nStream wish: album collections

Posted by: charlesphoto on 24 July 2014

One thing I would love to see in a future version of nStream is the ability to make collections by lp. Sort of a 'smart collection' idea. Quite often I would like to group certain albums (say for late night listening, rocking out, etc etc) versus making playlists of certain songs. I think this would be pretty easy to do. It would also mitigate the need to have exacting genre metatags if one could group them as one wished for easy access depending on mood, etc. 

 

Also would love to see a way to rate songs/albums, better tree navigation, ability to see both song and artist on album view (good for comps), and I'm sure a couple more I just can't think of at the moment. 

 

Anyone else like the idea of album collections?

Posted on: 24 July 2014 by hungryhalibut

In effect it would mean adding a user defined 'collection' to the existing 'genre', which may or may not be possible. I've added, for example, an ECM genre to keep them all together, and Vocal Jazz to keep the singers separate. Otherwise it all ends up in a big jazz ragbag. I find genre is really useful, if a little arbitrary at times.

Posted on: 25 July 2014 by hungryhalibut

The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

Posted on: 25 July 2014 by jobseeker
Meridian's Sooloos does have some advantages in this area I must admit
Posted on: 25 July 2014 by Stevee_S
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

+1

Posted on: 25 July 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

       
The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

As you have the Unitiserve, close nStream then open nServe to browse albums.
Posted on: 25 July 2014 by hungryhalibut

Thanks Jan - that's what I do, but it's still a faff, and most nStream users probably don't have a Naim server. What would be good is a separate search facility, where you could find the album you want, while the radio is playing, and then when you hit play, the input switches from radio to upnp. 

Posted on: 27 July 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Charlesphoto - I believe what you are requesting can be done by the UPnP server. Indeed this is what I do with Asset - using its 'dynamic playlist' function. I can select albums that meet  certain criteria, by using NStream,  and then play through them in order or randomly. Seem to work well and I use dynamic playlist probably more than any other access method on my streaming setup.

 

Although the above does require the use of meta tags of some description to select on. But then to my mind that was a key function of the meta tags.

 

The alternate I sometimes do is select multiple albums into a NStream playlist by pressing and pausing on the album name - that work well - but is limited by the Naim playlist streaming size. These playlists are kept on NStream and then uploaded to the player.

 

Simon

Posted on: 27 July 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

In the prototype of the new NStream - I am sure I saw this a new feature at a recent Naim event.

Posted on: 27 July 2014 by ChrisH

Anyone who was at the Open Day at Hi-Fi Lounge yesterday, you heard the Muso, did anyone have a fiddle with the new App to control it? And if so, any comments in regard to the above?

I guess it must nearly be the finished version if Muso is launching in September....

Posted on: 27 July 2014 by hungryhalibut
Originally Posted by Simon-in-Suffolk:
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

In the prototype of the new NStream - I am sure I saw this a new feature at a recent Naim event.

Thanks Simon, that would be good indeed. Full integration with the Nespresso machine would be good too.

Posted on: 28 July 2014 by charlesphoto
Thanks Simon. I use minimserver so not sure I can do that. I would much prefer there's a way that nStream could do it on it's own. It's part of what we are paying Naim to do. So hopefully the next release will up the game and be more customizable and integrate better with the servers. 
 
Originally Posted by Simon-in-Suffolk:

Charlesphoto - I believe what you are requesting can be done by the UPnP server. Indeed this is what I do with Asset - using its 'dynamic playlist' function. I can select albums that meet  certain criteria, by using NStream,  and then play through them in order or randomly. Seem to work well and I use dynamic playlist probably more than any other access method on my streaming setup.

 

Although the above does require the use of meta tags of some description to select on. But then to my mind that was a key function of the meta tags.

 

The alternate I sometimes do is select multiple albums into a NStream playlist by pressing and pausing on the album name - that work well - but is limited by the Naim playlist streaming size. These playlists are kept on NStream and then uploaded to the player.

 

Simon

 

Posted on: 28 July 2014 by rjstaines
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

The feature I'd like most is to be able to browse the album collection while listening to the radio. As it stands, as soon as one switches to upnp to view the albums, everything goes silent. It's daft.

That's why I have a separate tuner connected to the input labelled 'Tuner', next to streamer on my preamp.  So left button = UPNP streamer, right button = tuner.   OK, so I have to use the remote rather than n-stream to switch, but no big deal for me, and the convenience of having 'instant on' for my favourite radio station is very satisfying. 

 

But Naim, don't let my opinion stop you developing this n-stream facility, although you're probably like me, wondering how tf you would implement the switching user interface (perhaps a separate 'Play Now' button - now that would really annoy a lot of folks, me included    )