[Kiats]

I think I'm done with this thing. I still can't figure out why SOME music I copy onto the micro SD cards show up on the player and some don't.. they are all the same format (FLAC). Incredibly frustrating having a $700 player on which I can't listen to 1/2 of my music.

Did you try looking under directory?

 

[matthewh133]

Did you try looking under directory?

Directory?

 

[Kiats]

Directory?

There are two main ways of looking for files: one is after doing a library scan, to find it under albums. Other way is to look under directory which will show the internal memory and sd cards. A bit like file manager in windows.

 

[matthewh133]

There are two main ways of looking for files: one is after doing a library scan, to find it under albums. Other way is to look under directory which will show the internal memory and sd cards. A bit like file manager in windows.

Do you mean the "folders" menu on the player, then "music"? If so, yes they don't show up there either.
 
EDIT: Hang on there's stuff under "SD2". How do I get them to show up in my library?

 

[Kiats]

Do you mean the "folders" menu on the player, then "music"? If so, yes they don't show up there either.

EDIT: Hang on there's stuff under "SD2". How do I get them to show up in my library?

Go to advanced settings, and do a library scan. That should do the trick. Ok, Matthew, I am boarding a flight now. Good luck!

 

[vkalia]

  I think I'm done with this thing. I still can't figure out why SOME music I copy onto the micro SD cards show up on the player and some don't.. they are all the same format (FLAC). Incredibly frustrating having a $700 player on which I can't listen to 1/2 of my music.

 
Yeah, but try bringing up these issues and a vocal segment will shout you down, saying these are firmware problems, easily fixed, no point going on and on about the problems, asking you to use the Directory view, etc. etc.
 
I am disappointed by the terrible UI of pretty much every DAP in the market these days (I own 3 of them - the AK100, the X3 and the DX50), and amazed that not only is this tolerated by the end users, but pointing out these issues is actively discouraged.   

 

[Jpfe8851]

I'm sorry to disagree with you but the vast majority of issues like Matthew's are user related, commonly poor tagging and folder structures or lack of familiarity with the device. Mind you some decent manuals would be useful. And instead of being discouraged, quite often, including Matthew's, someone comes on with helpful advice in an effort to find a solution. When the DX50 was released there were definitely issues with how it scanned and displayed files, but these were reasonably quickly addressed by iBasso and most importantly this community helped resolve many issues including some I was having.
 
Frankly, it appears you either jumped straight in with your disparaging comment without reading Kiats's posts of assistance or chose to ignore them. That seems a bit unfair and unwarranted.

 

[matthewh133]

Go to advanced settings, and do a library scan. That should do the trick. Ok, Matthew, I am boarding a flight now. Good luck!

Thanks, but I've already tried this multiple times and it doesn't seem to fix it.

 

[matthewh133]

  I'm sorry to disagree with you but the vast majority of issues like Matthew's are user related, commonly poor tagging and folder structures or lack of familiarity with the device. Mind you some decent manuals would be useful. And instead of being discouraged, quite often, including Matthew's, someone comes on with helpful advice in an effort to find a solution. When the DX50 was released there were definitely issues with how it scanned and displayed files, but these were reasonably quickly addressed by iBasso and most importantly this community helped resolve many issues including some I was having.
 
Frankly, it appears you either jumped straight in with your disparaging comment without reading Kiats's posts of assistance or chose to ignore them. That seems a bit unfair and unwarranted.

 
The folders are all the same. These files are all set out the same. Same format (FLAC, 1 folder containing all the albums songs).

If it really is a small tag issue, I've never had problems with the iPod before, so it really shouldn't be a problem for a $700 DAP. It shouldn't be hard to use a $700 DAP.

 

[Jpfe8851]

I really don't disagree with that Matthew... spending that sort of money you expect perfection. But who said Apple's file protocol is the right one? Could it be theirs is the hybrid causing your issues? I believe it is part of the issue.
 
Because it worked in an iPod and not in your AK100 is not necessarily the AK's fault. My first DAP was an early Sansa and it was years before I got my first iPod. The Sansa was simple and just a player. No fancy LCD screen that could display artwork. I went through hoops to get my Album Art to work properly in my early experience with the iPod. And Compilations were another issue. If I didn't click that little check box in iTunes, for some bizarre reason every different artist had their own Album entry despite them being all on the same album. How weird was that? Apple insists on putting extraneous tags in if you rip with it and so does dBPoweramp and others I expect. All these extra tags can easily disrupt the scanning algorithms of each DAP. I have found by experience with many subsequent DAPs including a DX100, DX50, your AK100, Sony Z, various iPods and iPhones that cleaning out the tags to just title, artist, album, album artist, track# and genre plus a 300x300 album art image, means my files play on every device, are sorted correctly on each and are scanned in without issues.
 
While I understand your frustration, there has been volumes written on this forum about clean tags and tools such as MP3Tag to clean them up. And it doesn't really take all than long to clean them with the batch tools included in MP3Tag. But I'm also aware from previous posts and discussions with you that you have your reasons why you don't wish to change. I'm afraid in that case perhaps you should stay with a device that copes with your folder/file structure and tagging and accept that yours is not going to be universally accepted by each device.
 
Having owned 3 AK100's including your RWAK100 (I bought another standard one because I missed the one I sold you but now accept that it may impact some of my IEMs), I know I had to compromise my previous tagging protocol to get everything working, And that frustrated me too at first. But once I accepted that I needed to adopt a slight variation to the way I tagged my files, not only did my albums all appear and with their correct artwork but my frustration disappeared too.
 
Either change your methods or accept that you AK will not always show all your albums.

 

[Levanter]

I have no issues with the UI either. Granted for the price i wish they'd fix their bugs by now, but knowing what a ****ty company AK is it'll probably take years if they bother.
No problem detecting the files on my card, though I have to remove tags for some and redo them again. I found mp3 tag much better than media monkey.

 

[Solude]

The library is completely tag dependent, it does not try to fetch any that are missing.
 
So for the flacs that are in the folder view but not library... what do the tags, not to be confused with what iTunes or your player's library says, say?  I know for me going from the Zune to the AK I had to redo every one of my tags.  Luckily JRiver can do that for me and I need only correct any errors but it still remains that the tags WMP and the Zune software made were not embedded hence not visible by the AK.

 

[matthewh133]

Thanks guys, so what problems in tags should I be looking for that would make these not show up?

 

[matthewh133]

  I really don't disagree with that Matthew... spending that sort of money you expect perfection. But who said Apple's file protocol is the right one? Could it be theirs is the hybrid causing your issues? I believe it is part of the issue.
 
Because it worked in an iPod and not in your AK100 is not necessarily the AK's fault. My first DAP was an early Sansa and it was years before I got my first iPod. The Sansa was simple and just a player. No fancy LCD screen that could display artwork. I went through hoops to get my Album Art to work properly in my early experience with the iPod. And Compilations were another issue. If I didn't click that little check box in iTunes, for some bizarre reason every different artist had their own Album entry despite them being all on the same album. How weird was that? Apple insists on putting extraneous tags in if you rip with it and so does dBPoweramp and others I expect. All these extra tags can easily disrupt the scanning algorithms of each DAP. I have found by experience with many subsequent DAPs including a DX100, DX50, your AK100, Sony Z, various iPods and iPhones that cleaning out the tags to just title, artist, album, album artist, track# and genre plus a 300x300 album art image, means my files play on every device, are sorted correctly on each and are scanned in without issues.
 
While I understand your frustration, there has been volumes written on this forum about clean tags and tools such as MP3Tag to clean them up. And it doesn't really take all than long to clean them with the batch tools included in MP3Tag. But I'm also aware from previous posts and discussions with you that you have your reasons why you don't wish to change. I'm afraid in that case perhaps you should stay with a device that copes with your folder/file structure and tagging and accept that yours is not going to be universally accepted by each device.
 
Having owned 3 AK100's including your RWAK100 (I bought another standard one because I missed the one I sold you but now accept that it may impact some of my IEMs), I know I had to compromise my previous tagging protocol to get everything working, And that frustrated me too at first. But once I accepted that I needed to adopt a slight variation to the way I tagged my files, not only did my albums all appear and with their correct artwork but my frustration disappeared too.
 
Either change your methods or accept that you AK will not always show all your albums.

 
I haven't tried fixing the problem for a long time, I've been putting up with it and just listening to what is going on there, but I really would like to fix this up. Any hints on what I should be looking to "clean up" on tags? I don't quite get what I am looking for?

 

[Jpfe8851]

   
I haven't tried fixing the problem for a long time, I've been putting up with it and just listening to what is going on there, but I really would like to fix this up. Any hints on what I should be looking to "clean up" on tags? I don't quite get what I am looking for?

Matt, I wrote you in November with this post... http://www.head-fi.org/t/630288/the-new-iriver-ak100-a-high-end-dap/7470#post_9948801 in which I outlined what you need to do and In my above post, I confirmed that the only tags you need are:
 
Title
Album (Name)
Artist
Album Artist
Track #
Genre
 
And filenames should be in the format 01 Your First Song Title, 02 Your Second Song Title and so on....
 
It is also preferable to save your songs is the following folder format: Music\Album Artist\Album Name\01 Your First Song Title 
 
Using a program like MP3Tag you can and should REMOVE all other tags than those above. Do you really need Composer and encoder type and so on??? Minimalism is the go here.
 
Artwork should be no more than 500x500 pixels and can be jpeg or png but I use jpeg as not all DAPs will recognise pngs. I use 300x300 for safety's sake.
 
For use of MP3Tag, there are plenty of on-line help files for that.
 
Good luck mate...