[Signal2Noise]

I'm on the hunt for a decent music/media library management solution. It should be able to handle the majority of file types including MQA. I predominantly use Windows-based systems but do have a Mac in the house if needed.. I currently use dbPoweramp to rip purchased CDs (yes, I still buy them) into MP3 & FLAC files that reside on a NAS. The MP3s get fed into iTunes while the FLACs just sit in an unmanaged folder which gets read by SONOS for playback. I also keep another folder strictly for digitally purchased music from iTunes that also gets read by SONOS. I do not subscribe to any streaming services and am still on the fence of doing so.

Library consists of approx. 1700 CDs, probably about 30k tracks. Needless to say iTunes is slow when it comes to managing the MP3/MP4 portion of the files. The new software should be efficient in dealing with large libraries on a NAS.

I've read about Roon Player ($$$$$$), jRiver, Foobar (have used in the past for tag editing), and MediaMonkey. I've just started googling on these and trying to find others. I figured I could get a better feel what's good or not from the illustrious head-fi'ers here.

 

[bgentry]

JRiver is a fantastic library manager. It excels at large collections. There are decent number of people using JRiver MC with libraries of over 500,000 files. Speed is said to be very good, even at this size due to JRiver's database optimizations to handle very large collections.

The way that JRiver presents the Library to users is probably the most configurable and customizable of any player around. You can easily make custom views to show your collection in different ways (like Album thumbnails, or panes, etc). You can also have JRiver show you only portions of your collection grouped together and organized in a specific way. A few examples:

A. Do you have Christmas, birthday, or other special occasion music that you don't want to see day to day, but you want it when you need it? You can make a set of "everyday" views that show you your whole collection *minus* these files. You can exclude them by genre, keyword, etc.

B. Do you have some music you want to sort and search in a different way than others? Classical is a good example. Popular music is easily sorted by Artist and then Album. But Classical has Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, Performers, etc. You can easily set up a Classical view that limits itself only to the Classical genre(s) on your system. Then that view can be sorted by Composer, Work, Movement, etc.

This type of customization is one of the big powers of JRiver.

If you have questions about it, I'll try to answer.

Brian.

 

[Signal2Noise]

^
Thanks! I haven't got to 'in-depth reading' up on JRiver yet but will do so right after this post.
 
A. Yes. As a matter of fact I keep Christmas music on it's own share on the NAS which I then simply map to during the holiday season.
B. No. I have very little classical. However it's good to know this sub-filtering can be achieved.
 
Today I came across MusicBee & Helium Music Manager. Any thoughts on those?
 
Okay, I'm off to check out JRiver now....

 

[darkforce]

Roon is definitely worth a try, at the beginning I just want to remote control HQPlayer at iPad, but I found it gradually changed the way I listen to music.
 
It can help you find out what you like (and you forget) especially when you have a large number of album. Well design interface and rich information. Complete support of mobile devices. More and more music server and DAC support it directly.

 

[yay101]

Headphones + beets.

Super simple and super effective.

 

[Signal2Noise]

  Roon is definitely worth a try, ....

 
May try but price to commit scares me.
 

Headphones + beets.

Super simple and super effective.

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