Can you stop Naim app searching for new album art when checking metadata?

haggis999 posted:

(e.g. Charles Ives matched to Burl Ives).

That made me laugh. How about the Eagles matched to Tyga? It appears that they both have an album named "Hotel California". 

I thought there was no way out of this, but tapping the magnifying glass at the top of the Rovi Album Details page for Tyga prompts you to do an album or artist search, and if you type in "Hotel California", the Eagles album is second in the results. You can then select this and read all about it. However, if you try again, this is not remembered and you end up with Tyga. There are a lot of unanswered  questions here. Why is the Rovi lookup apparently only on album title? After clicking the magnifying glass, why do you have to re-enter the search criteria? Why is the result not remembered? At the moment, I no longer bother to look up Rovi. What's disappointing is that on the Core RIP, the metatags were set automatically from Rovi and everything is fine.

As you say, it is worse with classical music, especially older CDs that have been reissued. What I have found (for Core RIPs) is that when the first match is wrong, you can edit the Album and Artist tags to match the original CD, and after that, the Lookup metadata function usually finds the correct album.

david

ChrisSU posted:

Harry posted:

There is a solution. Don't use Rovi. It's useless. A wall to wall load of shit which Naim should have dropped years ago.

I wouldn't agree with this - at its best, Rovi can contain a lot of useful information. The quality can be a bit variable, and it does occasionally mis-identify the album, but it's not that bad. If you want to see album info done badly - or not at all - try Tidal.

I find that with compilation albums - which I often want to look up because of the 'various artists' problem - I'm taken to the wrong item virtually every time.

haggis999 posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Strange, again this is not my experience at all. I find that an incorrectly identified album is quite unusual when opening the Rovi booklet. I guess this must be genre dependent, as I don't have many classical albums. I suspect the way Rovi searches by album title doesn't help.

It's not really strange. Classical music generates a far more complex challenge than pop/rock, etc, for a search tool like Rovi.

...

Many providers of musical contents offer well structured search engines for classical music. At eclassical, for instance, one can browse the catalogue, among others, by "Composer", "Conductor", "Orchestra", "Period", "Label", "Genre", "Performer" and "Instrument". Similar at prestoclassical and Hyperion.

These are also the kind of indexes that one would expect a ripping engine or a metadata searching program to fill in for classical music albums. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the databases that are queried by most systems offer any decent support for classical music.

Thus, if one is interested in classical music, manual metadata editing is virtually unavoidable and a UPnP server that supports customizable indexes is almost mandatory.

For me, MinimServer works very well for classical music. By contrast, Naim's own servers seem to be very primitive and lack essential customization options.

Which is disappointing. The system used on the HDX was clunky and limited in scope. The new series is an opportunity to get modern and sophisticated, show the buying public how good Naim are and how justified they are in asking such high prices. Not to put some filler in the Cortina and blow a can of spray paint over it.

Harry posted:

Which is disappointing. The system used on the HDX was clunky and limited in scope. The new series is an opportunity to get modern and sophisticated, show the buying public how good Naim are and how justified they are in asking such high prices. Not to put some filler in the Cortina and blow a can of spray paint over it.

Despite my partial defence of the Rovi booklet above, I have to agree that the lack of metadata editing options on the Core, which is the same as on the HDX/Unitiserve, does seem like a missed opportunity. Maybe there are technical reasons why this is not possible on the Core, which appears to use a platform that has developed from the old servers rather than being a design from the ground up. Alternatively, perhaps Naim assume that no news is good news, in that the majority of users haven't objected, therefore are judged to be happy with the current editing facility.

It is probably a case of people like us not being the target customers. 

Fit, forget and when broken just login in and resume is probably a more popular model.

The cultivation and maintenance of a music collection, akin to tending it like a garden, is probably unfashionable. Just buy a subscription and pay to play. Easy.

I have a client who did very well off the back of me and others, sold out to an Asian VC company, and now oversees an organization run by accountants. It's heading for the ground, but slowly, and making people rich on the way.

ChrisSU posted:

Harry posted:

Which is disappointing. The system used on the HDX was clunky and limited in scope. The new series is an opportunity to get modern and sophisticated, show the buying public how good Naim are and how justified they are in asking such high prices. Not to put some filler in the Cortina and blow a can of spray paint over it.

Despite my partial defence of the Rovi booklet above, I have to agree that the lack of metadata editing options on the Core, which is the same as on the HDX/Unitiserve, does seem like a missed opportunity. Maybe there are technical reasons why this is not possible on the Core, which appears to use a platform that has developed from the old servers rather than being a design from the ground up. Alternatively, perhaps Naim assume that no news is good news, in that the majority of users haven't objected, therefore are judged to be happy with the current editing facility.

The problem is not the editing itself which, at least for files in the downloads folder, could be easily done with third-party tools (files in the music folder could be exported, reimported in the downloads folder and, there, edited without restrictions).

The problem is that the UPnP server running on the Core does not allow users to define their own indexes and that those indexes that the server actually supports are of very little use when it comes to organize classical music.

Thus, especially if one is interested in classical music, the Core is not an option. It is true that most of the Core's limitations were already there in the US. But the US is a ten years old software design. Ten years ago it was perhaps just a bad design but today it is unacceptable.

As always, just my two cents, of course.

nbpf posted:

.... The problem is that the UPnP server running on the Core does not allow users to define their own indexes and that those indexes that the server actually supports are of very little use when it comes to organize classical music.

Thus, especially if one is interested in classical music, the Core is not an option. It is true that most of the Core's limitations were already there in the US. But the US is a ten years old software design. Ten years ago it was perhaps just a bad design but today it is unacceptable.

As always, just my two cents, of course.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but as far as I can see, the Uniti Core is primarily a self-contained ripping and storage product that costs £1,799 without any disks or backup storage. I have never been convinced that products of this type provide good value for money. They do offer convenience for less technical users, but you pay a lot of money for a very restricted solution.

I rip my CDs on my PC, which gives me access to a wide range of metadata editing software, while my 6TB Synology NAS is locked away in another room (and automatically backed up to a second 6TB NAS box elsewhere). My NAS boxes have huge expansion potential and give me the freedom to choose my own server software, such as MinimServer, which does an excellent job for classical music. All of this cost me £1,553, including the powerline networking kit I used to connect to my backup NAS. I rest my case.

It has always been possible to DIY bit perfect ripping, back it up, store it, serve it, etc. Linn have done very well out of this. However, when the HDX was launched, people who spent time and resources looking for good DIY workflows and developed them were in a nerdish minority. The HDX arrived with good ripping facilities and more besides at a time when it was ahead of the curve. Not that it was perfect from the off and should not have tried to lock buyers into a proprietary Naim universe. Again, Linn didn't do this and it didn't hurt them.

The curve overtook the HDX years ago. Yet Naim seem to be sticking to models and processes, some of them proprietary, which were developed 10 years ago. Does this only resemble the Emperor's New Clothes, or is this in fact what we've got?

I am indeed one of the nerdish minority. Sadly, it's difficult to avoid the feeling that only those with nerdish tendencies can cope with the demands of ripping and tagging classical recordings. There is no simple off-the-shelf solution for anything except non-classical music genres and I see no signs of that changing for a long time, if ever.

haggis999 posted:

nbpf posted:

.... The problem is that the UPnP server running on the Core does not allow users to define their own indexes and that those indexes that the server actually supports are of very little use when it comes to organize classical music.

Thus, especially if one is interested in classical music, the Core is not an option. It is true that most of the Core's limitations were already there in the US. But the US is a ten years old software design. Ten years ago it was perhaps just a bad design but today it is unacceptable.

As always, just my two cents, of course.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but as far as I can see, the Uniti Core is primarily a self-contained ripping and storage product that costs £1,799 without any disks or backup storage. I have never been convinced that products of this type provide good value for money. They do offer convenience for less technical users, but you pay a lot of money for a very restricted solution.

...

It seems to me that you are missing the fact that, beside being a ripping station, the Core is also a UPnP server and, perhaps most importantly, a SPDIF player. I say most importantly becase there is plenty of alternatives for ripping CDs and serving UPnP data. But there are not so many high quality SPDIF players around.

Thus, when we assess the Core's functionalities, we have to compare it to modern ripping solutions, UPnP servers and SPDIF players. Similarly for the applications running on mobile devices: they are meant to control UPnP servers and renderers but also SPDIF players.

It goes without saying that there will be potential buyers and users that are primarily interested in the Core as a ripping station and others that might be more interested in the device as a UPnP server or as a SPDIF player. The same holds for the Naim apps.

I agree that many so-called "music servers" in the past used to be overpriced solutions mainly targeting users who were looking for "plug and play" solutions. But the market has very much evolved in the past ten years and so has the awareness of users.

Today, it is perfectly possible to offer simple, intuitive and yet highly customizable solutions. Thus, for instance, Naim could have designed the Core with a basic default configuration of a customizable, MinimServer-like UPnP server.

Users that do not specifically care about how their music is organized, would have been perfectly happy with the default setup. But users who are interested in classical music would have been given a means of customizing the Core (as a UPnP server or SPDIF player) according to their needs.

I understand that Naim want to promote their own proprietary solutions. But, to be successful, these have to be in some relation with modern, available solutions. They have to provide flexible and intelligent music management systems, not blunt oversimplifications.

Most importantly, Naim solutions have to be usable for a wide range of customers. Marketing a system that by design cannot meet the requirements of classical music listeners, seems a rather silly proposition for a company that aims at targeting music lovers.

haggis999 posted:

I am indeed one of the nerdish minority. Sadly, it's difficult to avoid the feeling that only those with nerdish tendencies can cope with the demands of ripping and tagging classical recordings. There is no simple off-the-shelf solution for anything except non-classical music genres and I see no signs of that changing for a long time, if ever.

I am not sure that the difficulties are of technical nature. As soon as one has a rough idea of the notions that are relevant to him/her,  filling in the data is not technically challenging.

For classical music albums, obvious basic notions could be "Composer", "Work", "Conductor", "Orchestra" or "Ensemble", "Period", "Genre", "Form", "Performer", for instance. More specific notions can be added later as/if more specific needs emerge. Of course, filling in values for these indexes requires some choices, e.g. about the language.

It is perhaps a boring task which takes a lot of time and a little bit of discipline. But this is the case with almost everything one cares about, isn't it?

nbpf posted:

It seems to me that you are missing the fact that, beside being a ripping station, the Core is also a UPnP server and, perhaps most importantly, a SPDIF player. I say most importantly becase there is plenty of alternatives for ripping CDs and serving UPnP data. But there are not so many high quality SPDIF players around ....

I certainly assumed that the Core offered a UPnP server, but I wouldn't have recognised the importance of any reference to SPDIF in the Core's specifications.

Is there much of a demand for SPDIF players? I genuinely don't know the answer to that question. I've always just assumed that most Naim users would be streaming music via Ethernet, but I could be totally wrong. None of my friends and family are into this stuff, so I only know about the solutions I have chosen to adopt for myself.

haggis999 posted:

nbpf posted:

It seems to me that you are missing the fact that, beside being a ripping station, the Core is also a UPnP server and, perhaps most importantly, a SPDIF player. I say most importantly becase there is plenty of alternatives for ripping CDs and serving UPnP data. But there are not so many high quality SPDIF players around ....

I certainly assumed that the Core offered a UPnP server, but I wouldn't have recognised the importance of any reference to SPDIF in the Core's specifications.

Is there much of a demand for SPDIF players? I genuinely don't know the answer to that question. I've always just assumed that most Naim users would be streaming music via Ethernet, but I could be totally wrong. None of my friends and family are into this stuff, so I only know about the solutions I have chosen to adopt for myself.

I do not know either but for me SPDIF is important and many nDAC and NDS owners appear to have been looking for modern solutions for directly connecting their devices to high quality SPDIF feeds, see for instance https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...roon-with-nds?page=1. The motivations are of course very different. There are users who would like to use their devices in conjunction with a Roon server and others that are looking for solutions that do not rely on wired LAN connections. Yet other users are simply looking for a single box with high quality SPDIF outputs for their DACs. For all these users, the Core could have been an interesting proposition.