Naim Import Metadata

Basic Options
Album Artwork Options
Format Options
Save Options

The Naim UnitiServe and Naim UnitiCore are powerful hi-end CD ripper and library store. When you use it to rip a CD the UnitiServe defaults to ripping to Wav format, it then looks up metadata from the All Music Guide and if no match can be found it would then use Cddb instead. But this metadata is stored in a file called amginfo.xml or cddb.txt within the same folder as the Wav rips for the album rather than stored within the Wav files themselves, and if you edit your music using the Naim App then these edits are stored in a UserEdits.xml file. If using a UnitiCore the metatdata is stored in a meta.naim file. This is fine as long as you only played your music via Naim but if you copy the files anywhere else no metadata would show up for the Wav files, this occurs even if the metadata files are copied as well, since only Naim could parse these metadata files.

For a long time Naim users have had to make a decision between using Uncompressed Wav without metadata or converting to Compressed Flac. This allowed metadata to be stored but at the possible expense of sound quality since the Flac files are compressed.

When the above option is enabled if you have any folders that contain Naim Wav rips plus the metadata files then the metadata is now automatically embedded into the Wav files themselves, this can now be read and used by most applications and players. Because the files are local and no searching on the Internet is required this process is extremely fast, songs can be processed at a rate of about 1,000 songs a minute.

Wav did not used to have good metadata support but Wav now supports metadata using the ID3 format, the same flexible format supported by Mp3 and Aiff. This format is well understood and is more powerful then the metadata format used by Flac, so now you can have the ultimate audio format and the ultimate metadata format. We also write the basic metadata to the Wav Info chunk as well for applications that support Wav Info but not Wav ID3. For example some applications only supports Wav ID3 and some only supports Wav Info.

All the information from the metadata files is parsed, not just the basics like the artist, album and track title but other roles such as producers and engineers. For classical music the conductor, composer and performers are also added. Artwork is also embedded into the Wav file itself.