Cover Art Issues

[Tom Swaman]

I like many others are searching for a good functional streaming system for my large collection of FLAC music files. In the meantime I find that I am losing albym cover art when rescanning my music folder with my Squeezebox Touch. Can I copy cover art and paste this in or do I need to re-rip and rescan. Any tips you can offer would be most appreciated as I am getting totally intermittent results. Thanks in advance.

Are there any new streaming systems that work well with a large number of FLAC-ripped albums, i.e. about 10,000?

Best regards,
Tom

[Spoon]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Scanning a library should not remove the album art, dbpoweramp writes art embedded to the file and to a seperate folder.jpg file, you can check the files have art by select one >> right click >> edit id tags.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Can I copy cover art and paste this in or do I need to re-rip and rescan.

Album art is just part of the metadata, which can always be added/edited without having to re-rip the audio. There are a number of ways to add image files after-the-fact. The most efficient way that I know is to load the album into mp3tag and add it there.

Are there any new streaming systems that work well with a large number of FLAC-ripped albums, i.e. about 10,000?

Best regards,
Tom

Not necessarily "new," as it's been around while, but Sonos makes an excellent system. I've used it for many years now and I recommend it highly. It's a very stable, well-supported product.

[garym]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Album art is just part of the metadata, which can always be added/edited without having to re-rip the audio. There are a number of ways to add image files after-the-fact. The most efficient way that I know is to load the album into mp3tag and add it there.


Not necessarily "new," as it's been around while, but Sonos makes an excellent system. I've used it for many years now and I recommend it highly. It's a very stable, well-supported product.

Sonos is very good and Squeezeboxes are good (note they are discontinued, but there are many available on ebay (go for a SB TOUCH) and there is an entire "subculture" of folks that have used micro headless computers running the software squeezelite or squeezeplay to create equivalent Squeezebox Players). I have about 6,000 albums and 75,000 tracks. I know others with > 25,000 albums and > 300,000 tracks on their servers. Sonos wouldn't work easily for me because it is limited to a library of about 60,000 tracks (less depending on how many tag fields you use). (there are ways to overcome this limit I understand with WMP running on another computer). Either approach would work well and either approach allows multiple networked players that can by synched or play different things, while the music is stored away on a NAS or Server sitting in a back closet or basement of your house, connected to your LAN). Either approach allows you to feed an external DAC from the Sonos or SB. Sonos limited to 16/44.1 files, SB Touch can do 24/96 (24/192 with a free software plugin). This is not very relevant for me as I have one 24/192 album in total and the rest is ripped 16/44.1 files from CDs.

In my own case, I have a bunch of Squeezebox networked music players throughout the house, including one connected to my main stereo. My music is stored on a 6TB headless server, stuck in a back closet connected to my LAN. I can control everything from my laptop on the network, from my iphone, from my ipad, etc. Both Sonos and SB have smartphone apps for controlling things.

[Tom Swaman]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Brody Boy,

Thank you for your comments. As I wrote, I use FLAC and not MP3. Sonos does not, I do not believe, handle higher end audio files.

Regards,
Tom

[garym]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Brody Boy,

Thank you for your comments. As I wrote, I use FLAC and not MP3. Sonos does not, I do not believe, handle higher end audio files.

Regards,
Tom

First, keep in mind that mp3tag can handle almost any sort of file, including FLAC. I use it on my FLACs myself. Find it here.

http://download.mp3tag.de/mp3tagv258setup.exe

Also, Sonos and Squeezeboxes both handle FLAC files. Correct that Sonos can only handle 16/44.1 flac files (i.e., redbook CD). The Squeezebox Touch and Transporter can handle hires FLAC up to 24/96. The Touch can handle FLaC up to 24/192 (but one must install the free app on the TOUCH called "EDO"). Search forums.slimdevices.com for "Triode's EDO" for more info.

And as I noted, sonos has a track limit issue for larger libraries (about 60k tracks). So with 10,000 albums, you'd certainly have issues with that limit. There are workarounds, but they don't sound elegant to me (having to leave a computer on running WMP). Currently I only have to leave on my single headless Vortexbox Appliance (linux server) holding my music.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Brody Boy,

Thank you for your comments. As I wrote, I use FLAC and not MP3. Sonos does not, I do not believe, handle higher end audio files.

Regards,
Tom

Hmm. I didn't say anything about mp3 files......

But anyway, as garym pointed out, Sonos plays flac (and pretty much all other formats I'm aware of) just fine. I consider lossless formats to be higher-end audio files, and they're all I've ever used on my Sonos players. But perhaps you have a different definition or have different system requirements.

You asked whether there are any new streaming systems that'll work well for your flac library. Since Sonos doesn't suit you, and SB is discontinued (so it's definitely not new), you'll probably need to research lesser-known options from Linn, Bose, Olive, and the like. I'd beware anything that's too new, as I've watched some companies try to get in on this market in recent years, only to see their flashy, copycat products disappear from the shelves fairly quickly.

[garym]

Re: Cover Art Issues

Hmm. I didn't say anything about mp3 files......

I suspect the confusion was the recommendation to fix the art with mp3tag. It is unfortunate that a very good tagging program for all sorts of file types (including FLACs) has the name "mp3" in it.