Problem streaming over USB

andrewmillner wrote:
My Stream Magic 6 is successfully able to stream over ETHERNET from my ReadyNas up to 96k with no problem at all. However there is a limit. For example, when I try to stream 192k FLAC files, my Cambridge attempts to play the music, but it keeps dropping out.

According to the Stream Magic 6 user's manual, network streaming is supported only up to 24-bit/96KHz.

andrewmillner wrote:
Cambridge AUDIO advise that to play 192k files, you need to connect using USB. I have tried connecting my ReadyNas Pro direct over USB to my Stream Magic 6. The Cambridge is not able to see the NAS as "USB Media". I have tried other USB HDD's which can be seen by my Cambridge, but I still have problems streaming 192k files via USB from those USB HDD's.

Right. When they say that you need to connect using USB, they don't mean that you need to connect the Stream Magic 6 to a USB hard drive; they mean you need to connect a computer to the Stream Magic 6's other USB port.

In a USB system, there is one "host" and multiple "devices", arranged in a star topology with the host at the center and each device connected to it. The host is almost always a PC, and the devices are things like keyboards and mice, USB hard drives and flash drives, music players, etc. Devices can't talk directly to each other; they only communicate with the host.

Your Stream Magic 6 is a special sort of product that can act as either a device or a host. When you plug a USB hard drive or a flash drive into the Stream Magic 6's "Type A" USB socket (the thin rectangular socket), the Stream Magic 6 acts as a host. In that arrangement, the Stream Magic 6 reads an audio file from the drive, decodes it in real time, and plays it. It is apparently fast enough to read and decode audio files up to 24-bit/96KHz, but not fast enough for higher sample rates.

To play files with a higher sample rate, like 24-bit/192KHz, you must connect a PC to the Stream Magic 6's "Type B" USB socket (the square one). In that configuration, the PC is the host and it does the decoding, using a media-player program like Foobar2000, VLC, iTunes, Winamp, etc. Then it sends the decoded data to the Stream Magic 6, which is acting as a "dumb" USB Audio device (it just plays the data it receives, without having to do any disk-file management or audio decoding). The communications protocol used by the PC to send data to the Stream Magic 6 is called USB Audio Class 2.

andrewmillner wrote:
Netgear support tell me that the USB ports on the ReadyNAS can only be used for backup purposes. It can only read a USB device that can only be formatted to NTFS,FAT32 or Ext3.

That's not entirely true. The ports can be used for other purposes; Netgear just doesn't supply any software for those purposes. What is true, though, is that the ReadyNAS can only be a USB host; it cannot act as a USB device.

andrewmillner wrote:
Does anyone know of a workaround to allow my Streamer to see the ReadyNas Pro as USB Media when connecting into any of the USB ports?

Because the ReadyNAS cannot act as a device, it is impossible to do that. But it wouldn't help you anyway; for 24-bit/192KHz playback, what you actually need is a media-player program and a USB Audio Class 2 driver running on the ReadyNAS. As far as I know, no one has made such a package available as an addon.

If you really need to play 24-bit/192KHz files, I'd suggest replacing the Stream Magic 6 with a player that's capable of decoding those files on its own. If you can't replace the Stream Magic 6 and don't want to keep a powered-up PC between it and your audio files, you'll be limited to 24-bit/96KHz.