Hi just joined , I do not have a DCS product yet wanting some info before I go head with buying a used bridge .Can I just insert a usb SSD drive into the bridge which holds my music files and play back through the bridge into my dac Dave .
Or do I have to have my music files on a server then connected into the bridge for this to work .
thank you
Hi Petro
Yes you can, but with caveats on how well that works, and other issues such as your SSD HD power requirements.
Playing files from a USB flash drive
You can play music from a mass storage device attached to the USB port by selecting the USB interface from dCS Mosaic Control. Tracks can be selected individually by the app and played in the same way as from a NAS drive. Unlike a NAS drive, the flash drive does not have a computer to manage the content, so there is no search feature and metadata may be limited.
I would recommend you download the read the User manual;
Hi Petro,
The USB ports on the streamers aren’t intended for use with large collections of music (that’s nothing specific to dCS streamers - most other streamers are the same) and as such only offer folder and file browsing, aren’t really suited for running actual “drives” (whether spinning rust or solid state) from and really were intended for use with USB flash drives … for example if your friend pops over with a new album or two that he’s bought as a download and wants you to listen to.
If you have a decent sized collection then I would totally recommend using a separate UPnP server - we test against MinimServer and that is the UPnP server that we support but there are other UPnP servers available that will work (we just don’t test against them or support them) and it is possible that you may even have devices on your network already that could be used as a UPnP server to get you started (this is something that most NASs and some routers offer as “Media Server” options) … the advantage of going the UPnP server route is that - as long as the tagging data on the files is OK - you’ll be able to browse your music in all sorts of different ways other than just browsing the folders and files - you’ll be able to view by artist or album or date or genre etc.
Best regards
Phil Harris
Thank you for taking the time to reply and explaining what is possible , this helps me under stand more as I am still learning as I go along . I had a Innuos Zenith and that is straight forward just switch on and select and play music . That was stolen in a break in last month so now I am looking for a server / transport as I own a Dave there is no need for a unit that has a dac inside . I have been reading other posts here and gaining a lot of information on which way I should , hopefully soon I will know which direction to take . Have been looking at Limetree which I can add my SSD and connect to the Bridge .
I used to own the exact combination of dCS Network Bridge with Chord Dave a few years ago, you can read about it here;