Survey - how do you keep your portable music available to you??

Hi Bart.

I tried Match, but found it added too much complexity.

I keep a separate copy of my music on my NAS and on a dedicated hard drive on my Mac.  This gives me a backup, and I use the Mac and iTunes to load selected AIFF files onto my iPhone 7 by wire.

I find iTunes is becoming increasingly user-unfriendly, but it still gets the job done for me.  

I usually get the max RAM on my phones.  Sometimes I sync in AAC if I want more selection for a longer trip — iTunes makes it easy to do this.  Syncing my entire library is not a goal, for me.

Nick

I’ve stopped (for the most part) syncing music to my iPhone... I just use Tidal.  My alternative “remote” access is via Plex which catalogues the same FLAC (for the most part) library as the UPnP server access.

I do still keep a copy of everything in ALAC in iTunes though.

I use PLEX. Flawless provided you have a reasonable upload speed, does video too.

I'm old school. I have cds and a radio in the car. The radio helps with finding new music.

I use my faithful Naim HDX which automatically creates Mp3 versions of all of the CD's I rip. I then use those on my iPod Touch.
But then again, I know a lot of folk claim the HDX and any other Naim ripping/storage/players are a waste of money...
I LOVE the convenience!

Loved my HDX too, and sometimes keep thinking how good it was ... loved the convenience!

Try an Onkyo or Pioneer DAP both run Linux, 2 card slots so over 800gb of storage is possible and run almost any file format, that's roughly 20000 or 60 days woth of music in flac (com5). You notice a huge difference in sound quality over mp3 with any of the lossless file formats. You also have access to tunin, deezer and Tidal. You can control it with an app on you iphone.

I have a Lenovo Laptop that holds Dbpoweramp FLAC rips of all my physical digital music, downloads, digital home recordings etc..  I use that for my DAPs and it's a handy back up too.  I also use it for any housekeeping of digital files, conversion, metadata etc..  I use iTunes on my MacBook Pro for music on i-devices.  This is not so comprehensive and more selective.  I rip to my Core in WAV and that stay with the Core.

Richard; Is your Core on SSD or HDD, S/PDIF or UPnP? How would you compare SQ with Serve’s?

It would be interesting to read about your views and experience as well.  

Chag -

I tend to use FLAC on maximum compression as I find lossless to be worth using, even in the car, where I have a cheap 256GB USB stick. Big enough to carry a trimmed down version of my home collection. I carry a very similar selection on my Sony ZX2, which I use a lot when away from home for work. 

Chag... posted:

Richard; Is your Core on SSD or HDD, S/PDIF or UPnP? How would you compare SQ with Serve’s?

It would be interesting to read about your views and experience as well.  

Chag -

Chag, my Core has an HDD and I feed the DAC via s/pdif.  Sounds good to me - although not as good as the record player - and haven't compared with a Unitiserve. I rip to the Core in WAV.  So far, very happy with it and since the most recent fw update I haven't found much to criticise.  Then again, I tend not to rip many classical CDs - on anything, not just the Core - mainly because they're such a pain to arrange metadata and frankly, I'd probably rather just take out the disc, whether a CD or LP and play that.

I'm afraid that despite being a Mac and iPhone fan I  am increasingly disillusioned with Apple's way of doing things whether it comes to photos, music or anything else.  All their useful consumer apps got dumbed down with the iWork series being particularly poor compared to older versions these days.

I was never one who liked syncing music etc - yes, good for the consumer who just wants an easy option but too inflexible and I really just wanted drag and drop with a file system based approach.

Tried itunes Match from early on and still have it - pretty cheap for what it does - but it used to take an eternity on ADSL to Match items, and in use on portable devices I hated the was it replaced synced material with no real user control in my view- it also killed battery performance in rural areas making it unusable.  It may have improved but I rarely use it.  I have an Apple Music subscription and never use it as I find it completely irritating to use.

My main music playback is now via Qobuz app - I can manually download delete in various qualities or stream and cache - not a perfect app but I much prefer it to Apple's apps.

Flac is a no go for iPhones. Yes there is a work-around, but it's not worth the hassle for me.

It sounds like I should stick with Match if I want to keep a decent amount of music on my iPhone at any one time, and have the rest of my music readily available online (eg in the cloud).

Or run Plex on my nas at home.

For portable listening to music, I use an Astell & Kern SP1000 player. My music library is backed up on USB drives, and I can drag 'n drop music files onto its Android File Transfer app.  I can also tap my core & transfer files from there.  To listen to music when I'm out, I use a pair of Foal Utopia headphones.  If I want to listen to music in my car, I use Bluetooth from the unit to my car.  It's a great system!

Old school; an ancient 80Gb iPod and iTunes. Virtually all my music goes into iTunes in AAC, ripped directly from CD or converted by DBPoweramp from the main archive high res FLAC storage on my NAS (where it is also backed up).

I also have a Fio x 3 as a spare but it cannot hold my entire collection. I think the iPod sounds better too although sound quality on my portable devices in not a big deal for me. I'm not sure what I will do when the iPod dies.

I don't use my (android) phone for music. Don't really use it at all actually.

Bruce

All my music (ripped CDs and downloads) is kept on my MacBook Pro. I use Swinsian as my library software and SyncMate to transfer an exact principal folder copy (i.e., including any metadata or new file updates) to a USB flash drive for a Mu-so, to my NAS for my Nova and to an Astell & Kern Kann as my portable player.

Swinsian is, in my view, a much better library solution than iTunes (it recognises FLAC files, for a start). SyncMate has the great advantage of recognising the Kann as an MTP device and so working seamlessly to sync with that device.

Stephen

I have an Astell & Kern for my portable music. The main music library is on a PC used purely for serving music (Gigabyte Brix with an i5 processor).  Music backed up on a separate NAS.  Don't touch Apple stuff.

Like Eloise, I’ve moved to Tidal and generally load up my phone (iPhone 6; 128GB) before leaving on a trip; I use offline mode exclusively and wifi access while on travel to refresh and add things that catch my fancy. It’s been fun to browse the “What are you listening to...” thread and download things to check out. I like this best before heading off on long flights. I also find it useful to add a few hours of Radio Paradise in cache mode.

I use this dual scheme both while away from home on travel and at home for the car. I started out with iTunes and iPods, but haven’t really used that for several years and stopped managing the dual formats on NAS and Mac mini. I often think about setting up to reconvert my FLAC library and make a better iTunes library, but haven’t been bothered enough to do that in a systematic way. Same with upgrades to old iPods - love the idea of repurposing an old favourite that now hides a n a drawer with a new battery and a new disc (there was a thread on this a few months back) but, again, my laziness seems to know no bounds...

Regards alan

Bart posted:

I have an extensive home music library (over 1 TB of flac music) on my home server, backed up several ways.  But for what I call portable music -- for listening on my iPhone when I'm out of the house, traveling, on holiday, etc., I have iTunes Match.  My problem with this is that my iTunes Match library has not grown in about 3 years as I am too lazy to convert flac to something that I can put into iTunes so that Match can then see it and do it's thing.  There has to be a better way. Or I could just stop being lazy and update my iTunes library.

What do you all do so that you have music accessible 'on the road?'  Cloud-only has its limits, as it's nice to not just stream to my phone but keep a basic library on it for when I have no cloud access (such as on a plane with no wifi or wifi that limits streaming). iTunes Match DOES seamlessly integrate with the Music app on my iPhone.  Whereas only streaming from my home nas would not be entirely satisfying.  And I'm rather dedicated to iOS; not Android at all

I usually bring with me a Raspberry Pi with a copy of my music library. The RPi acts as an access point, runs MinimServer and can be powered on the road by a small power bank for about 24 hours. I have a 500GB micro SATA mounted on the RPi. There are meanwhile 1TB and 2TB USB sticks but they are very expensive. For larger collections or for videos I just connect a 2TB external drive.

If I was doing a lot of travelling (which I may do when I retire), l’d look seriously at Chord Poly+Mojo. It uses micro-SD cards, which at present go up to 400GB - 3 of those would house my entire collection, but maybe by then cards of 1TB might be available, so all my music could fit. However, it is rather expensive, and sadly they’ve made Poly Mojo-specific: If only Poly could be plugged into any DAC, it would be worth evaluating as a store-renderer for the home system, whence going on holiday would simply mean grabbing it and plugging into Mojo. If that were possible and if the sound quality is as good or better than my present store/renderer then it would mean I could have all my music with me anywhere, with the same library and control interface regardless of whether playing through main system or mobile.

For now, I just have a small selection of albums on my iPad and iPhone, and shortly before any planned trip just review it and change depending on what I fancy. That is fine for my relatively infrequent travelling, though Apple’s approach to achieving that is a real pain - if it were somply drag and drop I’d probably change the selection more frequently.

As I don’t travel that much (work from home), my music on the go requirements are pretty basic, but I do have a usable rudimentary solution…

iPod Touch 5th Generation - 32BG. Used when undertaking house DIY projects / chores etc. Rather old and not supporting the latest iOS, but still working just fine. When it eventually pops I’ll probably use a bigger capacity iPhone or perhaps investigate a cheap-isn high capacity basic Fii0 that I wouldn’t be too precious about dropping / getting covered in paint etc.

iPhone 5S - 32GB. Not used for music as I now tend to use the car radio or CD’s, as the current iOS doesn’t play that well with my older VW stereo interface. Six CD’s loaded into the player instead! I used to use an old iPod Nano (scroll wheel) and that worked just fine in the car.

All CDs DBPoweramp ripped to a Mac Mini (1TB Samsung SSD & back up) internal storage. I currently have two music folders. The primary containing my whole CD collection as FLAC rips & FLAC HD downloads - Asset supplying UPnP duties from this folder. The secondary folder for iTunes AIFF music files, which is not a complete duplicate FLAC library, only a selective choice - mainly the newest stuff.

iTunes used for ease of use with the iPhone / iPod music syncing. iTunes also very valuable to me as a podcast hub. During a working day I listen to a lot of podcasts and I still think iTunes / Apple Podcast app are the best solution to syncing between devices (unless anyone else can suggest a better solution?). I can start a podcast on the iPod and then finish listening to it through the iPad / UnitiQute2 later. But I dearly wish Apple would allow the use of FLAC in iTunes so I could do away with the second music folder.

All my music is in FLAC. When I am on the move I have a selection of favourites copied to my phone (may need to use SD card if the selection grows) and play it via Bluetooth APTX HD to a pair of B&W PX headphones. 

Copy from NAS the flac files to SD cards; 128GB micro for AK70, and 64GB cards for my cars.

I use an AK Jr. Just use the flac onto a SD Card. 

Keep the iPhone and get yourself a player that will use FLAC. I think the newer ones can be on wifi and sync to your Flac folder. 

I'm going to avoid adding another piece of hardware to the mix.  I know that that keeps me from letting my flac files serve double-duty, but so be it.  It's me 'n my iPhone . . .