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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 22, 2020 20:57:41 GMT -5
Problems...
The Auralic Aries wants a DLNA streamer somewhere external in order to receive data (at least, that's how I'm interpreting the Quick Start Guide). ALL my drives are non-NAS, plain-vanilla, external USB HDDs. There are several ways I could overcome this mess:
1. Buy a NAS RAID box - Advantages = fast - Disadvantages = VERY expensive (even if I reuse my existing drives)
2. Buy a NAS USB cradle & park my data drive there - Advantages = fast - Disadvantages = still not cheap & there's no redundancy except via external backups
3. Buy a NAS USB adapter & plug my existing RAID into it - Advantages = cheap - Disadvantages = too slow for HD video, but might be OK for audio?
4. Buy nothing - I already have a "Raid+" USB-3.0 4-bay RAID box with drives. If I can convert it to NAS instead of USB (without losing the data on it), then that would suffice.
So... Research time...
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novisnick
EmoPhile
CEO Secret Monoblock Society
Posts: 27,230
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Post by novisnick on Feb 22, 2020 22:16:26 GMT -5
Problems... The Auralic Aries wants a DLNA streamer somewhere external in order to receive data (at least, that's how I'm interpreting the Quick Start Guide). ALL my drives are non-NAS, plain-vanilla, external USB HDDs. There are several ways I could overcome this mess: 1. Buy a NAS RAID box - Advantages = fast - Disadvantages = VERY expensive (even if I reuse my existing drives) 2. Buy a NAS USB cradle & park my data drive there - Advantages = fast - Disadvantages = still not cheap & there's no redundancy except via external backups 3. Buy a NAS USB adapter & plug my existing RAID into it - Advantages = cheap - Disadvantages = too slow for HD video, but might be OK for audio? 4. Buy nothing - I already have a "Raid+" USB-3.0 4-bay RAID box with drives. If I can convert it to NAS instead of USB (without losing the data on it), then that would suffice. So... Research time... I wouldn’t go to any expense unless you plan on keeping the Aries. NAS should be Plug and Play. I’m not seeing your problem.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 27, 2020 1:02:10 GMT -5
The Auralic Aries manual is misleading. The Aries will serve as its own server if you plug a USB HDD with compatible format (EXFAT or FAT32) into its USB input directly. No conversion to NAS is needed. The Auralic LDS ("Lightning DS") software runs on iPad, and controls the selections. The interface is almost as good as Roon or jRiver, and no computer is required anywhere in the system. For some reason, possibly the large size of my music library, the Aries software wouldn't index my drive on the first try. But a subsequent attempt was successful & now all is well.
Sometime soon, I'll cook the system for an hour or two and then listen critically.
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novisnick
EmoPhile
CEO Secret Monoblock Society
Posts: 27,230
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Post by novisnick on Feb 27, 2020 4:01:56 GMT -5
The Auralic Aries manual is misleading. The Aries will serve as its own server if you plug a USB HDD with compatible format (EXFAT or FAT32) into its USB input directly. No conversion to NAS is needed. The Auralic LDS ("Lightning DS") software runs on iPad, and controls the selections. The interface is almost as good as Roon or jRiver, and no computer is required anywhere in the system. For some reason, possibly the large size of my music library, the Aries software wouldn't index my drive on the first try. But a subsequent attempt was successful & now all is well. Sometime soon, I'll cook the system for an hour or two and then listen critically. There ya go! I knew something was amiss. Enjoy!
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klinemj
Emo VIPs
Honorary Emofest Scribe
Posts: 14,762
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Post by klinemj on Feb 27, 2020 19:44:22 GMT -5
Got my Auralic Aries in today. Here's what I hope to end up with: The Auralic forum moderator says it will work the way I've shown it, and I hope to get set up today. My only doubts about the feasibility of the system are that the LDS software needs to index the data drive every time the system is started, and my data drive is huge... We'll see. There is a version of LDS Server in the Auralic Aries, but if I use that option, the iPad's LDS software must do the indexing (and the iPad doesn't store that information permanently). If it takes the iPad too long to initialize its index, my only other options would be to put a computer back into the system (that I really want to avoid, or to use a subset of the data. It should also be mentioned that connections between components are as follows: Data drive to Aries = USB Aries to AirPort = Ethernet AirPort to Switch = Ethernet Switch to Internet Router = Ethernet Aries to Vega = SP/DIF Coaxial or USB (whichever sounds better) Vega to Audio System = Unbalanced or Balanced (TBD) I've got no clue what the airport does, so pardon the question...why the hardwired connection from the switch to the airport and also to the Aries and also from airport to Aries? And, what's the "LDS" software? I did a search and all I could find was stuff about a certain church based in Utah. Mark
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 27, 2020 22:34:00 GMT -5
Hi klinemj - There's an Ethernet connection from the switch to both the Aries streamer and the Apple AirPort Express (wireless hub). There is not an Ethernet connection directly between the Aries and the AirPort hub. I just got overly enthusiastic drawing little lines. "LDS" software is proprietary to Auralic. It's called "Lightning DS," and has nothing to do with Mormonism.
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Post by jmilton on Feb 27, 2020 22:51:44 GMT -5
Hi klinemj - There's an Ethernet connection from the switch to both the Aries streamer and the Apple AirPort Express (wireless hub). There is not an Ethernet connection directly between the Aries and the AirPort hub. I just got overly enthusiastic drawing little lines. "LDS" software is proprietary to Auralic. It's called "Lightning DS," and has nothing to do with Mormonism. ...or LSD.
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 1, 2020 7:41:07 GMT -5
I'm afraid that over the years my music library has been well and truly shredded. What I'm finding is that many of the albums that I ripped as whole albums are missing some or even most of their tracks. Some tracks seem to have "migrated" on their own to other albums. And many albums seem to have fragmented into multiple, different folders for no apparent reason.
Of course, this stuff has been acquired over decades, and has been through numerous changes. I originally started ripping in iTunes using Apple's ALE (Apple lossless encoding) codec. By chance, I later ripped some of the same music to WAV format, and decided that the WAV files sounded not just audibly better, but startlingly better than the ALE versions. I also noted that iTunes was seemingly at random deleting files from my library for no apparent reason.
So I then converted all the ALE files to WAV, and began using jRiver Media Center software. I noted that sometimes the same files sounded much better than other times, and didn't know why until I reviewed a McIntosh-brand AV processor. The processor had a verbose display, and showed the format that it was receiving from the server. Sometimes, files would play in PCM 44/16 format, and other times the same files would play as MP3! Come to find out that the jRiver software was automatically, in the background, and without notification down-rezzng the files at its own whim. Even after setting the program to always play at source resolution, I caught it sending MP3 on occasion.
Also, during the jRiver interval, I made the huge mistake of trying out some "find duplicates" software that absolutely decimated my music library and couldn't be undone. I think a lot of my problems were caused by that.
I then switched to Roon from jRiver, and got 44/16 all the time. But I still was having to deal with a server on the computer and the control app on my iPad. So I couldn't listen to music unless the server was running. Roon was also not good at supporting Mac versions, so I switched to their Windows version. But I've developed a rabid hatred of Windows, particularly as to its fickleness regarding hard drive formatting.
I installed one drive as an internal music-data drive on my HP Win-10 desktop. I later decided to pull that drive, install it in a USB cradle, and use it as an external drive. Nothing doing! Not only would the drive not mount on my Mac machines, but it also failed to mount on a Win-7 laptop, and also refused to mount as an external drive even on the Win-10 desktop that originally formatted it! When I reinstalled the drive internally on the Win-10 desktop, it began working again. Enough! I'm done with Windows 10. With my recent purchase of the Auralic Aries streamer, I can use the Auralic LDS software and plug a music drive directly to the streamer via USB. The LDS control app runs on my iPad, and I no longer need ANY computer in the system. I"m happy with music playback software (finally).
But this doesn't restore my library with its scrambled and missing files. I'm afraid that the only palliative for that situation is to discard damaged albums and re-rip. I'm unhappy with the solution, but I'm also pretty sure that there's no other path back.
So that's where my music library stands.
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Post by dsonyay on Mar 2, 2020 20:56:38 GMT -5
Wow.. that's the main reason I got out of keeping digital files on a PC and the whole ripping process. I'm either streaming lossless, or back to buying CDs and vinyl.
A way to avoid having to keep track of where the music player puts tracks (like when it puts stuff in an unknown artist file or with a completely different group) is to use your computer windows to view the music folder without using the player, double click on the files you want to ay and then your default music player plays what you selected.
Your files are not really missing.. it's your music player not doing the organizing properly. I'm pretty sure you can choose to view your music within the music player in "computer file mode" or something like that language. This would solve the issue with missing tracks or tracks being shown elsewhere.
When I was using players, I found Foobar to be a fantastic player as far as playing properly.. but it too would screw up the artists and songs .. once I set it to display my music as it was stored in the computer directory, it was a big problem solved.
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 3, 2020 6:01:46 GMT -5
Hi dsonyay - In most cases, you'd be right. But in my particular case, the files are well and truly buggered. Certain files ARE really missing and are nowhere else to be found on the drive. Many files ARE really in other folders where they shouldn't be. As I'm going through my drive, using the computer's file explorer, I'm marking folders that are missing files, or that have unrelated files. At the end of this sort, I'll search for what each album track-list says SHOULD be in each folder, and return the "wandering files" to their proper source folders. But I strongly suspect that a large percentage of this music will just have to be re-ripped. I'm profoundly not enthusiastic about going through the attic and bringing down unmarked boxes of jewel boxes to find a single title that I need to re-rip, but I just don't see any other solution. To date, I've encountered all the following: First track missing from an album Multiple tracks missing from an album Unrelated tracks added to an album Multi-disc sets scattered and no longer bundled as a single product Albums mislabeled as to title and content Misspellings in the albums' metadata including misspellings of the artist, composer, performer, etc. My current player software is not a problem; the state of my library files is. And until I fix the library, the likelihood of having accurate searches is low. This process is complicated by the sheer volume of titles in my library. I have over 4 Terrabytes of data and the number of folders with problems is approaching 25%. Despite having multiple backups of this data, the corruption apparently goes all the way back to when I was using iTunes as my music manager. So in most cases, having a backup with the same errors as the current playback drive just isn't helping much. At this point, it may be prudent to focus on what music I actually listen to. If I have an album on the drive that I've not bothered to listen to, and it's a decade old, do I really want that album? On the other hand, if I've an album that I really like, and it is missing tracks, it may be worthwhile to just start over and rip that disc again. I'd honestly estimate that only ⅓ of the actual files on my drive are truly valuable to me. If I focus on those and eliminate the remaining albums, not only does my library become faster to index and less complex to search, but also I need less storage to house that data. May be a win/win all the way around... Spring cleaning for the hard drive? And by the way, a friend has suggested to me a way of ripping that will help avoid metadata corruption. He recommends ripping to a USB key. Once the album is in the USB "sandbox," use the computer file manager to ensure that the metadata is correct, that things are correctly spelled, and that the folder structure is exactly the same as what you want. After the rip(s) have been verified on the USB drive then (and only then) transfer them to your data drive.
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 3, 2020 6:32:50 GMT -5
Hi klinemj - There's an Ethernet connection from the switch to both the Aries streamer and the Apple AirPort Express (wireless hub). There is not an Ethernet connection directly between the Aries and the AirPort hub. I just got overly enthusiastic drawing little lines. "LDS" software is proprietary to Auralic. It's called "Lightning DS," and has nothing to do with Mormonism. ...or LSD. Alas... LOL
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 9,966
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Post by KeithL on Mar 3, 2020 11:28:53 GMT -5
That is a bummer...
The unfortunate reality is that NO "music manager" or "music organizer" can be trusted 100%.
For anybody starting out... When you RIP albums... After you enter whatever metadata you're going to enter manually (or the metadata is entered by your ripping program)...
Get yourself a pair of big external USB drives (you can get an 8 tB drive for about $150)... Save a copy of each album you RIP on each drive (the two drives will be physical duplicates of each other)... (If you're really paranoid, or your material is irreplaceable, do three separate copies.... your music is a big investment in time, money, and labor.)
Save the files in a nice logical hierarchical human readable order (I personally prefer C:\group\album )... DO NOT EVER ALLOW ANY PROGRAM TO ORGANIZE, INDEX, OR MANAGE THESE DRIVES. They sit in the closet, or preferably different closets, except when you have more albums to add to them. (When that happens you take them out, connect them to your computer, copy the new batch of albums onto them, and put them back in the closet.) Resist the urge to "just use one because, after all, you have a spare" and resist the urge to "just leave one connected"... Resist the urge to "reorganize" one of them, or to delete "old stuff you don't need any more".
If you're really serious, then find yourself a data integrity program, and let it create checksums of the entire drive. Then, every five years, take out one drive, and run the program to verify that it remains perfect and intact.
Whenever you want to set up a music library, copy one of these drives onto an entire new drive, and let your program manage THAT drive.
The idea of a "sandbox" to store files you're currently working on is a good one. However, there's no specific reason for it to be on a USB stick (they're slow and no more reliably than a spinning disc). I would suggest creating multiple partitions on your hard drive... and reserving one of those for "work" and one for "collection"
Albums get ripped to the "work" drive... Then, after you finish with the metadata, they get transferred to the "collection" drive. Then, every so often, you copy everything on the collection drive to the backup drives and your library drive.
You can run checksums on each individual album at that point as well. Many checksum programs can be configured to run a checksum on each folder - and then store it in that folder.
You can then tell the program "check each folder against it's checksum file" whenever you want confirmation.
Hi dsonyay - In most cases, you'd be right. But in my particular case, the files are well and truly buggered. Certain files ARE really missing and are nowhere else to be found on the drive. Many files ARE really in other folders where they shouldn't be. As I'm going through my drive, using the computer's file explorer, I'm marking folders that are missing files, or that have unrelated files. At the end of this sort, I'll search for what each album track-list says SHOULD be in each folder, and return the "wandering files" to their proper source folders. But I strongly suspect that a large percentage of this music will just have to be re-ripped. I'm profoundly not enthusiastic about going through the attic and bringing down unmarked boxes of jewel boxes to find a single title that I need to re-rip, but I just don't see any other solution. To date, I've encountered all the following: First track missing from an album Multiple tracks missing from an album Unrelated tracks added to an album Multi-disc sets scattered and no longer bundled as a single product Albums mislabeled as to title and content Misspellings in the albums' metadata including misspellings of the artist, composer, performer, etc. My current player software is not a problem; the state of my library files is. And until I fix the library, the likelihood of having accurate searches is low. This process is complicated by the sheer volume of titles in my library. I have over 4 Terrabytes of data and the number of folders with problems is approaching 25%. Despite having multiple backups of this data, the corruption apparently goes all the way back to when I was using iTunes as my music manager. So in most cases, having a backup with the same errors as the current playback drive just isn't helping much. At this point, it may be prudent to focus on what music I actually listen to. If I have an album on the drive that I've not bothered to listen to, and it's a decade old, do I really want that album? On the other hand, if I've an album that I really like, and it is missing tracks, it may be worthwhile to just start over and rip that disc again. I'd honestly estimate that only ⅓ of the actual files on my drive are truly valuable to me. If I focus on those and eliminate the remaining albums, not only does my library become faster to index and less complex to search, but also I need less storage to house that data. May be a win/win all the way around... Spring cleaning for the hard drive? And by the way, a friend has suggested to me a way of ripping that will help avoid metadata corruption. He recommends ripping to a USB key. Once the album is in the USB "sandbox," use the computer file manager to ensure that the metadata is correct, that things are correctly spelled, and that the folder structure is exactly the same as what you want. After the rip(s) have been verified on the USB drive then (and only then) transfer them to your data drive.
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Post by dsonyay on Mar 3, 2020 12:19:23 GMT -5
Hi dsonyay - And by the way, a friend has suggested to me a way of ripping that will help avoid metadata corruption. He recommends ripping to a USB key. Once the album is in the USB "sandbox," use the computer file manager to ensure that the metadata is correct, that things are correctly spelled, and that the folder structure is exactly the same as what you want. After the rip(s) have been verified on the USB drive then (and only then) transfer them to your data drive. Ok.. yeah, the usb drive would be a great way to assure proper ripping. I like that idea . And over the past you've sold many CDs here. I'm wondering if you may need to borrow some of them to restore permanently lost files
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 3, 2020 15:44:03 GMT -5
...And over the past you've sold many CDs here. I'm wondering if you may need to borrow some of them to restore permanently lost files Nah - I only sell the dupes.
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Post by audiobill on Mar 3, 2020 15:44:16 GMT -5
Boom, do I recall that you did a lot of "managing" metadata way back when?
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 3, 2020 15:54:50 GMT -5
...Get yourself a pair of big external USB drives... May I suggest an alternate? If one buys a RAID box (I use a MediaSonic with 4 drives in it), I can use RAID-10 to allow any single drive to fail (or any two simultaneously, if I'm lucky) without data loss and without interruption of service. I can hot-swap a blank drive into the RAID, and the box will automatically format it and repopulate it with the data that was on the failed drive. The downside of RAID-10 is that you get only half the physical drive capacity in the RAID. I use four 2TB drives to get 4TB of usable space. Now the RAID does NOT provide redundancy against physical damage. If lightning strikes, the RAID is toast. So yes, even with a RAID, another backup drive is prudent. It's also prudent to keep that backup in a different physical location from the RAID. I've a buddy who keeps his backup drive in his safety-deposit box at his bank. For really valuable data, like my business files, I keep an online backup (I use Backblaze) and have restored whole drives from them before. And yes, KeithL, I profoundly agree that one should NEVER let playback software manipulate source files. Thanks - Boomzilla
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 3, 2020 15:55:18 GMT -5
Boom, do I recall that you did a lot of "managing" metadata way back when? Had no other choice with some programs... AND, I made the huge mistake of letting Roon try to clean up the mess - but it made it worse.
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 6, 2020 20:32:34 GMT -5
A VERY generous fellow lounger has gifted me with an older, but VERY heavy duty Ashly FTX-2001 stereo power amp. This thing is rated down to 2 ohm loads, and should (with its 475 watts into 4 ohm loads) be able to make the Magnepan speakers sit up and sing. This is a conventional power supply with all Class A voltage stages and MOSFET outputs. Weighs a TON! Now it is fan cooled, and the fan is supposed to be a noisy one, but I can easily replace it with a quieter model. How does it sound? I'll hook it up sometime tomorrow & find out!
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 7, 2020 20:00:53 GMT -5
A friend of mine has a novel theory about how good a given speaker or even brand of speakers is. Based on the approximate original sales volume of the model, how often does the speaker appear on the used market? Speakers like the classic JBL L100/L112, etc. sold in large quantities, yet relatively few appear on the used market. The Klipsch Heritage speakers sold (and sell) in large numbers, yet few appear on the used market. Magneplanar speakers fit the same criteria. Friend claims that the fact that owners tend to keep these makes and models indicates the inherent value of the designs. His personal grail was to own some Klipsch Heritage speakers of any model, but he's a college professor with very limited funds. I made his day when I found him a pair of Cornwalls at a yard sale for $100 the pair.
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Post by cwmcobra on Mar 7, 2020 20:41:18 GMT -5
I agree with your friend about the Klipsch Heritage speakers, but guess I should feel a bit guilty because I have somewhat of a collection of them...
But all costing more than $100/pair!
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