How to Play Music from a NAS on Mac and iPad

One Audio Lounge library across local and NAS storage

Audio Lounge can organize music from the Mac, attached drives and SMB shares in the same library. Files remain in their original locations; Audio Lounge does not require a cloud upload or duplicate the collection.

A NAS is especially useful for large FLAC, DSF, DFF and SACD ISO collections. The Mac or iPad runs Audio Lounge and controls playback while the NAS remains ordinary network storage.

SMB in simple terms

SMB is a standard network file-sharing protocol. A NAS publishes a named share—often something simple such as Music—and a client connects with a hostname or IP address, username and password.

On a traditional Mac workflow, you connect to the server in Finder, mount the share as a volume, and then point the music application at that mounted path. It works, but the mount can disappear after logout, sleep or a network change, and an iPad has a different Files-based workflow.

What Audio Lounge SMB Direct changes

SMB Direct stores the NAS connection inside Audio Lounge. The app connects to the share itself rather than depending on a Finder or Files mount created beforehand.

• On Mac, there is no requirement to mount the share manually in Finder first.
• On iPad, there is no requirement to mount it in the Files app first.
• The NAS does not need a proprietary music-server package just for Audio Lounge.
• Local, external-drive and NAS locations can appear within the same organized library.

The NAS still needs ordinary SMB file sharing enabled, and the account must have permission to read the music folder. See the detailed SMB Direct setup guide for host, share, folder and credential examples.

FLAC, DSD and SACD ISO directly from the NAS

Audio Lounge reads FLAC and other lossless PCM formats directly from the SMB share, decodes them through its memory-buffered playback engine and supplies the selected audio output.

It also reads DSF, DFF and complete SACD ISO images from the NAS. Audio Lounge handles SACD structure and DST decompression itself, so large ISO archives can stay intact instead of being extracted and duplicated across every Mac and iPad.

For Native DSD, DoP and DAC requirements, see the Audio Lounge DSD playback guide.

Mac workflow

1. Enable SMB on the NAS and create or identify the share that contains the library.
2. In Audio Lounge, add an SMB share using the NAS hostname or IP address, share name, optional subfolder and credentials.
3. Scan the location. Audio Lounge builds its library view while leaving the source files on the NAS.
4. Browse albums, search, queue music and select a local USB DAC or HALO Endpoint.

If the NAS becomes unavailable, its library location remains offline until the share can be reached again; Audio Lounge does not upload or silently copy the source collection to a cloud service.

iPad workflow

Audio Lounge Air has its own library and playback experience. Add the same SMB share inside the iPad app and scan it over the local network. The collection stays on the NAS, which is especially useful when the library is much larger than the iPad’s storage.

The iPad and NAS must be mutually reachable. Reliable Wi-Fi is usually sufficient for normal lossless playback, while very high-rate DSD and large network workloads benefit from a stable network and sensible buffering.

Local USB DAC or HALO network output

On Mac, a compatible USB DAC can be selected as the local output. Supported paths can use automatic sample-rate matching, bit-perfect PCM, DoP or Native DSD according to the source and hardware.

HALO is optional. It moves the output endpoint beside the Hi-Fi while Audio Lounge remains the player on Mac or iPad:

With compatible endpoint hardware and DACs, HALO supports bit-perfect PCM, DoP and Native DSD up to DSD512. Read the HALO overview and endpoint setup guide before choosing endpoint hardware.