Several questions

[garym]

First, you'll need to tick these as available tags to write in the CD Ripper Settings > Metadata & ID Tags under the "write ID tags" section.

Then in the bottom center of the CD Ripper screen, click the "tags" tab, then at the bottom of the tag list click [add new tag]. Then in the space it allows, enter: ARTISTSORT. Then reload dbpa and CD ripper screen. You should now see "artist sort" tag under artist tag and "album artist sort" tag under album artist tag. You can enter these for entire album there, or click on a single track and enter both these items separately for each track.

[garym]

Also, in general if you haven't done it yet, you should open the CD Ripper program and click on every menu item at the top of the screen. And then click on any submenu items. Just to see what all is there, and to get a feel for the layout of the program, location of settings, etc. And within the program on any page you are on, you should see little circles with "?" inside. This is more info, so click on these and read the help screens.

[sculen]

Great. Thank you.

[sculen]

Waiting to re-start ripping in FLAC because I have no way of playing back on my streamers. Was going for this new 2025 model year Synology NAS 1525+, but even though Synology announced availability on May 9th, 2025, it's still not available and this may go on for a while. Also, now that I've learned more throughout the initial ripping process, I am questioning what to do about delivering the music to my streamers. Was going to store everything on the NAS which I believe would then be "picked-up" by the streamers thru DLNA. All the streamers (WiiM Pro Plus, Bluesound Node Nano, Cambridge Audio MXN10) have this capability I am told by the companies, with the Bluesound and Cambridge able to handle up to 10TB of music (not so sure about the WiiM's capacity). But just when I think I know what I'm doing, I really don't and am missing the knowledge required to get it right. Did explore the Roon Nucleous as a core server to "retrieve" or "read" the music off a NAS and then play it thru their wonderful app on the streamers which are all Roon ready. But it's super expensive and while Roon is wonderful, it's not necessary. So I'd like to get things set up so I can play stuff as I start to rip so that I can learn and get it right by seeing what's going on. NAS is appealing because of the raid technology vs multiple copies on external drives. But I want to make sure I'm going about this correctly. This whole concept of a "core server" has me somewhat baffled - e.g., if the music is already stored on a NAS, why need an additional "core server" when it can go directly to the end streamers, all of which have nice software interfaces? Do servers also store the music that's already stored on the NAS? Confusion city.
7500 CDs to rip that will probably consume somewhere between 5 to 7 TB, I think (perhaps less using FLAC). Any suggestions?

[garym]

DLNA from the NAS will likely work just fine. I don't use DLNA myself, but many do. ASSET is a product of Illustrate (same as dbpa) and is some sort of DLNA library program.

I have Roon (lifetime license bought 8 or 9 years ago, when it was much cheaper) and LMS (now, Lyrion Music Server, which I've been using some version of for about 19 or 20 years), neither of which use DLNA approach. At some point it is about the library management, etc. of the music server, not simply the ability to stream the file to your player. Roon can combine my metadata, it's own data, etc. and I can easily see who played on a song, what other songs this bass player also played on that's in my library, etc. It's more about the information and "library" function. And I'm not sure DLNA allows you to stream the same songs to different players in your home. Roon and LMS will allow that (synching). It's a big world out there and there are lots of choices. But many are cheap or free. LMS is freeware and community maintained. I mostly use LMS.

edit: I don't understand your comment about the blusound and Cambridge handling 10TB of music. They are the streamers. Your music is stored on the NAS. There should be effectively no limit on the streamer end, only on the NAS/Storage end. But maybe these units also have built in HDDs if you want to use those. Don't know.

[garym]

Don't foget that even with the NAS, you will want backups. This is critical. Drives *will* go bad, etc.

I have 3 backup HDDs (spinning drives not SSD, because no need for the speed of SSD) containing all my music files. I keep these offline (in a drawer) except when updating from my primary library and store them at three different locations. Doesn't help to have all your backup HDDs in the same house when your house burns down. I use freefilesync to keep the backup HDDs syncronized (which is nice because it is only doing an incremental backup (changes/additions) each time I sync). There are lots of similar programs to do this.

[sculen]

Thanks again. Yes, being OCD that I am, I'll probably have several additional backups.
Regarding the streamers, believe it or not, most of the ones that I am familiar with have capacity limits on how much they can readily stream. I think they read the entire music library so that the users can readily play whatever they want from their library. It could take a day or so for it to "read" (if that's what it does) a very large library. Cambridge indicates that it will not handle anything beyond 10 TB (so if you have an 11 TB library, it will stop at 10TB and not be able to handle the rest). Many are limited to a certain number of tracks, like 150,000 track limits. Bluesound claims theirs is unlimited. HiFi Rose limit is 300,000. I once had a Sonus streamer that had a small limit of I recall 75,000 and since my library even back then exceeded that, I was cut off right in the middle of R. (anything starting with T to Z was not "loaded"). I don't quite understand how it works since like you said there is no storage involved. I think it's just the ability for these streamers to readily play everything. I do know that if you power them down, you have to restart the process which like I said can take a day or so. So keep them always on!
Sounds like the NAS is still the way to go. Just need to figure out which one. Not going to wait for that new Synology one since it may take a long time.

[garym]

Aha. Good point. I recall the SONOS limit (which would not work for me, plus it couldn't play any file that was larger bitrate than 16/48.
No such limits with LMS or Roon. I know of users of both that have over one million tracks.

[sculen]

Maybe I'll end up going that route or something similar. Roon Nucleus Titan + lifetime membership is a $5K setback though. Will need to think long and hard about that, with plenty of research first to ensure there isn't an alternative that gets the job done well.
One million tracks! Holy cow!

[garym]

Maybe I'll end up going that route or something similar. Roon Nucleus Titan + lifetime membership is a $5K setback though. Will need to think long and hard about that, with plenty of research first to ensure there isn't an alternative that gets the job done well.
One million tracks! Holy cow!

I have a lifetime Roon membership (about $400 at the time) and the Roon-provided OS "Rock" running on an intel NUC (small form PC) (essentially the same function as a Nucleus Titan, except it is about $300 of parts instead). And even though I have all this, I use the free LMS instead.** That should tell you something. Get the files ripped and tagged (the biggest job) and they will work on virtually anything. Start with the NAS (you need something for the storage anyhow) and then you can always explore different streaming systems later if you decide. One step at a time.

** nothing wrong with Roon, but to be fair much of what it does well I don't need/use. And LMS has gotten way better in last 5 years since becoming community based rather than a logitech product. And note, A Nucleus Titan won't handle one million tracks either. You need a powerful PC with intel chip to do that I'm told.

[sculen]

Great advice. LMS sounds excellent. Thanks

Any thoughts on a NAS. Synology seems to be the king As it has great software.

But there are others out there.

[garym]

I don't use a NAS. I use 5TB HDDs attached directly to my LMS music server via USB 3.0 connection (which is an rPi4B rasberry pi).

[sculen]

Interesting. I'll look into all the many ways to go. Thanks.

[schmidj]

Hi Sculen,

First, Gary don't be afraid to chime in if you think I'm wrong on any point.

The term "Server" is rather vague. The basic concept is a computer with a lot of storage and I/O (often TCP/IP but not necessarily, a small personal one could even be USB) Not originally requiring much computer power. Used to store data (like your music files) and sometimes shared files. But now with "cloud computing", the server is actually running the software and you are using the local device (PC) only for I/O to talk to the server which does the computing. And that has now spread to home servers like QNAP and such, where you install apps on the which again run as programs on the server and use the connected devices mainly for I/O An example of such a program is Asset, (a product of the people who made dBpoweramp) a library system for audio files that runs on any number of devices, Windows, Mac, Linux, with special versions to "easily" install on closed Linux machines like my QNAP or on a Raspberry Pi. All these apps now require good servers to have more computing power to run the apps.

If you have enough drive space (even via USB brick drives), your regular PC can also be the music server as well as whatever else. Just terminology.

And then there are two other things. One is software that is an "all in one" streamer that runs on a PC/MAC/Raspberry Pi/whatever. It has all the functions of a player and a library syste built in, you tell it where your music is stored (on a letter drive, could be on your PC but just as well could be like me on my QNAP). You "share" a directory on the QNAP, so it is visible as a network location on your PC, then (at least on a PC) "map" it to a drive letter. The streamer doesn't know it is on the QNAP, not on my PC. But that's where the music files live. (You do need reasonable real-time connectivity on your network or you'll get dropouts when streaming. WIFI with FLAC or WAV gets iffy, the same as trying to watch Netflix over shaky WIFI.

The other thing is a box which connects to your network (not your PC) and has hardware outputs to connect to your stereo, or even directly to speakers. We historically called that a network appliance, but I see companies calling it a server. Some might have some built in storage or a place to connect a USB drive. Most all of them use either your PC or more often now your phone as a KVM device to communicate with, selecting what you want to hear. (and nowadays many can also play music from on-line streamers like Spotify) But I wouldn't use one that didn't have the ability to play music from files on a (real external) server. Closely related are "Bluetooth speakers" like Amazon's Echo. (which, AFAIK. still can't directly play music from my server.

So you have to look closely at the specs (which I see you have been doing) to see what any software/device really is and its capabilities and limitations.

Remember that a device/software that has a library function does not have to store the music files, it is a database (which takes some storage space, but not anywhere near as much as the audio files). The database and its user interface allows you to (visually) sort through your collection to select what to play, then internally looks up the file location and name of the track and instructs the player to play (or queue) it. A good system will allow you to search in any number of ways: Artist name, Genre, Title, most anything which you've entered as tags. As I said, there are "all in one" solutions which may have their own storage and possibly their own ripper, but for a large collection , you really want to separate the functions.

Then there is DLNA. DLNA is a communications protocol often used for media. It often allows communication with items like a smart TV or a Internet connected receiver (which then connects to a TV and usually loudspeakers. Many players are happy to interface with DLNA for playing files. DLNA software includes a library system which catalogs all your music and an interface with the player and renderer (in DLNA speak the player is the software/device where you select what you want to play, usually with a screen user interface. The renderer (possibly another new term for you) is the electronics which converts the stream from the player or DLNA host into outputs that connect to the loudspeakers.

There have historically been some computer security issues with DLNA, I'm not sure of the current situation.

Asset is a DLNA library system. My copy lives on my QNAP server together with my music files. But I theoretically could leave the music files on the server and run a Windows version of ASSET on one of my PCs, it would work the same. But I'd have to leave the PC on to run ASSET any time I wanted to listen to music from the server, even if not listening on the PC. My system is inside my router/firewall (with DLNA turned off in the firewall) so it has no exposure to the outside internet which solves any security issue. Asset has a very flexible library system, more than a bit of a learning curve to customize but the default is generally adequate.

A suggestion for you to get started, If you don't already have the hardware, get yourself an inexpensive USB audio interface for your computer (laptop or whatever) Connect it to the aux input of your stereo. Load a free or inexpensive player on your computer I'd recommend Foobar2000, although again there is a bit of a learning curve. It includes a library system that runs on your PC.

Get an adequate sized "brick" USB drive and load your music on it, the stuff you've already ripped or anything you want to rip now, Tell Foobar where your music is stored, and use it to play your music. No expensive server yet, free software, just the brick drive which you can use for backup after you get your server, and the USB audio interface for the PC. Play the music. See what you like and don't like about the process of selecting music (Foobar has many free or mostly free plug-ins to add features) You can keep ripping more music to the brick drive (but get a second one to back it up before you rip too much. Live with that setup until you have better ideas about what you'd like. Don't spend your money or time twice.

BTW, for storage, particularly backups, stick with the mechanical (rotating) brick drives, not the flash drives. The flash drives depend on an electrical charge keeping each bit stored. To maintain the charge, the drive must be "plugged in" to the computer or charger from time to time. The manufacturers kind of hide that bur if you inquire, they will say every 6 months. That seems to be very conservative but I've had two thumb drives with corrupt files after having been stored for about two years (others have still been good after 5 years are more, go figure). Anyway, it doesn't appear that flash media are good for long-time back-up. And even with the old mechanical drives, if not run up every now and then, the drive can get stuck and not spin up, but my experience there has been better than with flash.

I hope I haven't left you totally confused, it is a lot to absorb.

John

[inphobia]

1 more thing about raid vs backups: if you have budget limits i would suggest prioritizing a backup option before trying to make the hardware redundant with raid.

raid very much does not protect against logic errors, which is a nice way of saying "user did something dumb". deleting or overwriting files being the most common. for nas systems also remember that a recycle bin to undelete files is not standard. how (and if) this is possible depends on the nas device. most enterprise nas devices can interface with "previous versions" on cifs file shares. if this is something you want or need you'll have to check with the nas vendor.

as john above here said, don't use ssd's for offline storage, but go for spinning rust instead. i've had a samsung 840pro powered off for 7 years without data loss - but for enterprise flash the current guidelines are to not have them powered off for 14days or else you can expect data loss.

--

i do find it strange that some devices are limited by the filesize of your library. amount of files sounds logical since the metadata handling is the challenge. both from a performance and user interface perspective. i feel that logitech already solved that problem 15 years ago with the squeezeservef & squeezebox systems. i had a squeezebox boom and worked surprisingly well with the very limited display it had: 2 lines of text was all it could show and you only had a standard remote control.