. If the computer itself is in close proximity to the analog sections of a playback system, interference would certainly be a concern. I'm unclear on how noise is overlayed on the digital signal. If the usb interface of the dac is galvanically isolated from the computer, would that not be sufficient? Since the bitstream is just digital, how would noise be introduced - unless, of course, it was severe enough to obscure the data? Noise at that level would normally indicate perhaps a problem with the computer. I'm just trying to understand how these various things interact.