A farewell to CD’s

[Scott Borduin]

Old Listener,

I'd echo your last post essentially verbatim. Excellent description, at both the abstract and detailed level.

I'd expand on a couple of points:

- I think that there is nothing inherent in touch interfaces that keeps them from satisfying the requirement of more flexible browsing. Things like the iTunes Remote application are simply limited by the vision and constraints imposed by their designers. I'm working on an iPad/general tablet webapp for myself that is quite promising, which I'll release freely if it pans out.

- Images are useful at a certain level of abstraction, but overall are an insufficient replacement for language. I could recognize the album cover for "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" anywhere in the world, but an image of Schubert might easily be confused with one of Liszt or Schumann, while the names of these composers are easily distinguished in a matter of milliseconds by anyone reading this board. And what picture would be universally recognized as "symphony #3"?This is precisely why language is represented as a collection of lower-level, context-specific symbols, rather than pictures per se. All of which is a pretentious way of saying, you're right, text is generally more useful than pictures.

 

[Ron Party]

- I think that there is nothing inherent in touch interfaces that keeps them from satisfying the requirement of more flexible browsing. Things like the iTunes Remote application are simply limited by the vision and constraints imposed by their designers. I'm working on an iPad/general tablet webapp for myself that is quite promising, which I'll release freely if it pans out.

Scott, doesn't J.River come with a remote app for the iPad?

 

[Scott Borduin]

Ron,

Tried to respond to this, but apparently got discarded, so sorry if repetitive:

J River supports a very simple web app which will run on any browser, including iPad/Safari. This application is well short of the functionality expected by advanced users. Building a native iPad app is not really an option for J River: Apple controls the app store, and has shown no inclination to approve apps directly competitive with their own media applications. J River has built a native app for Android devices, but it's still well short of the kind of music browsing application I want.

I think it is very possible to build this kind of advanced application using modern web application technologies, and gain independence from particular hardware and operating systems in the process. Time will tell.

 

[Ron Party]

Thanks Scott. BTW, welcome to the forum!

 

[Old Listener]

Thanks, Scott

My last post was written before I saw either of your posts. I appreciate seeing your posts. I'm happy to know that there are other audiophiles who want computer audio to be useful for classical music.

> Classical music, in particular, stresses the simple user interface paradigms of most media players,
> in several ways - and I'd suggest that it's not only Classical music that suffers.

Well, both Composer and performer tags are important for albums of Berlin, Gershwin and Porter songs. For Broadway shows, the composer tag is important and the performer tag should be a list to accommodate duets, quartets and such. You also want tag info for the conductor since anything conducted by John McGlinn (or John Mauceri) is pure gold.

Some people want to record all the sidemen on jazz albums too.

> iTunes and its kin may be simple to use, but they are not easy to use if you really want to
> get all of the rewards of a computer audio source (aka "music server".)

I think you are describing a process that you and I followed. You tried hard to make iTunes work for you as I did. What do you do then? Do you contort yourself to fit a poorly conceived program? Or do you remain stubborn and search for tools that work the way you think they should? Some people give up becuas ethey don't have a strong sense of what might be possible in a well conceived player program.

> These are exactly the sorts of questions computers are ideally designed to answer for us, and
> which, IMHO, provide the most compelling justification for choosing a computer over a disc
> player as your primary source.

I thoroughly agree. I would not have bothered to rip all those CDs if I could not do more than play whole CDs.

> - I think that there is nothing inherent in touch interfaces that keeps them from satisfying the
> requirement of more flexible browsing. Things like the iTunes Remote application are simply
> limited by the vision and constraints imposed by their designers.

I haven't seen a small screen UI that attempts to do enough with the available screen real estate. It is a challenge but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to deliver more functionality for small screens.

> I'm working on an iPad/general tablet webapp for myself that is quite promising,
> which I'll release freely if it pans out.

I'll be interested.

Bill

 

[Scott Borduin]

My last post was written before I saw either of your posts. I appreciate seeing your posts. I'm happy to know that there are other audiophiles who want computer audio to be useful for classical music.

I think computer audio is most particularly useful to Classical music listeners, and in fact any music listeners who want to very actively engage intellectually and emotionally with their music collections.

You also want tag info for the conductor since anything conducted by John McGlinn (or John Mauceri) is pure gold.

Note to self - check out McGlinn and Mauceri.

Some people want to record all the sidemen on jazz albums too.

Yes, exactly my point that this is not a Classical-only issue - just more immediately obvious with Classical. Want to hear what the what the various contributors to Steely Dan Albums did in the rest of their professional careers? Good luck figuring that out with a few clicks in iTunes ...

I haven't seen a small screen UI that attempts to do enough with the available screen real estate. It is a challenge but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to deliver more functionality for small screens.

I have gotten to the point that I don't necessarily think of my iPad as a "small screen", but I completely agree that existing music apps do a miserable job of really utilizing the available real estate to represent the kind of full functionality I want from a music control app. I'll keep working on it.

 

[Old Listener]

Get started on the McGlinn!

I started a thread on "What's Best In Content - Music" about McGlinn recordings.

Scott, I sent you a PM about a McGlinn recording. Let me know if you didn't get it.

I have gotten to the point that I don't necessarily think of my iPad as a "small screen", but I completely agree that existing music apps do a miserable job of really utilizing the available real estate to represent the kind of full functionality I want from a music control app. I'll keep working on it.

I think that a programmer can do a much better job if he can really understand the user's point of view.

Bill

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes, exactly my point that this is not a Classical-only issue - just more immediately obvious with Classical. Want to hear what the what the various contributors to Steely Dan Albums did in the rest of their professional careers? Good luck figuring that out with a few clicks in iTunes ...

That's liner notes material. Do you really want fields for every musician on every track? First violin, second, etc? You're going to need a mighty big screen. I get the following in iTunes:

Name: Salve Regina in F Minor: 1. Salve Regina
Artist: Andreas Scholl, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques
Album: Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Genre: Classical
Composer: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

I suppose a conductor field would be nice. But it's way better than what I had in my eyes and at my fingertips when it was all in sleeves on the wall.

Tim

 

[rblnr]

J River supports a very simple web app which will run on any browser, including iPad/Safari. This application is well short of the functionality expected by advanced users. Building a native iPad app is not really an option for J River: Apple controls the app store, and has shown no inclination to approve apps directly competitive with their own media applications.

Don't know about this -- Squeezebox/Logitech, Sonos, PS Audio and some others have built nice iApps to control their devices and the library they're linked to -- and this does not need to be iTunes.

 

[Scott Borduin]

Don't know about this -- Squeezebox/Logitech, Sonos, PS Audio and some others have built nice iApps to control their devices and the library they're linked to -- and this does not need to be iTunes.

That's true - there are a number of apps available to control other hardware or DLNA/uPnP devices, and in fact some of them could be used to control J River itself through it's DLNA interface. But whether a dedicated J River control app would be approved is not at all clear. The rules for what will be or not be approved are intentionally opaque - there are guidelines, but Apple explicitly reserves the right to disapprove or revoke any app for any reason, without explanation. One of the reasons for rejection is (or at least used to be - haven't read the guidelines since the most recent changes) "duplication of existing applications or core functionality", or words to that effect. The app developer community has quite a few stories of seemingly arbitrary decisions (although the App store is certainly a boon for many small developers).

In any case, I'd think it pretty iffy whether a dedicated control app for a media player which "duplicates" iTunes functionality, links to competitive music stores (Amazon instead of iTunes) and social networks (last.fm over Ping), and has a somewhat testy history with Apple over Apple's decision to encrypt the iPod/iPhone synchronization interface, would be approved. I certainly wouldn't make that bet with my own time and resources.

 

[rblnr]

It's not as simple and seamless as Remote app --->buy at iTunes store but Squeezebox has a built-in way you can put something in an Amazon cart from the touchscreen head unit, or do so using iPeng, the independently made iOS remote app for SB.

 

[microstrip]

I use pretty much exactly the same setup - J River Media Center with a Dell Mini 10 (fanless, SSD) netbook as a full-interface remote, and for the same reasons. Classical music, in particular, stresses the simple user interface paradigms of most media players, in several ways - and I'd suggest that it's not only Classical music that suffers.

First off, Classical has many categories of relevant metadata. Composer, Work title, Sub Genre (Symphony, String Quartet, etc etc), Performer/Soloist(s), Instrument (Piano, Violin, etc), Ensemble, Conductor, recording or performance date, record label, Movement, Key (C Major, etc), and Era (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc) are just some of the categories by which you might want to search for and organize your music. Most media players start with the assumption that almost all music will fall into the Artist/Album/Song hierarchy, and grudgingly allow for Composer to fit in there somewhere too. And most do not allow you to define tags for all of those other categories of information at all, much less use them in searches.

Second, most media players assume logical unit of grouping is the Album. For much Pop music, that is true, but Classical violates that assumption far more often than not. The usual case is for one CD to hold performances of multiple works, often even by different composers and in different genres. Whether those multiple performances are even intended to constitute any kind of coherent program is very much in the ear of the beholder. In other cases, a work (Mahler or Bruckner symphonies, most operas, masses, choral works) will span multiple discs. In any case, these factors make navigation by Album art even less useful.

What drove me to J River is that it allows me to define all of those different categories of information (tags) and use them in my own user-defined search views. So if, for instance, I want to find all 11 performances of Beethoven's Symphony number 3 in my library, select the performance by Leonard Bernstein on Sony (rather than the later, less intense performance on DG), and play just that performance, I can do so in a few simple, logical clicks. To do the same thing on iTunes is remarkably difficult - in fact, I found that after an iTunes library got to several hundred discs or more, I would sometimes have to wrack my brain and try multiple text searches just to find back performances that I knew were there. iTunes and its kin may be simple to use, but they are not easy to use if you really want to get all of the rewards of a computer audio source (aka "music server".)

I would also say that it is not only Classical music which benefits from more advanced interfaces. If you're a Jazz aficionado, and you want to find all performances of Take the A Train from the Bop era, how do you do that? All of my recordings that have Scott Lafaro playing bass? How about all Punk/New Wave Albums that had contributing artists who also played on Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True"? Or just have the same general styles and moods of that album? These are exactly the sorts of questions computers are ideally designed to answer for us, and which, IMHO, provide the most compelling justification for choosing a computer over a disc player as your primary source.

ScottB,
Great post. But it shows exactly what I was afraid - in order to have something that pleases you, you had to write your own custom interface.

Some months ago I installed Media Monkey just to try playing RR high definition files with a borrowed Audio Research DAC8. Although I managed to play the files I could not understand the management system - I am not an intuitive person for this type of software.

Now I understand why people are paying to others to install these systems. Also, being a long time user of computers for professional reasons, there is also another hidden monster - the software upgrades!

 

[Old Listener]

Computer audio need not be so hard

But it shows exactly what I was afraid - in order to have something that pleases you, you had to write your own custom interface.

I think you are overstating the objection. My CD players never worked exactly the way I wanted them too either.

J. River Media Center is commercial s/w. I didn't write it and neither did Scott. We got the functionality we needed for classical music from JRMC. JRMC provides a great interface on a PC. Scott is talking about writing an iPad app so that he can control JRMC from an iPad. There are already two ways to do that but Scott wants a better way.

I chose to control JRMC from a light laptop. I first used VNC remote desktop software and now I run JRMC on the laptop to control JRMC on my MusicPC. I didn't have to write s/w for either approach. I did provide information to the beta test process when that feature was being developed for JRMC.

Some months ago I installed Media Monkey just to try playing RR high definition files with a borrowed Audio Research DAC8. Although I managed to play the files I could not understand the management system - I am not an intuitive person for this type of software.
...
being a long time user of computers for professional reasons

You do have to learn some stuff about computer audio to be comfortable with it. If you take the learning and experimenting as a hobby project, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment when you get your music collection ripped, tagged and managed as you want it. Along the way, you might try several players before you find one that works the way you want it to.

You should be able to use the skills you have learned using computers. If you have queried databases, you can apply that. If you have sorted data in a spreadsheet, you can apply that idea to managing music files. It helps if you figure out what you want from the player s/w and look for ways to get that result.

there is also another hidden monster - the software upgrades!

One of the ten commandments about computers: Get it working and leave it alone.

Just because newer versions of your software exist doesn't mean that you have to upgrade. I kept the same version of J. River Media Center unchanged on my dedicated MusicPC for several years. That PC is mostly 5 1/2 years old and still runs Windows XP. I have tested newer versions of JRMC on my personal PC without drama but I run my dedicated MusicPC as you would run a production computer in a data center.

Bill

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

very interesteing post on JRMC. I just downloaded it but now it sweems to be free. I always wonder how companies who just give up free software makes their money but hey .. If it's free. My music collection is mainly clasical and I always had some problems with it .. I will "study" J River and report to you how it works thanks Gals and Guys ... Oh for those so inclined Gary L Koh Server in this very form works and works well... and has gotten cheaper.. Many of the components price have been lowered.

Also agreed with Old Listener ... If it works leave it alone .. One thing I have learned in my many years in Communications ...

 

[amirm]

On leaving it alone, that definitely applies to installing other applications on the PC. With no quality control, these other apps could destabilize your system.

I would however, leave Critical Windows update on. Many people turn these off on their media PCs but it is not wise if you have that PC connected to the Internet which is necessary for metadata look up. If so, and a weakness is discovered in Windows, it could be exploited through that PC and do serious damage.

Let me give you an example of how bad these guys are. When Microsoft fixes a bug and distributes the udpate, they look at what has changed in the fix. And then write an exploit against it, attaching the machines not yet updated! This is why you are so vulnerable if you are not keeping your PC updated.

 

[Old Listener]

Frantz, J. River Media Center has a 30 day free trial period. Then you have to buy it. The Media Jukebox version is completely free. it is missing some features like ASIO support and is based on an older version of JRMC. Two ways to see if JRMC is of interest to you.

Amir, I understand the concern about security. I place a hardware Wired Router/Firewall between my internet connection and my PCs on a wired LAN. That blocks incoming connections. I don't browse the web or read email from my MusicPC. The only outgoing connections are to J. River sites. For our general purpose PCs, I have Windows updates turned on.

I'd strongly recommend using such a hardware router/firewall device rather than relying on firewall s/w in each PC. Some of the consumer level router/firewalls seem to be flaky. My Watchgard SOHO device has worked for years without being touched.

Bill

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I wanted to add a few things to the music servers side of music.

We are amongst audiophiles and the tendency to get the best is certainly there... a Digital Music Server doesn't need to be expensive .And the perfromance can be rather high. A NAS or more for less than 150 each... A music server like the one proposed by Gary L. Koh (there are others but this is on the WBF and it works well and remains inexpensive at <$500 plus detailed built instructions plus great performance ... Control software is from Free (Foobar 2000) ro inexpensive (JR Music Server around $50) ..You can use your present DAC to good service and frnakly it may likely be as good or better than your present transport ...
Multizone music playing becomes easy (well the specter of different music playing in diferent part of the house rear its head but ...) and all that doesn't have to cost a lot ... The main thing is to have the music on a HDD ... And like some have posted in this thread it is not a cumbersome as it sounds ..

Old Listener I have downloaded both JR and will evaluate looks very good so far if only for the tagging granularity ... THe interface is not as slick as I would have wished .. I have continued dreams of something like the Soolos .. (Good Luck with that ... ) but it iwll suffice for now ...
I believe it brings a different level of conveninece to playing uisc ...
You can use your own DAC and play Hi-Rezi if you will or use your iPhone- iPod/Pad to control the server wirelessly .... Your music collection will never has been so accessible ...

 

[Ripforlife]

Thank you for the kind words. I'd love to answer any questions if you have any. Regards, Joel DeGray. CEO/TS

I have not used these guys but they are highly recommended from people who have as far as ripping service: https://www.terra-san.com/index.php

Their home page tells a nice story.

 

[amirm]

Welcome to the forum! How about telling us a bit about what you do to assure an accurate rip of CDs. And also, whether you also rip DVD-As.

 

[Othersongs]

...
Resolution.
By design a CD is 16 bits at a 44.1 kHz sample rate (Redbook audio).
A lot of recordings are done with a greater bit depth and a higher sample rate. ...
A computer with a decent sound card allows you to play a recording at its native bit depth and sample rate. The Hi-res catalogue is not big at the moment but it is growing.
...
Sound quality.
That is the big issue. ...

Your PC can sing as good as your CDP.

Interesting thread.

1. What is Vincent's web address? i.e. his computer audio site address?

2. I'd appreciate some site addresses, for download of some decent longer playing high rez music samples that are free. Thanks. Does Linn Records offer any? I know the site but am not finding any free samples.

3. With regard to backup of personal computer HDD music files, that is a huge issue with download of music from the web and especially important to those who download high rez music (very large files). IMO it is less of an issue with a CD collection (physical CD discs).

Not to mention, if one needs to, how does one prove that one has paid money and that their computer collection of music files is legally owned? Meaning I'm not much at keeping receipts/invoices. Which is another thing that owning original physical CD discs neatly avoids.

I mean, it's like a small miracle that it isn't illegal to rip CD music to computer files. Can one do that legally with music from a blu-ray disc?