Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

I use the free version of Plex to stream to Chromecasts around my house, and it works well, even using an antiquated 2008 Mac as my server. But I don't stream outside my own LAN, so my use of Plex may be different from what most people want to do with it.

server requirements for something like Plex (ESPECIALLY to serve music files, which tend to be small and have lower bandwidth requirements) are very minimal and old machines can easily handle it...of course the problem with old machines is not their hardware specs to actually serve streaming, but their operating system requirements to run Plex or similar.

I guess for folks who insist on FLAC for every album, 2x 400gb (or 2x 512gb) isn't sufficient space. But 800gb holds almost 8,000 records at mp3 VBR V-0

personally I'm very grateful I can't really tell the difference btwn v0 and FLAC for most things

As much as I love gadgets, the days of carrying around more than just my phone are long gone. Modern DAPs are very cool, with their multiple card slots and amazing feature sets, but being able to stream my library via my phone is all I need (though I do have a full microSD card in my phone for when a connection isn't available). I have both Subsonic and J River Media Center set up (just in case one is down) and use BubbleUPnP to play my music to any device (headphones, bluetooth car radio, Sonos, Chromecasts, etc).

personally I'm very grateful I can't really tell the difference btwn v0 and FLAC for most things

Haha, yeah! Age + too many loud shows = no high end hearing.

Yeah offline listening/mobile sync only works with the Plex Pass subscription, I’m glad I got lifetime a few years back. But streaming works on the free version, and Chromecast too I think?

The Google Play news is inevitable but it's still a pain in the hole. Could someone explain (or point to an explanation) of how to set up the basic requirements to stream my own stuff?

Get a Discman. Carry all your CDs with you. Simple!

Every discman I ever had was clunky, skippy shite!

Even though I'm old and my ears probably can't discern lossless and even 192VBR mp3, I have a thing against using destructive compression...never know when some amazing tech will allow me to hear better and I'll want the better sound.

more machine than man now...

would y'all be interested in official issues of stem tracks for songs?

yes

Stream your own stuff from Dropbox/OneDrive cloud drive: upload it there, use the mobile app or website to stream yr music

Stream your own stuff from yr own PC/Mac: set up Plex account, download the server application, point it to your music, download the Plex app on your phone, stream away.

dropbox is embarrassingly better at remembering track position across devices/through time than apple's own native software is

not tried it with Plex but it's v good at remembering where you left off watching videos so i imagine it's the same with music

will Plex stream FLAC files from an external HD?

muzecast

yes xp

Honestly I tried uploading my entire library to Dropbox and it was just a diabolical idea. Takes ages and doesn't really work as anything other than backup. Don't bother.

i will stick a few mixes or whatever on there and it works great. what was wrong with the whole library thing, did it just choke trying to transfer all the files?

Has anyone had Google Music Manager suddenly stop opening on Mac? Not stop uploading, but not opening/running at all? Tried deleting app and preferences panel and reinstalling with no luck. Assuming it's coincidence that it happened just as Google announced the rollout of Youtube Music but until yesterday it's been working fine for a couple of years.

The only thing I noticed was sometime in the last week it asked for keychain access to the password of the linked google account a few times. Once I granted it, it was fine -- maybe your issue is related to that?

have to clear out a bunch of CDs so I'm finally ripping/adding them to my database after years, and I'd forgotten how useful it was as a way of keeping up with new artists when properly maintained. already found out about at least three 2018 albums I had no idea were out

You mean browsing your digital library reminded you to go see what an artist has done lately?

it has random page functionality so I usually go through when I'm adding to it, random page a few times, and see if that artist entry needs updating with new albums. they often do

Ah yes, I find going through my library randomly will lead me to think, "What's so-and-so up to these days?" and I'll find a new EP, some guest appearances or whatnot. Alternately, I make an effort to listen to stuff that has no 'Last Played' date and so I go crate-digging in my own library.

My iPod broke a wee whole ago and I've gone full 'phone for all audio' using SD, downloaded Spotify playlists and Google Play Music to plug the gaps. It's dawned on me tonight that I don't need iTunes any more and a few hours messing about with MusicBee and it feels like a great weight has been lifted. (Not enough to delete the mighty behemoth; not yet.)

i love just using folder structures. mind, it's easy for me cause i've never been a playlist guy, it's just open an 'album' and play it through around here

got my first 400gb micro sd and i've been pretty manic filling it up i must say

4TB HDs are now less than $100

But who makes a portable music player with them?

give it a couple years and you'll have 4TB solid-state drives, those will be suitable for portable music players... 4TB spinning rust doesn't work well, it's a huge power drain and too fragile.

What is needed is a little fucking portable player that just perches on the USB port of a solid state external HD and can access whatever’s on it

surely Dragonfly could make something like that...

can't they just make some more ipod classics? A solid state 256 gig HD on a dedicated music player and I'd be in musical heaven

yeah but no FLAC support is a dealbreaker for me

problem with portable music players isn't storage space, it's a robust enough ui to deal with 4 tb of music files

xps - iPods support ALAC which is a pretty simple lossless transcode from FLAC; and it's possible to buy old iPods which have been gutted and filled with SSDs / flash memory, including 256GB variants

You can always setup a plex server and stream your home collection.

I don't mind DAPs... the Hiby R3 is cheap, responsive, compact and very user friendly (and sounds great for the price). No need to buy and gut old ipods anymore.

Does the Hiby take a single micro sd or does it have dual slots like some of the fiio players?

Apple wants you to use their cloud storage and pay them a monthly fee, not your own hard drives. iPods are dead and not coming back.

Well there’s a 512 GB iPhone.

don't mind DAPs... the Hiby R3 is cheap, responsive, compact and very user friendly (and sounds great for the price). No need to buy and gut old ipods anymore.

Googled this and it’s a touchscreen device with wireless & bluetooth, so if you want a portable player with physical controls that doesn’t waste battery doing anything other than playing music, it’s definitely not a substitute for an iPod.

ipod classics are rockboxable. sansa clip plus and clip zip too and you can slot a 256gb microsd in them

Hiby R3 has a micro SD slot, got a 128GB card in mine, they say it'll take up to 2TB...not that those exist yet

It also has some physical controls. One rocker button alters volume, the other deals with fast-forward/back, stop/pause, moving between songs

does it have an airplane mode to shut off the wifi / bluetooth? (i'm assuming the screen turns off when not being used, like a phone)

it actually looks a lot like my previous phone, which also has sd slot and (removeable) battery and isn't that much bigger. i wonder how well that would work...

The wi-fi & Bluetooth isn't continually on (unless you want it to be). There's a 'Wireless settings' screen with 4 sliders to turn wireless, Bluetooth, DLNA & AirPlay on/off.

ipod classics are rockboxable. sansa clip plus and clip zip too and you can slot a 256gb microsd in them

― chihuahuau, Friday, December 14, 2018 9:01 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sansa clip w/rockbox can also take a 400GB microsd as I can now confirm.

Had a Clip Zip before the R3, still got it in fact. Not sure how easy they are to find now, got replaced by the Sport & some other model, which people don't seem to like as much (not sure if the new ones are Rockboxable)