Hello from new user

[jamief]

(11-08-2014 10:25)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-08-2014 08:34)jamief Wrote:  A quick post to say Hi to everyone here and thank you to Simon for such a great piece of software!

I have about 400GB of music in 40K files, mostly in FLAC and mirrored in AAC for the iP#d ecosystem. I still buy quite a few of the little silver things (including a meaningful number of SACDs). My collection is primarily classical, a fair bit of jazz and some other stuff.

In terms of infrastructure, I use a Synology DS213+, Oppo BDP-105, Arcam amplifier, Dynaudio speakers, Minimserver, Kinsky and I have a Sonos system. Use iPhone/iPad as control h/w. I have fibre internet, a mix of wired, mains-extended and wireless ethernet.

Previously I was struggling with Synology Audiostation & DS Audio, playing into the Oppo's async USB input from the DS213.

Tags in my classical rips include Artist, ArtistSort, AlbumArtist (for contributing artists), AlbumArtistSort, Composer, ComposerSort, Conductor, ConductorSort, Album "Composer: work (artist date)", AlbumSort, Title (usually movement name), Track (movement # of work), work, Genre (Classical/Jazz/Pop/Spoken), Opus, Period, Style (Choral/Chamber/Orchestral/etc), Instrument, Location (of recording), Date (year of recording), Label, Catalog #, Soloists, SoloistsSort, Orchestra (Band), Chorus, Source (CD/SACD/download and resolution).

I use dbPowerAmp for ripping & transcoding and tag clean-up in Mp3Tag.

I haven't worked out how to make sorting work the way I'd like it to with Minimserver yet, but I'm still reading and learning. If I can, I'd like to use the 2 tag approach to sorting (as should be clear from the list above).

It has been a fantastic experience to install Minimserver, add a couple of entries to the config page, then start browsing my collection by fields like instrument, period, style, recording location, label - finally unlocking all that info I've been typing into my tags for years!

I only wish the experience with the server was echoed in the renderer. I've really struggled to get the Oppo to reliably play back streamed FLAC files (similar to issues shared by many others), though my latest configuration seems better than with DS Audio / Audiostation. I've got Kinsky installed on my iPhone - playback stops after a few tracks, not sure if this is the iPhone going to sleep - need to play more.

Jamie

Welcome to the MinimServer forum!

I'm interested to hear about your extensive tagging system. A few comments on this and other points you mentioned:

Using AlbumArtist for contributing artists won't work with MinimServer because MinimServer has a limitation of one AlbumArtist value per album.

I didn't know that Synology DS Audio could be used to feed the async USB input of the OPPO. What problems did you have when doing this?

If you can describe how you would like sorting to work, I will suggest some settings that should work with your tagging system.

What problem are you having with playing FLAC files on the OPPO? Is it the problem with Kinsky stopping playback or something else? Kinsky has known issues with stopping if the renderer isn't an OpenHome renderer such as the Linn DS.

AlbumArtist use isn't a deal-breaker for me - its more like extended tag info I'd like a renderer to be able to display. I tend to use commas or semi-colons to list multiple artists, getting into trouble with systems that like to turn these into line breaks. Again, multiple values in tags is a feature I have used, but is non-critical.

Synology - Audiostation as the server will play to a USB device, including the Oppo. DS Audio as a control point mirrors this functionality. It supports high resolution. Some files play, some don't (a Synology issue I guess, as it is creating the output stream). Sometimes the DS213 sees the Oppo, sometimes it doesn't. Very flaky. I've had more reliability playing FLAC files straight from the Oppo UI, though this is not a viable option for a large collection.

Sorting - I think that I have this properly configured now and it does what I want (Composer list uses ComposerSort tag, likewise for Album, Artist,
Conductor). I'm also using the alphaGrouping - great feature.

I chose Kinsky as a control point because it was at the top of the list on this web site. It seems fine when it works. If I cue up and play an album with a number of tracks, it stops after a few tracks. If I try switching from one track to another, the old track just keeps playing. I'm not sure if this is a render or control point issue.

Jamie