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I have some stuff on a Synology 4 bay NAS but I mostly use Spotify, Apple Music.
I have used Tidal in the past too.
I'm going to say something contentious, which is the amplifier/transducer combination plus acoustic treatment of the room trumps playback format.
I converted a bunch of files to FLAC and compared them to good quality AAC and 24bit 96k wave files on some really, really good monitors vs OK monitors (Kii Three's, ATC SCM45a's vs B&W 685 S2 vs B&W 606).
In a blind test almost everyone cannot tell the difference between file format.
They definitely can tell the difference between speakers and amps.
There is a baseline for decent audio quality in terms of file format but IMHO Spotify etc meet that requirement.
Personally I'd throw more money into the monitors/speakers/amps and bass trapping.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
Feedback
In did go down the NAS route for a while running a Twonky server or sometimes Minimserver. Had to make sure I could listen to my FLAC files anywhere in the house. These were then shared to my Marantz hifi via Bubble uPNP on my phone. Spent years tinkering with various options. Differing software servers, sharing protocols, apps etc.
Not any more.
I've learned to just stop worrying about it and enjoy the music.
Anywhere other than using my PC* I'll use Spotify. Spotify on my hifi via Chromecast Audio.
Have just this weekend decided I'm going to stop buying the combo of CD/Flac as well as the vinyl too. I'll buy the vinyl of favourite stuff to have a nice item, but I'll use Spotify rather than worrying about having a special digital version on top of the less portable vinyl. I'm not going to stop buying CD/Flac if I'm not buying the vinyl, but I'm not doubling up anymore.
So yes sometimes I'm listening to a lovely vinyl through a pair of nice Q Acoustic speakers or AKG 712 Pro headphones.
But most often it's Spotify through my Cambridge Audio bluetooth in-ears. And it's good.
Glad I don't have to mess with my crappy NAS anymore.
*truth is quite often I just launch Spotify on my PC too, even though there are FLAC files on the same machine. The horror!
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I use Spotify and Apple Music for everything other than the rare stuff, which is on the NAS.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
My feedback thread is here.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I can't possibly have an archive the size of Spotify's data store.
Managing it would be a full-time job.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
But after many years of tinkering, I think I'd rather miss out on a few albums in other rooms than spend time pissing around with a NAS, servers, and trying to get the fecking cover.jpg images to work.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I've also got the whole lot on a tiny Shanling M0 mp3 player. Yes all the FLAC files. So I could plug that into my hifi at any point and that'd be less hassle than continuing with the whole NAS thing.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
But over time I've left that idea behind. Spotify really is good enough. Though it took me a long time to admit that to myself.
I still buy CD and Vinyl because I like having the items, and it supports the musicians. But Spotify will do for most listening.
In terms of rare stuff not on Spotify, you can add local files to Spotify. It's not amazingly flexible, and is a bit of a pain if you're adding new local files regularly, but it does work.
I buy CDs or buy & download from places like Bandcamp. The CDs get ripped to Apple Lossless and go onto a WD MyCloud NAS that I originally bought just to share documents and automate data backups overnight when the laptops are turned off. I organise the folder structure and naming conventions myself - there's no software doing it. The downloads get burnt to CD for playing on the "nice" system (which is 20 years old, so no streaming option).
I stream via my MacBook, iPad or iPhone using 8player Pro. I've got a couple of Sonos SL One wireless speakers in the conservatory and dining room (get me!) which can also cast from the NAS drive. So most of the recorded music I'm listening to is coming from the NAS and I'm selecting it from the 8player Pro or Sonos apps. Sitting in the lounge and putting on a CD is less common than it used to be.
I'm not sure a WD MyCloud is the best NAS for music. I've had it a while and the software support from WD can be a bit flaky, but it's worked OK so far on the music side of things.
Something like this for £30 or a Chromecast Audio. They don't make the latter anymore but you can still buy them.
I stream from the network using an IQAudio Pi Dac Pro with Volumio, which also supports Apple Airplay, Spotify Connect, internet radio etc etc. Distortion measures an order of magnitude below the audible range. It picks up the NAS automatically
I had a dedicated network streamer but it was a black box with regards to firmware which made me nervous (yay built in redundancy)