Music Servers - help, advice needed!

[HighlandDougie]

Just had the price list of the Aurender stuff. Maybe it's good, but I think I'd have to win the lottery before I'd buy one. I can afford one, but unless my eyes deceive me, the units seem to be around £8k. They ought to be good at that price.

The one I’ve just bought (N100H) “pre-loved” cost me just over £1k. OK, it’s “entry-level” but it does all that I need. I have no wish to rip CDs but, if I did, an external device can again be connected. 2TB of storage which can be added to with an external NAS if needed. Nor do I need an external DAC as the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ which I use does just fine. Really easy to control from an iPad using the Aurender app. Copying files can be done wirelessly (drag and drop) or from an external USB device. And it sounds great. No more strange interference from my MacBook, particularly with DSD files. No doubt if one wanted ripping, 8TB of storage etc etc, it would be possible to spend 8k on one of their posher models but this basic version will do me well for the foreseeable future.

[Dave2002]

The one I’ve just bought (N100H) “pre-loved” cost me just over £1k. OK, it’s “entry-level” but it does all that I need. I have no wish to rip CDs but, if I did, an external device can again be connected. 2TB of storage which can be added to with an external NAS if needed. Nor do I need an external DAC as the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ which I use does just fine. Really easy to control from an iPad using the Aurender app. Copying files can be done wirelessly (drag and drop) or from an external USB device. And it sounds great. No more strange interference from my MacBook, particularly with DSD files. No doubt if one wanted ripping, 8TB of storage etc etc, it would be possible to spend 8k on one of their posher models but this basic version will do me well for the foreseeable future.

Sounds like you got a bargain - something which JLW keeps commenting on - buying s/h kit. The list prices of some of the Aurender kit are positively horrendous. I can't see anything in their current price list which is anywhere that low in price.

[Norrette]

Just want to say thank you to John who recommended mp3tag in post #26.

I have just finished re-tagging all my classical music and this task was made so much easier by mp3tag. Especially the ability to copy the file title to the track title (including the track number), which stops music players from jumbling up the movements if you listen in album mode.

My music is now on a portable solid state drive - which I've attached to a cheap mini-PC wired into my network. After getting my shares set properly, it's now all picked up by my Marantz four speaker system, and I can also pick it up on Internet radios around the house.

I'm sending mp3tag a small donation for saving me days and days. Or perhaps even not contemplating leaving everything in the mess that it was.

(Just got to fix the metadata on my popular, folk and world music now as well as spoken word downloads.)


Norrette

[Dave2002]

Just want to say thank you to John who recommended mp3tag in post #26.

I have just finished re-tagging all my classical music and this task was made so much easier by mp3tag. Especially the ability to copy the file title to the track title (including the track number), which stops music players from jumbling up the movements if you listen in album mode.

My music is now on a portable solid state drive - which I've attached to a cheap mini-PC wired into my network. After getting my shares set properly, it's now all picked up by my Marantz four speaker system, and I can also pick it up on Internet radios around the house.

I'm sending mp3tag a small donation for saving me days and days. Or perhaps even not contemplating leaving everything in the mess that it was.

(Just got to fix the metadata on my popular, folk and world music now as well as spoken word downloads.)


Norrette

That's interesing, so I thought I'd check out mp3tag. What I discovered, after several attempts is that currently it's a Windows only program, though it can run on some versions of Macos using Wine. It won't run on Macos Catalina, though the developer, Florian Heidenreich, may be producing a version for release, perhaps fairly soon. There is a link to request further information by email later on the website.

What was confusing was that adverts appeared on the page I found (https://www.mp3tag.de/en/mac-osx.html), which seemed to suggest a download [WARNING - watch this page if you download it on a Mac]. In fact several of these went to a presumably similar program provided by NCH software in Australia. I don't have terrible things to write about NCH software, as I think some of their programs and utilities are quite good - but they are very aggressive about intercepting links on web pages to other people's software. That I do think is not good thing to do.

You have been warned. Probably if you use a PC or Linux machine you won't notice this.