Do I need Asset on my Mac?

[Aston]

I'm new to the forum and investigating how best to hold by music, which is a combination of digitised CD's and LP's. I have a MacBook Air with limited hard drive space which currently holds my music. I'm going to move my music files to a 1TB external hard drive attached to a Mac Mini (2018) and used the Apple Home Share facility to access my music, sending it onto my Naim Muso over Airplay.

My question is whether I need Asset to do this? If I do is it installed on the Mac Mini or the MacBook? I'm sure very elementary questions, but I cannot work out how this works.

Thank you

[Graham39]

My question is whether I need Asset to do this? If I do is it installed on the Mac Mini or the MacBook?

There are three components ... Music source/server ... Control software ... Renderer .... The renderer plays the music (Nam Muso) and is told what to do by the control software. The music server provides one or more lists of files to the control software so that the control software can tell the renderer which song to play.

A typical setup might be to have all of the music files stored on one device and use contol software running on several different devices (such as phones and tablets) to control which music file is played on the renderer. Using Asset provides consistent access to all of the music files irrespective of the control software that is used.

Do you use, for example, a Naim app on your phone to control the music that plays on your Muso?

I would not expect that switching from a MacBook to a Mac Mini as the source/server for your music files will force a change to the way that you play music.

[Aston]

Thank you for the reply, I think I understand it now, I always thought I was OK with technology, but as I get older the more confused I get!

I've not switched from my MacBook, but I have put all my music files on a Mac mini as there was a bigger disk and easier to add an external drive and use screen share from the MacBook to the Mini. I do have an iPhone with the Naim app on it and Asset has miraculously popped up and works wonderfully, I'm really pleased. Is it possible to see the same sort of thing from the MacBook with Asset?

[Spoon]

You would need a control point that runs on the Macbook, and they tend to be written for iphone / ipad, not macbook.

[Harry Lyre]

You don’t need Asset for your setup. With Home Sharing, you can store your music on the 1TB external drive connected to the Mac Mini and stream it to your Naim Muso using AirPlay. Asset is only needed if you're using UPnP/DLNA devices, which doesn’t apply here. Just use Home Sharing and AirPlay to access and stream your music.

[Dat Ei]

Isn't airplay very limited in samplerate and bit depth?

Dat Ei