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Not How But What.

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  • Timothy Wright
    • Mar 2016
    • 34

    #16
    Re: Not How But What.

    GaryM>

    You are a wealth of helpful information, and I am very grateful. Thank you!

    I have been marching through my archives doing clean up work and reconciling my data base in excel with my actual FLAC files.

    This can be expensive procedure, I purchased 28 CD yesterday just to fill in gaps in my collection. There is a Gospel group named Acappella they do astounding things with very complex harmonies and arrangements. When I want to show off my speakers I often reach for Acappella. The group is somehow church related in that they believe it is a sin to use a musical instrument in church, so for them singing with out instruments is a theological choice not a performance choice.

    A flood of their earliest stuff has just been reissued and I was interested. On their website I have $150 in my cart at $12/cd + S&H and I thought: "I will call these people and ask for a discount." They don't answer their phone, I left two messages.

    Getting nowhere quick I started cross shopping Amazon and I have almost all the same items and much more for $50. The lady calls back 5 hours later and I told her that I filled most of the order from Amazon.

    "They may not be brand new."

    "I know that, if they don't rip perfectly I will not pay for the CD. I haven't had enough room in my living room for physical CDs for many years, I rip once and then the master goes into storage and I may never see it again."

    I don't know how well that went over for her. Time to check your business model.

    If I don't rip everything again soon all this conversation about multiple values in a tag is perhaps some where in my future.

    Evidently at some point I moved my MP3 directory into MUSIC and that merged my FLAC files and MP3 files into a common single directory tree. I can't globally delete all mp3 files because in a few cases that may be my only digital archive. The only way to properly clean up the mess is to re-rip (no thank you) or walk the whole archive one directory at a time and clean up as I go. I am maybe 2/3 done and it is going very well. I'd have to do a walking clean up if I were re ripped anyway. I have two very large 4k displays and I have all this down to a system. It goes quickly.

    Once I "perfect" the archive I'll do a bulk convert from FLAC to Mp3 and copy both directories to both NASs.

    I can see I have been doing things the hard way, I expect to start playing with mp3tag and ASSET sometime soon. My Oppo players prefer local USB drives to DLNA via network to get all the features. I also keep a full FLAC back up on several USB WD 3TB passport drives. I would have room to also store both FLAC and MP3 archive on any one USB drives as well. Few other things life give the safe feeling of having all your music stored on two different NASs and four different USB drives.

    The last time (10-20+ years ago) I looked at presentation software, like LMS foobar2000, they just added overhead and got in the way. Logitech, for example, was the rage then Logitech over night lost interest and quit making the Squeezebox. In contrast DLNA is like a DOS command line. It is simple and robust, it lacks niceties but I don't have to wait to listen while a program downloads liner notes or indexes 40,000 songs. I haven't shopped presentation software in decades I suspect it has greatly improved, but what I have works and is bullet proof when I don't screw it up.

    Comment

    • garym
      dBpoweramp Guru
      • Nov 2007
      • 5759

      #17
      Re: Not How But What.

      Yes, multiple backups, preferably stored at different locations are critical.

      I have FLAC, mp3 copies of FLAC, and mp3/aac only versions. So I have something like:

      x:\music\FLAC\....
      x:\music\mp3AAConly\....
      x:\mp3copy\....

      So I can point at x:\music and get all my tracks. In itunes I point at both x:\music\mp3AAConly *and* x:\mp3copy for filling my iThings with lossy copies.

      I agree that one should do what works for them and if it aint broke, don't fix it. I'm a longtime Squeezebox/LMS user. I have 7 squeezeboxes in use and 6 new in box backups. Plus one can create a DIY Squeezebox player from many different microcomputers (Pi, Wandboard, etc.) No delays(waiting) in using it on my end. All instantaneous. It runs 24/7 on a headless linux (vortexbox) box stuck in a back cabinet out of the way. Music on this box on HDDs as well. I can control it all from laptop, iphone, ipad. I like the ability to sync players. I can have the same music in every room of the house or different music in different rooms, all from that single setup. DLNA (unless "hacked" in some way with special software) can't do gapless playback. That's a deal killer for me. I've also been playing with a new system called "Roon". Very interesting, especially with the extra information it provides about albums/artists etc.

      Comment

      • Timothy Wright
        • Mar 2016
        • 34

        #18
        Re: Not How But What.

        Mine looks more like:

        x:\music\flac
        x:\music\mp3

        I liked squeezebox but by the time I was interested the hardware was discontinued. I since hardwired my home with gigabit Ethernet so wireless is less of an issue.

        Roon is very interesting, I was in an audiophile showroom and I offered that my taste in music was far too esoteric to find most of what I already own on any service like Roon. To be brief I was soon proved wrong. I think Roon is also true CD quality or better. What I paid yesterday for CDs would pay for a Roon subscription. But my Oppo players are not set up for Roon and that is how I do most of my critical listening. I think Roon is a lifetime deal and I remember Compuserve and Prodigy and GEine. Lifetime online services have a poor track record for longevity.

        I read that most other online services that provide music are far less than CD quality and not much better, maybe worse than ipad quality, In my case not adequate for critical listening. And those music services other than Roon say they are providing CD quality but in fact do not.

        And I don't want to loose all my music next time the Sun burps. ;-)

        In your case what is the difference between "mp3AAConly" and "mp3copy"?

        Comment

        • garym
          dBpoweramp Guru
          • Nov 2007
          • 5759

          #19
          Re: Not How But What.

          Originally posted by Timothy Wright
          In your case what is the difference between "mp3AAConly" and "mp3copy"?
          mp3AAConly are albums/songs that I *only* have in mp3/aac format. mp3copy are files that I have in FLAC, and these are simply mp3 copies of those flac files.

          My squeezeboxes and server are all ethernet connected. WIFI can work well, but where possible I like to use ethernet to connect things in my home.

          re Roon. It has annual or lifetime membership. Roon doesn't provide any music at all. It uses your own music or it can connect with TIDAL (if one has a separate TIDAL premium subscription). And much of TIDAL is 16/44.1 (CD) streams. I'm with you on owning my own stuff. I use Spotify streams to test out a few things I might be interested in or learn about new artists. But if I like something, I buy the CD and rip it.

          Comment

          • Timothy Wright
            • Mar 2016
            • 34

            #20
            Re: Not How But What.

            Much of the music I buy is from Amazon and featured free MP3 downloads, I don't bother. My idea of Digital Music Rights I suspect is much like yours. I don't need anyone to check at a server online somewhere before I play a song I have paid for. There are both performance and privacy issues. I also don't need the NSA to tell Obama that I am still clinging to "God and Guns".

            I admit my knowledge of online music services is very limited, blame it on my tinfoil hat but anything I do either on line or off line puts the crosshairs on my backside for targeted marketing, hence I endeavor to limit my exposure.

            The whole notion of some server somewhere deciding who, when and if, billions of individuals at any give moment may enjoy any given song greatly offends me. Why not a tax on whistling?

            As I sort through 100's of "Various" CDs I can do a properties tab on any given song and retrieve valuable information that has been very helpful. It has been slow going but very productive work.

            There is also a library science rule that any category that has only one member (i.e. artist/one CD or Genre/one Artist) should not be allowed and should somehow be re-categorized. The problem is that after I buy 9 more CD's of one armed Dobro players I have go back and find 'n fix that mess.
            Last edited by Timothy Wright; May 25, 2016, 03:43 PM.

            Comment

            • Timothy Wright
              • Mar 2016
              • 34

              #21
              Re: Not How But What.

              Call me an over caffeinated white old man but I am getting moderately better at this.

              I have 15 CD binders each holding 320 CDs (no cases), and I have (8) 34 Qt Hefty Plastic storage boxes all full of Music CDs. Every time I rip my collection I am in a big hurry and I get only a little smarter at this.

              I quickly raced through all the plastic boxes because most of those were ripped to FLAC on receipt. Now I am one third of the way through the Case Logic binders, I look at one artist at a time, do I have every CD and in FLAC? Is the Artist in the proper Genre per Allmusic (and visions I get from God)?

              This time I'm taking my time this time, and it is going quickly given that is maybe the 5th or 6th time through the collection and most of the work has been done in the past. I am gleaning a fair amount of CDs that had been left behind in past roundups.

              I get about 18 CDs per day in the mail because walking my collection artist by artist always reveals glaring omissions in my collection. Soon the flow of new CDs should dry up.

              Lord willing in several days I'll be ready to execute a massive FLAC to MP3 conversion. So my only question: Should I seriously consider any other "worthy" file formats when I do the conversion?

              I quickly looked over Asset UPnP and it is not supported by my Western Digital NAS. Normally I play music from my OPPOs by way of USB hard drives, it is simple and robust but neither elegant or full featured. It is also a nice way to provide 3-4 complete backups.

              Thanks to all for their generous assistance.

              Comment

              • garym
                dBpoweramp Guru
                • Nov 2007
                • 5759

                #22
                Re: Not How But What.

                My preferences are FLAC for my lossless archive and home playback. I use mp3 at "Lame -V2" for my lossy. One could use m4a (AAC) as well, but mp3 is good quality and essentially universally supported. And it really doesn't matter for the lossy. If a few years from now, some sort of great lossy codec gets created with great sound at 1/10 the size, I can simply make a new lossy set of all my FLAC files with a point and click and come back the next day....

                Comment

                • Timothy Wright
                  • Mar 2016
                  • 34

                  #23
                  Re: Not How But What.

                  Thank you GaryM for the advise.

                  Today I spent 6am to 10pm finding and ripping CDs. The Binders are done and I suspect only once more thru the plastic tubs so I don't order anything I already own. I was able to replace +90% of my MP3 "Cds" with FLAC files. The another 5% were CDs made from LP's and not something I listen to frequently, if ever.

                  Yesterday I ordered another 16 CDs before I stopped hemorrhaging money. Lord willing most of my CDs should be here this week. The manhunt for missing CDs will be over and I can start the FLAC to MP3 bulk perversion.

                  Comment

                  • garym
                    dBpoweramp Guru
                    • Nov 2007
                    • 5759

                    #24
                    Re: Not How But What.

                    and recall, even after you've done the mass FLAC to mp3 conversion, you can add files to your FLAC archive and later CONVERT your FLAC archive to mp3 again, and it will ask you if you want to overwrite your existing mp3 files. Say "no" and then it will just create mp3 files for the newly added FLAC files rather than ALL the FLAC files.

                    when doing your mp3 conversion, test it a bit first to be sure it creates your mp3 files with the correct directory structure, etc.

                    Comment

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