Auralic Lightning DS App (Software) - Impressions and Information

[JohanS]

Kind of funny to read the 'complaints' about Lightning DS. I currently don't own an Aries, but am still on the Mac platform (Audirvana /iTunes) and looking for a better solution. I can assure you, that Lightning DS is heaven. I know the NAIM app as well. AMG integration is nice ('CD booklet and internet resources), (http://www.allmusic.com) but the Lightning app looks much better! Maybe one day I will join you on the Aries platform. Thanks wdw for the initial hint!

[JohanS]

Mmm, have these bugs been reported to Auralic? These kind of bugs should be solved in V2. Connection loss problems are hard to solve and might be network related. Nevertheless: stabilty is key for a product like this, thus it should have Auralic's highest attention. Btw, it's June... Any news on the long promised v2?

[JohanS]

They are one and the same. I can verify that you will be able to connect directly to your NAS' music directory from the Lightning Server and will not require running a music server such as Minimserver on the NAS.

Thus the server will read the metadata from the music files on your NAS and include a link (filepath) to the actual music file... Is that correct? And to do so, it needs the SMB Samba feature? It would be great if we don't need Minimserver or other servers. IMHO it's still all too tech-savvy. Auralic aims at a large® audience with its new Aries Mini, so the whole concept should be really easy to understand and act itself as one single point of control (for example for settings like: ignore 'The' in the artist's name). Lightning / Aries should not rely anymore on other servers for these things. Can anyone confirm that's the case with v2?

[JohanS]

If it helps, this is directly from Auralic in the Lightning Server FAQ. It is a small snippet.

 

---Tear here--->

 

The AURALiC firmware team has developed uPnP server software named LightningServer and integrates it into ARIES. Lightning Server will monitor the USB diskplugged into an ARIES, scan the disk and create a music library service for LightningDS.

 

The current version of Lightning Server supports all music files that ARIES canplayback, which are: AAC, AIF, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DFF, DSF, MP3, OGG, WAV, WVand WMA files.

 

Ouch! No FLAC support...

 

Just kidding, though, but a nasty omission in the FAQ section.

 

On a serious note. T H A N K S Barr (Bplexico). Your willingness to help others and explain this stuff is remarkable!!

[JohanS]

Just noticed: two new screenshots / teasers of Lightning DS on Auralic's Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/auralic.ltd

[JohanS]

...and still nothing

it seems those from apple don't like them

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19272[/ATTACH]

 

Did Auralic actually release DS 2.0 yet, so Apple can start its approval process? I'm waiting for 2.0 as well and your reviews here. Based on functionality and stability / performance I'll order the Auralic Mini Streamer...

[JohanS]

Thought to post the release notes here of v2.0 :-)

 

[h=1]Current Version (2.0)[/h]About This Release:

 

• 29th June 2015
  
• Please do NOT update to this version if you do not own AURALiC Lightning device, such as ARIES. Due to new structure, we are TEMPORARILY not able to support 3rd party media renderer at right moment. We will try to get the 3rd party OpenHome device support back within about two versions.
  
• The Version 2.0 is using a complete design, it will erase all user saved radio, playlist on your iPad. Please make sure you made a backup before update to this version.
  

What's New in This Version:

 

• New software structure, browsing library is much faster compare to previous version.
  
• New step-by-step setup guide for Lightning device and music library.
  
• New advanced search function allows you to search local library, streaming content and radio station at same time. (Searching function is a little bit slow on old iPad, improvement in progress now and will roll out in V2.1)
  
• New vTuner Internet Radio integration.
  
• New Portrait View in Library, Collection and Streaming (when view content by album). Just route your iPad and enjoy the new beautiful view.
  
• Fully integration with Lightning Server, playback both through USB and network shared folder. No need for 3rd party UPnP/DLNA server any more (which means no compatibility problem any more).
  
• New error popup message (from both Lightning device and Lightning server), the explanation of the error is directly linked to AURALiC support centre with diagnostic information.
  
• No need for refresh library cache if you use Lightning Server. Lightning DS can handle it at background.
  
• You can sort library by Last Import Date, Last Modify Date, Sampling Rate, File Type if you are using Lightning Server. (Sorting function is a little bit slow on old iPad, improvement in progress now and will roll out in V2.1)
  
• You can view full screen album cover now.
  
• You can mix local library and streaming tracks in queue and it is totally gapless.
  
• You can add all tracks to playlist or queue in a certain folder now.
  
• No worry about IP address change of Lightning device and media server anymore. Lightning DS will detect IP address change of related device then update library and playlist information automatically.
  
• Other user interface improvement.
  

Known Issues:

 

• Because of poor CPU performance and weak WiFi signal, running Lightning DS on iPad 2 (not iPad Air 2) and iPad mini (1st generation) may be slow especially when you try to use filter function (arrange album by artist, composer and etc). Improvement is in progress and will be available in V2.1.
  
• Search function may not work on iPad 2 and iPad mini when music library is very big (more than 50,000 songs). Improvement is in progress and will be available in V2.1
  
• There will be a delay when switching between library Grid View and List View and no loading symbol on screen at right moment. Fixed in V2.1.
  
• Album track number and duration info can not be returned under Folder view. We are bring track number back in V2.1 but total duration is not possible at right moment.
  
• There is no track/album cover in user's streaming playlist. Fixed in V2.1.
  
• The content of user's guide section is still in progress, the English and Chinese versions will be complete by middle July with other German to be done by the end of July.
  

[JohanS]

Have to laugh,Auralic send out a software update which is broken and people here comment what a wonderful company lol they blame apple for there software update but others are reporting same problems without updating to new apple update which was a security update as far as i'm aware,this thread has become a place for fanboys to hang out.

Nope, no fanboy here... I'm looking at an upgrade for my Macbook with A+ 1.5.12. So, I follow several threads here, to learn about software / hardware solutions and (development) support. So far, I found Damien (Audirvana) to be really responsive. However, he's having hard times to cope with all different environments (the local context of an Apple deivce running A+ and all kind of network and storage solutions). Auralic with LDS 2.0 / Lightning server is beyond all 'Mac' solutions (wether A+, Amarra, ...). And the support is responsive and adequate. And do not know any other company that 1) offers apoligies and 2) offers a temporary solution to help owners of Aries through the weekend. Of course, they'd hoped for a smoother launch. But don't forget: they don't had to upgrade their software with improved and new functionality for FREE! Auralic decided to do so, and I feel that current owners of Aries should be grateful for that and have a little patience. Auralic really is a great company...!

[JohanS]

Well my dream run of Auralic updates has come to a screeching halt:

 

* 2.0.1 is much slower than before - I have a 1st gen iPad mini. Whilst this issue was identified in the release notes, I hope it will get faster in further updates. I hate to think that this would necessitate buying a new iPad?

 

[snip, snip]

Well, if you want some advice: I would give app development about 3-4 months and see if it really gets faster. If not (or if it gets a bit faster but not fast enough to your liking), sell your iPad mini 1st and get an iPad mini / iPad Air 3rd gen. in November. Don't know about the second hand market in Perth, but here in the Netherlands you can easilily sell your older iPad for about 30 - 60% of the price (depending on condition, one, or two generations difference - older won't do). Unfortunately that's the price of progress...

[JohanS]

Have second generation of ipad mini with retina, and app is still not fast enough. He should wait on Auralic team, to improve their app.

Yep, that's why I wrote 3rd gen iPad mini. Guess Apple will release an updated iPad mini en iPad air (thus both gen 3) later this year around November.

 

Btw, I don't have an Aries (yet, I'm saving money for the Aries Mini Streamer), but I tested the app with my NAS and MininServer and iPad 3 / New iPad

- opening screen with spinning circle for about 15-20 seconds after each exit of LDS

- once in the app, it feels overal responsive, except that thumbnails of covers load a bit slow or sometimes not (have to move albums out of the window and then back in again in order to force the covers to load)

[JohanS]

No, I gave up, Im selling Aries, and going back to PC, unfortunatley.

Hi dr.sah, what Aries do you have? Aries LE or the one with dual Femto clocks? And where do you live? Some folks here (like me) might be interested to buy your Aries.

 

Regards,

Johan

[JohanS]

bplexico:

 

Was previously using the native renderer in the Synology, with LDS set to Open Home. I started using Lightning Server with the 2.0 release as it cleaned up metadata problems when using 1.8 with the native renderer.

 

I've had issues on and off from the start with the Aries and quite frankly consider the platform relatively unstable. Whether Minimserver solves my problem or not, I believe Auralic needs to work on the stability and reliability of this platform. I'm losing interest, but don't know that any of the alternatives have equivalent features and are any better.

Well... I'm afraid alternatives have the same problems or worse. There's a category of netwerkplayers with streaming client and integrated DAC (Pioneer, Marantz, NAIM amongst others). Pure streamers with USB output are few. Mac/PC might be a technical alternative, but have less 'design appeal' and might be rejected by your other half Currently I use Audirvana on a MacBook. Have a look at the forum here at CA and you'll see all kind of problems. In a few cases these are caused by software glitches independent of any set-up, but for most these are caused by different environments. I'm leaving the Mac platform and bought an Aries Mini as I'm tired of all version issues, driver problems and quircks of my MacBook (and any other computer) that are not related at all to the music software. Auralic Aries is IMHO the best promise of an all-in-one solution for both server and renderer, certainly with a built-in SSD in the Aries Mini streamer while being capable to adapt to future improvements and developments.

[JohanS]

Update on tagging issue and maybe other issues?

 

In response to my query regarding "Release Date" filter, see response below. No date on V2.1 of LDS.

 

"The old ID3 tag only support YEAR and this is not supported by Lightning DS filter. The new ID3 tag allow input full date in YYYY-MM-DD format and this is what we supported right now.

 

I think you dont need to worry about this at right moment because we have just finished the improvement, both old and new ID3 tag no matter if it is only YYYY or in full length will be supported in V2.1 of Lightning DS."

Well, that's good news! It would be great if Auralic, Mr. Wang Xuanqian, would post a bit more regularly on this forum. It's nice that this valuable information comes to us via other forum members, but why not particpate directly?! After all, this forum is a most valuable source for product improvement that stems from very loyal customers

[JohanS]

He's probably tired of people calling him the wrong name. ;-)

That could be the case. I copied his name from post #1055 to make sure I didn't call his name wrong.

[JohanS]

I'm just kidding but think he's too busy. His name is the other way around though. Mr. Xuanqian Wang

Hihi, even a copy couldn't save me from getting his name wrong! Sorry, Mr. Xuanqian Wang!

[JohanS]

[snip...snip]

I'm Jalous from my friend who has an Aurender: he uses the exact same music librairie on his aurender (3000 records, 40.000 tracks) and never experienced any bug, and his interface is snappy and fluid... lucky guy !

I'm sorry to read about your problems with LDS. It goes without saying that Auralic should provide stable software - and I'm sure they are working very hard now to deliver on that promise. They have to for all current Aries users, but also as their new Aries Mini streamer is targeted at a broad audience and they cannot handle ten thousands of customers that run into trouble.

 

That being said, it feels a bit unfair to compare Auralic to Aurender, as Aurender is in a different price league: $ 2.500 and upwards to almost $ 20.000 for their flagship Music Server...

[JohanS]

Any word from Auralic when LDS 2.'next version' will arrive?

[JohanS]

2.1 is available now.

And in case someone is interested ... the release notes of LDS v2.1.

 

New Features:

 

• New Music Library Setup Guide that allows you to select network shared folder through App.
  
• Allow use NetBIOS name rather than IP address of network shared folder (request ARIES firmware V2.7.1 and above).
  
• Allow user defined radio station under radio->My Stations.
  
• Tracks that in user playlist which are not playable due to music library reason offline will grey out in playlist section.
  
• Add 'Show password' function where you input WiFi and network shared folder password.
  
• New artist sidebar with built-in filter function.
  
• You can add streaming track to local playlist now.
  

Improvement:

 

• Improved search and artist filter speed.
  
• Improved device discoverability.
  
• Improved App start time.
  
• More vTuner radio station.
  
• Other user interface improvement
  

Fixes:

 

• Fix the issue that album without release data information will shown of date 1970-1-1 or 1969-12-31.
  
• Fix the issue that cause lightning server setting page to crash app.
  
• Fix the issue that App will crash if select an artist in filter sidebar.
  
• Fix the issue that 'Refresh Cache' function does not work.
  
• Fix the issue that App do not music library cache upon start.
  
• Fix the issue that App will crash when use 'add to queue' function to add streaming playlist.
  
• Fix the issue that only first 40 of user's streaming playlist can be displayed.
  
• Fix the issue that 'Release Date' are not displayed correctly.
  
• Fix the issue that search function does not work well if the keyword contains particular special keyword.
  
• Other user interface issue fixes.
  

[JohanS]

Any experiences to share regarding 'improved search and artist filter speed' and 'improved App start time' (initial, background running)?

[JohanS]

LDS 2.1 release notes mention firmware 2.7.1:

 

[h=1]ARIES Firmware Version 2.7.1 Build 20150718[/h]About This Release:

 

• July 18, 2015
  
• This update will automatically request reboot of device after the download is done and erase Lightning Server database previously used in order to utilize the latest revision's functions. There will be a re-index procedure when initially using playback from USB source.
  
• Devices with firmware from Version 1.8.2 and earlier will need to update the boot code after reboot. There will be a message displayed on device warning people to not to power off the unit during this stage. The updating of boot code will take about 70 - 80 seconds. The unit will reboot after boot code has been updated.
  

 

Please make sure you do not reboot or turn off the unit during the update of boot code, or else the unit will no longer be able to boot up (will have to return to factory for flashing the boot code).

Fixes:

 

• Fixes the issue that playback may have click and pop noise when Lightning Server is scanning USB drive.
  
• Fixes the issue that 2nd track in queue of online streaming will repeat twice.
  
• Fixes the issue the Lightning device could not join a hidden WiFi network without password.
  

New Features:

 

• New 3.10.53 real time kernel, resulting in sound quality improvement.
  
• Lightning Server now support SMB shared folder created by Windows PC and Mac computers.
  
• Lightning Server now supports Network Shared Folder name using NetBIOS computer name as well as IP address. (Need Lightning DS V2.1 to enable this feature)
  
• Lightning Server SMB host service uses "ARIES-S/N" as NetBIOS name to avoid problem that you can only access just one ARIES when multiple of ARIES are in network.
  

Known Issues:

 

• Device will wait at 176.4K or 352.8K rather than DSD64 or DSD128 when DAC Delay function is enabled.
  
• Device may not work with particular type of USB drive in Mac OS X journaled format.
  
• Device may not work with particular type of USB drive or SSD drive which request power over 5V/500mA.
  
• USB DACs running on Wavelength USB firmware can not use USB playback function due to a confirmed bug of Wavelength USB firmware under Linux. The known effected brands are: Ayre, Aesthetix and Berkeley Audio.
  
• Disable "DSD over PCM" only works on USB DACs that support sampling rate to 352.8K.
  
• Certain kinds of 24bit AIF files will be reported as 32bit due to decoder bug.
  

 

 

 

 

 

[JohanS]

Ø improvement.

Every time I made Rescan different albums getting wrong cover artwork.

it seems there is some kind of incompatibility with minimserver and lightning ds ver.2

LDS 2.1 and firmware 2.7.1 are suposed to make any other music server unnecessary. Did you try SMB connection to your NAS and no Minimserver? Sorry if I missed specific reasons you might have to use Minimserver in any of your previous posts

[JohanS]

I have arround 80.000 songs on NAS, and im using ligtning server, and app is really fast now, much better than before. I dont like few things, but that are details only.

That's good news! Please share your wishlist for improvements here and with Auralic; small changes can make a big difference

[JohanS]

No this doesn't work with this version and I have found that it sometimes just shifts the problem to other albums. It looks like the only way to fix it is to delete the cache, force quit, start Lightning DS and when it comes up with the "problem" screen (no library).....follow the prompts to add a new library. If you select the option to just start anyway and then refresh the cache manually, the problem is still there.

 

 

 

Good point, I think I'll just stick with Minimserver as I definitely hear a difference

 

If I am forced to abandon Minimserver I guess I'll have to convert all my FLAC files to AIFF or WAV.

Sorry, it must be me or the time of day (night) but I don't understand? The Aries plays Flac files, right? So why transcode them from FLAC to AIFF or WAV? If processing power is an issue (I suppose it shouldn't be an issue) you could encode your FLAC files as FLAC without compression. This way the FLAC files is essentialy the uncompressed WAV within a FLAC container which is nice for metadata.

[JohanS]

There are countless threads around on whether or not there is a difference in SQ between playing a WAV or AIFF file or having your source unpack a FLAC file before playing, both here and on other forums. I'd rather not get into that debate here as we might as well debate cables - LOL.

 

To your point about using uncompressed FLAC - even if that was an option, why would I change all my files which are currently all compressed when Minimserver offers the transcoding option?

No please no debate here about file formats, cables and the impact on SQ - LOL. I was just responding to your sentence 'if I am forced to abandon Minimserver [...]'. I wondered why you would transcode all your files. You just answered that

[JohanS]

I recently have lost my "ignore The" functionality using MinimServer. This had worked previously but now it isn't. I'm not sure what changed but if someone using MinimServer and the current version of LDS can show me their working "ignore The" language, I'd appreciate it very much.

 

John

Hi John,

 

I'm not able to answer your question, but you are in a long row of gentle audio fellows who bring up this wish: "an ignore list for artist names and albums titles". The kind people of Auralic follow this thread as well. Of course there must be a long list of 'things to do" for LDS and firmware. But maybe this wish can make to the next release of LDS!? It is one of the functionalities that makes Minimserver and the like obsolete in the end...