I just want to play my digital music on a USB drive

[Sound of the Crowd]

Hello there

 

I've just digitised my vinyl and cassettes and copied them and my ripped CD's onto a Toshiba Canvio 2TB USB drive. It is USB powered which avoids the hassle of having to set up external power for it.

 

I've just bought a Yamaha R-N602 and have started playing music with it and finding I'm having a number of issues:

 

- If I'm playing an album it will just stop and the drive falls asleep. It's inconsistent when it stops. Sometimes it will stop after every song, other times I can play an album without an issue. But it definitely has problems with a "Playlist" album where I have combined say 500 of my favourite songs into a folder and given the album its own name.

 

- The Yamaha display falls behind what it's playing. Sometimes it might play 3 songs in advance and still display the song 3 back. Other times it updates the display about 3/4 the way through a song.

 

- The Yamaha seems to have trouble displaying the number of folders - in excess of 500.

 

I've written to Yamaha and they've stated that they can't guarantee how all USB external drives will operate as they recommend flash dongle drives. But this is in effect the same thing, just a lot larger. My files are a mix of mp3 and FLAC files. They've stated that my feedback will be passed on for a potential firmware update, but it would depend on what else is on the list and for which release it can be scheduled into.

 

I'm fairly old school as I just want to play it nice and simply through a 2 channel amp and the Yamaha has a very nice sound.

 

I'd be interested to know what options are out there. I don't want to be spending thousands because I don't have that to spend.My fallback is to just copy the music onto my cowon digital portable player and play that through the 1/8th to RCA jacks, but then I've got the pain of having to recharge that every time it goes flat.

 

Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated. I'm very new to this digital game and maybe I'm being too simple to think that the Yamaha can work like my Cowon.

 

If there's already a forum out there that has covered this, I'd appreciate the details.

 

Thanks

Edited April 15, 2018 by Sound of the Crowd
add info

[davewantsmoore]

Quote

But this is in effect the same thing, just a lot larger.

Possible not.   The hard disk might need more power than normal USB ports are able to provide (500ma).

 

Try (borrow one if you can?) a hard drive, which has an external power cord, or a 'flash drive', and see if that makes your player happy.... then you will know it is something to do with power.

[PleasantSounds]

I had similar issues with a Toshiba USB drive, albeit a different model. The power saving settings in this drive were so aggressive that I had to stop using it. 

This never happened to me with a WD drive.

[PeteD]

43 minutes ago, Sound of the Crowd said:

 

- If I'm playing an album it will just stop and the drive falls asleep. It's inconsistent when it stops. Sometimes it will stop after every song, other times I can play an album without an issue. But it definitely has problems with a "Playlist" album where I have combined say 500 of my favourite songs into a folder and given the album its own name.

 

- The Yamaha display falls behind what it's playing. Sometimes it might play 3 songs in advance and still display the song 3 back. Other times it updates the display about 3/4 the way through a song.

 

- The Yamaha seems to have trouble displaying the number of folders - in excess of 500.

 

 

I reckon it's the R-N602 firmware at fault. I have had no significant issues with a 2TB portable Western Digital HDD with 1.3TB of music in hundreds of folders - I'm using a Cambridge CXN ver 1.  Sometimes the IOS app has trouble (it swaps out to background) when trying to play songs residing in folders nested more than 2 levels deep - but not always. Overall it is very stable and caches all of that content very quickly.

 

I was recently looking at an inexpensive Sangean network streamer but gave it a miss because the support guy said that it didn't support USB devices larger than 128GB.  As suggested above see if you can get hold of an alternative HDD to try before going back to Yamaha support. It might also be worth reformatting the HDD as NTFS (if supported and not already NTFS) or Vice versa (FAT).

 

From what I can tell most serious digital music fans are using NAS drives and casting the music over wi-fi. You can source relatively inexpensive NAS boxes these days.

 

 

[Addicted to music]

The USB support for the Yamaha is 1.0A according to the specs.  It's 2.0 USB.

The Toshiba drive must be formatted to FAT files according to the Yamaha spec.   Formatting the Toshiba drive should eliminate all power settings 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Addicted to music

[PeteD]

3 minutes ago, PleasantSounds said:

I had similar issues with a Toshiba USB drive, albeit a different model. The power saving settings in this drive were so aggressive that I had to stop using it. 

This never happened to me with a WD drive.

Yes, well said. I don't think that my 2TB Western Digital has any power-saving features - LOL. The guy at the stereo shop was saying that this could be a problem when powering off the Cambridge CXN due to the heads not being parked but I have had no problems.  Of course, I make regular backups just in case...

[Sound of the Crowd]

Thanks for the responses so far. I've found an old WD Elements drive with external power and will try that as a first step.

 

Both drives are formatted FAT32 as per the Yamaha requirements. The amp doesn't recognise exFAT or NTFS formatted drives. 

 

I'll post the results once I've tested the WD drive.

 

My Toshiba played two full albums this morning without issue, but now I'm listening to the kinks village green and it's starting to stop every few tracks.

[emesbee]

I often play music and video files on various USB flash and hard drives through my OPPO 103 blu-ray player without any problems. One of those drives is a USB powered Toshiba 2TB hard drive. I've also tried a SATA drive via the USB output of a docking station, which worked ok (although I wasn't really expecting it to).

 

It does sound like it might be a firmware problem with the R-N602, although from the description of the problem I'm wondering if the Yamaha might not have enough internal memory for its buffering.

 

 

 

[eltech]

46 minutes ago, PeteD said:

From what I can tell most serious digital music fans are using NAS drives and casting the music over wi-fi

This is what you'd do if you are NOT serious. I'll explain why. Wifi is an unreliable connection and has more jitter than a wired LAN, and even streaming on wired LAN has more jitter than playing from a solid state USB drive.

So, serious people would use solid state USB IMO.

[PeteD]

25 minutes ago, eltech said:

This is what you'd do if you are NOT serious. I'll explain why. Wifi is an unreliable connection and has more jitter than a wired LAN, and even streaming on wired LAN has more jitter than playing from a solid state USB drive.

So, serious people would use solid state USB IMO.

I fully agree - and it's exactly why I use a  portable HDD - but in any case, there is a lot of discussion on this and other forums in regard to NAS. I also did some comparison between a 64GB USB stick and the 2TB Western Digital - if there was any jitter with the latter it was certainly not audible.  And with a really good quality NAS and Router (optimised for streaming) combination I'm also suggesting that it would be really difficult to hear any difference in SQ.

 

Large capacity SSD is still way too expensive and I don't want to be dicking around with splitting the library across multiple storage devices.

[betty boop]

am also using a 2TB SSD that I plug via usb into my blue sound node2 . it just works. 

 

in my opinion there is a place for media players....they can vary greatly in cost and complexity.  my suggesting explore some other ones than what using and go with something fits your needs a bit better than what you have

[Addicted to music]

1 minute ago, al said:

am also using a 2TB SSD that I plug via usb into my blue sound node2 . it just works. 

 

in my opinion there is a place for media players....they can vary greatly in cost and complexity.  my suggesting explore some other ones than what using and go with something fits your needs a bit better than what you have

What was the cost for the 2TB SSD?

[betty boop]

24 minutes ago, Addicted to music said:

What was the cost for the 2TB SSD?

Oh gosh too long ago to remember it was from local msy? And a 1Tb sammy T3 USB ssd and pretty sure was around $500 odd ? I did a quick google looks like been superseded so prob worth researching. Can make your own too with any ssd and case.

 

i like the compact form of mine to, can unplug pop in the pocket, take to the car if need

[eman]

2 hours ago, emesbee said:

............... might not have enough internal memory for its buffering.

 

I think this was my problem a few years ago when I tried plugging in a powered HDD to a digital player.

It would appear to connect OK and even play for some time but then crash.

Essentially I think my fix would have been to go to some sort of NAS.  I didn't want to dick about (or pay) to that extent.

I just wanted it to work old school plug and play style but I needed to learn more about digital to be able to do that.  At the time I just forgot about it but it would be nice to have.

[a.dent]

6 hours ago, eltech said:

This is what you'd do if you are NOT serious. I'll explain why. Wifi is an unreliable connection and has more jitter than a wired LAN, and even streaming on wired LAN has more jitter than playing from a solid state USB drive.

So, serious people would use solid state USB IMO.

That's the opposite of the consensus on CA. Most members there promote  streaming from a NAS or NUC server over LAN.

 

Personally I can't hear much of a difference between USB attached SSD and streaming but obviously some people can.

[Addicted to music]

3 hours ago, al said:

Oh gosh too long ago to remember it was from local msy? And a 1Tb sammy T3 USB ssd and pretty sure was around $500 odd ? I did a quick google looks like been superseded so prob worth researching. Can make your own too with any ssd and case.

 

i like the compact form of mine to, can unplug pop in the pocket, take to the car if need

Just had a look on the MSY parts list, depending on the Samsung range its  still way over the top.

 

The other issues that  can effect is the  actual USB port connection.  Some USB ports are that loose that they sit there and lose it!   The latest USB ports that’s on $30-40k Fiery Printer controllers are  coming out   with USB ports that has an extremely tight connection that do feel positive about locking in and make properly. Ive had Issues on a USB wireless dongle that use to freezes the OPPO 105 player and cause me about 9mth of intermitting grief.  After I used  a connecting wire to the USB port to the wireless dongle all was good and I have a fraction of lockup’s as I use to have.    I’ve had a client blow a powered USB HDD because of this bad  connection, that’s why it’s safer to get a portable USB powered HDD. Never move a USB device while it’s connected to the in a USB slot being used.   One thing for sure is to always wait for the USB drive to stopped processing and then always go into the USB connection and highlight that drive to safely remove, never physically disconnect without going through this process.  The other thing to do is to transfer the files that need to be process to the PC or Mac this avoids continued data transfer to and from the the USB port. This applies to SD cards too,  or even power down the product before you go about physically removing the USB device.   Avoid buying or connecting products where the weight of the USB device hangs directly of the USB port, if you really have to see if you can get a compatible wired link! 

[Guest scumbag]

 

7 hours ago, eltech said:

This is what you'd do if you are NOT serious. I'll explain why. Wifi is an unreliable connection and has more jitter than a wired LAN, and even streaming on wired LAN has more jitter than playing from a solid state USB drive.

So, serious people would use solid state USB IMO.

Note that you start with a blanket, universal statement  of fact then end with "IMO". So which is it?

Others disagree based on real world experimentation.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/extending-a-network-for-hifi-r653/

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/ca-academy/Extending-An-Audio-Network-Using-802-11ac-Wireless/

And so forth and so on.............

Edited April 15, 2018 by scumbag

[eltech]

1 minute ago, scumbag said:

 

Note that you start with a blanket, universal statement  of fact then end with "IMO". So which is it?

Others disagree based on real world experimentation.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/extending-a-network-for-hifi-r653/

Probably depends on your transport, and network infrastructure. However i know that jitter in networks is real, and it's worse over WAN than LAN. Streaming audio services should theoretically be worst of the lot, and that's what I hear.

I acknowledge others may get different results.

[Jackybrown]

On 4/15/2018 at 11:55 AM, Sound of the Crowd said:

Thanks for the responses so far. I've found an old WD Elements drive with external power and will try that as a first step.

 

Both drives are formatted FAT32 as per the Yamaha requirements. The amp doesn't recognise exFAT or NTFS formatted drives. 

 

I'll post the results once I've tested the WD drive.

 

My Toshiba played two full albums this morning without issue, but now I'm listening to the kinks village green and it's starting to stop every few tracks.

If it's really a power issue (the R-N602 not providing consistent sufficient power to the hard drive), you can use an externally powered (ideally BC1.2 complaint) usb hut instead of replacing the hard drive. Such as :

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ORICO-U2BCH4-USB-Charging-HUB-ABS-With-12V2-5A-Power-Adapter4-Port-USB2-0-BC1-2/32835051478.html

[aussievintage]

On 15/04/2018 at 11:43 AM, PeteD said:

I reckon it's the R-N602 firmware at fault. I have had no significant issues with a 2TB portable Western Digital HDD with 1.3TB of music in hundreds of folders - I'm using a Cambridge CXN ver 1. 

 

 

I use a 1TB Toshiba canvio drive with my Raspberry Pi.  It requires very little power and the Pi handles it well without external power.  It does not go to sleep.    I too am thinking the problem here is the Yamaha.

[Sound of the Crowd]

Thanks to all that have provided feedback. I think most of the responses are spot on. Here's what has happened:

 

Just to clarify all my drives were formatted FAT32 as the Yamaha will not recognise a drive formatted NTFS or exFAT.

 

1. I found an old 1TB WD mains powered Elements drive. Copied all the music over to it and played it over a few days and no issues. Song titles were updated on the Yamaha screen as the song played.

2. I bought a WD Passport 1TB drive (USB powered). Formatted it FAT32. Copied all the files over and it seems to be playing ok. But it's only done around 4 hours of testing. I'm not sure if these drives are supposed to do this type of work or just used for portable backups. It's very small and looks fragile so don't know if it will see the 3 year warranty they offer. But I agree I've always used WD drives in the past and touch wood, haven't had an issue with one.

3. I have tried reformatting the Toshiba with MiniAide FAT32 formatter and am currently copying the music back onto it and will see if that makes any difference.

 

Agreed the firmware is still an issue because there seems to be a limit of 500 items, whether it is folders or files that it can recognise and display. I've let Yamaha know about these issues.

 

I'll be interested to see if there's any change in the Toshiba. If not, I might contact Toshiba to ask them why their drive has this problem and the WD doesn't. But it did take me back to the good old days of playing singles on the turntable where you had to head back to it after every song to play the next :)

 

However it is nice now to be able to play some long compilations without having to wonder if it will stop after the current song.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. Happy listening.

[PeteD]

25 minutes ago, Sound of the Crowd said:

I bought a WD Passport 1TB drive (USB powered). Formatted it FAT32. Copied all the files over and it seems to be playing ok. But it's only done around 4 hours of testing. I'm not sure if these drives are supposed to do this type of work or just used for portable backups. It's very small and looks fragile so don't know if it will see the 3 year warranty they offer. But I agree I've always used WD drives in the past and touch wood, haven't had an issue with one.

 

 

 

The thing about digital media is that there is no one type that is not vulnerable in some way or another. Hard disc, whether portable USB powered or not, is a finely tuned mechanism with a lot of moving parts - some would say a recipe for failure - and they all do fail eventually.

 

SSD doesn’t have the “moving part” factor but there are issues around stability and longevity when there is a lot of writing and deleting of files.

 

Optical disc (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) is a lot more robust and ideal for back-up but cumbersome and slow when it comes to maintaining a dynamic library of audio content.

 

At the end of the day all forms of digital file storage can fail at any time without warning, so the importance of regular back-ups cannot be overemphasised. Like someone I know, who has a fortune in time and money invested in digital intellectual property says, “If it’s not backed up twice it’s not backed up”.  He backs up to RAID 5 configured HDD and then again to 50GB Blu-ray discs.

 

I don’t go that far but feel totally safe using a 2TB WD portable which is regularly copied to a 3TB Toshiba which resides in my locker at the office.

[PleasantSounds]

On 22/04/2018 at 8:27 AM, Sound of the Crowd said:

 

2. I bought a WD Passport 1TB drive (USB powered). Formatted it FAT32. Copied all the files over and it seems to be playing ok. But it's only done around 4 hours of testing. I'm not sure if these drives are supposed to do this type of work or just used for portable backups. It's very small and looks fragile so don't know if it will see the 3 year warranty they offer. But I agree I've always used WD drives in the past and touch wood, haven't had an issue with one.

 

 

Good to see you got it working!

Random failures aside, I wouldn't worry about the longevity of the drive. The same drives are used as main system drives in laptops, where their life is much harder than just playing some music, which in terms of load is next to nothing.

 

[George Lab]

On 22/04/2018 at 1:27 AM, Sound of the Crowd said:

 

 

Agreed the firmware is still an issue because there seems to be a limit of 500 items, whether it is folders or files that it can recognise and display. I've let Yamaha know about these issues.

 

 

Hi there! I am interested in the simillar Yamaha R-N402d since I am looking for an amplifier with usb flash player capabilities. But if the limit of 500 items still remains then it is not usable. Have you maybe found a sloution (firmware etc?)

Thank you very much