Interested newcomer
Hi All, I am genuinely interested in Bluesound and would end up eventually wiith a number of the product. I see great reviews, but then lots and lots of discussions about sending things back, or constant connection issues. Most of these are a year old or more- question is, is support and stability any better? It looks online like a fantastic set of products that just aren't mature yet?
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Hi Christopher,
I'm just like new to Bluesound and have a loaned a BlueNode from my dealer for testing. After just two Days I can say that this is great in some aspects but there is issues that I hope to find out more about. Connecting is super easy and I have a long distance between my router and the Node. While adding albums I tried to add about 180 albums and only half of these could load covers no matter how I tried. (This is a big issue for me) Another thing is to add a new album you need to index it and it seems that every track ever added is going to the same process, imaging 50 000 tracks it going to take forever just to add one album and I get about three album every week at least. Another thing I can't get to work is to add shared folder via HDD connected to my router, I been asked to add computer name and folder no matter how I try I can't get it to work. Otherwise the sound is great and I compare to my old setup wich was an external USB Dac and a computer. Hopefully this is just a software issue and that the BlueSound team can make this more userfriendly. But for now the albums coverart is my biggest concern. This is my opinion after just a few days and I haven't decided yet if I should return and go for an other solution or hopefully there is a solution that I don't know about.
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Hi Cristopher.
In my opinion the Bluesound "ecosystem" is mature "enough" for most users. In my 2 years beeing a user I have had one issue related that was related to Spotify Connect. Quickly resolved by support.
I have had zero network issues using 1 router, 2 NAS'es, 4 switches and 3 access points.
Regarding Conny's issues related to album art, those are probably not issues at all as long as you follow this:
https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/200271926-Why-is-some-of-my-Album-Cover-Art-shown-as-missing-
Rebuild Index when you change album art or ID3 tag's. My wireless system index 75000 files in about one hour, and would probably be faster if connected via ethernet. That is with "Optimize Artwork" on
Reindex when you just att new music. Takes only a "few" minutes
Shared folders via a router is also probably not software related.
If the share isn't found by search, you need to know the share name or IP to get that working i.e \\192.168.1.1\sharename also a user name and password if requiered.0 -
Hi Björn,
While I was Writing my post four hours ago I started to add my Collection it is about 2 200 albums and about 55 000 tracks.
Just to make it clear all tracks are ripped to wav. files in EAC and the coverart has been scanned by myself. I started my streaming experience with JRiver so everything is tagged in that software. The only tags added by me is album name and artist and genre. The tags is working it is to this point the Coverart that is my concern. As I said I started four hours ago and right now only 19 000 tracks have been indexed. I don't know if it is the wav. format or what else taking the time comparing to your 75000 files but it is a very long process. I l also might add that this time I haven't use the coverart resizing feature and I have connected my external HDD to my computer. So maybe I do something wrong or has a just a fair signal between the router and the Node.. I have no clue how to remove the existing tags and add new tags (If that helps) to so many files. To do that track by track will take the rest of my Life.
If you can guide me to a better way please let me know. I do like the Node concept and it is more handy than using a computer, but need to find a way work around this issues.
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I forgot to mension that I i tried the options in your posted link. I also tried to comparing the size of a cover showing rezize an album that didn't show up but that didn't help either. Delete and add the folder with the new rezized cover. Nothing worked.
This is the first time I try to add all my Music to find out what that will turn out to be.
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Some of your issues is probably related to wav-format. I'm not sure but if BlueOS have to scan the entire file to find the "chunk" with the ID3 tag that could take some time. Also if you embedded artwork in the files some of them could also be "non standard" making it slower or even impossible to scan.
Any reason you don't use FLAC? Lossless is lossless, no audiable difference and probably half the size and "standard" ID3 handling. Bluesound has more than enough "power" to decompress fast enough.
Recommended "tool" for converting to FLAC (if you decide to); foobar2000 with "encoder pack".
Once "set up" you can convert all your files and keep the existing tags. Embedded artwork could be exported and you would have "nice and clean" files. Your wav-files would then be obsolete and can be deleted..
Just did a rebuild and ended up with these numbers (wireless and 2 different NAS shares):Scanning 166395 files loaded 166395 new files took 8603.8 seconds
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The choise for Wav. files was decided years ago when everybody talked about mp3 files. Flac was new and there was a discussion how well it sounded and so on. As ripping is a time consuming hobby I decided to be safe rather than sorry so I decided to rip as close to the Cd sound as possible. Nowadays the cost of storing is no big deal. One of the reason I try BlueNode is that it can handle Wav files. The wifi signal between my router and the node could be an issue. Right now I'm up to 26 500 files, so that is not even half of my Collection. Regarding my covers I scanned them myself to get good copies and they might be big files but all covers are created exactly the same way, some of them a Little bigger than others and all Jpeg files. They do sho up in JRiver without a problem but in that software you added them to the album yourself.
It would maybe be better to connect the HDD to the router, but as I said it shows up but when try to add the HDD it ask for computername (shoulden't that be the name of the HDD like E: Musicdisc) or is it the routername? Tried the routername but no succés. I'm shure there is a way to work around this but the learning curve is long.
My structure on HDD is alphabetic there is one folder for each artists first letter like A folder for artists like Alphaville, ABBA and so on and a B folder For Beatles and others. in every album folder there is a folder holding the coverart. I tried to delete that folder and just add the coverart in the album folder buy no succés.
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Been there, done that, but since there is no standard regarding wav.files i quickly converted all my wav's to FLAC which is using a standard.
If you have your cover art in a subfolder those will not be read. Cover art has to be in the same folder as the music files. Named cover.jpg, cover.png, folder.jpg or folder.png less than 4MB. With resize artwork "on" files will be resized in the database making i.e scrolling in the controller a lot faster. I have all my cover art resized to 640x640 or smaller. Largest file in size is about 280kB
Since they show up in JRiver they are probably embedded.
There should be no issues connecting to your router. If you figure out the IP address of your router the path should be:
\\ip address\share name or if you know your routers "host name" you could use that first i.e. \\router793e97\share name.
Your subfolders could be left as they are, but as stated above, make a copy of the cover in the music folder and rename if needed.0 -
Thank you for your help it is very much welcome as I'm a newbie to this system. My cover is in a subfolder and none is as big as 6 MB. But they are in a subfolder and half of them do show up in the albums, but there is a lot that is not working. I did try to rezize them and add them direct in the music folder with no succés. The funny thing is why half of the album turns out okey and other is not, no matter how hard I try.
I know my routers name and how to enter it, if I connect a HDD or USB memorystick I can see iit in the routers webpage.
But when trying to add it to the Node it says add folder and then please add the name of the computer something like \computerrname\\foldername and I tried different name like computername routername and so on without succés The question is what name or what should a write in that field. Just to update you after almost twelve hours, 55 000 tracks have beed added and reindexed still a lot about 50 procent of the covers is missing, and for worse, when playing a certain song it plays a random song from whatever album. I'm about to give up
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After some hardworking on my new system I found out what I have missed. I now have figured out how to connect my HDD to the router, so that problem is solved.
I have a Rolling Stones collection with both stereo and mono versions and I found out that the stereo cover was loaded while the mono was missing. There has been about seven years between those ripps and Scans and I have changed both scanner and computer since then but comparing the size between the covers the stereo one that was loaded was much smaller than the mono version, so that is a no brainer just do a resize I might take some time but okey thats the way it is.
But my albums are tagged in JRiver it is very hard to remove those tags (at least as wave files) I have downzized the cover removed all tags added the smaller version and re tagged it, but it still not shows up so I have to find a solution to this or a new software to tag my albums at least those with cover problems. If anyone has a solution to this please let me know.
While testing i disconnected my HDD and used just a USB stick (just one USB port on my router) I reconnected My HDD to make the albums show up I have to re index them again is this right or have I done something wrong? There was no Changes done to the files on the HDD I just removed it and reconnected it again.
So I'm on my way to solve all my problems it just takes a lot of time
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