InnuOS 2.0

[tedwoods]

Excellent and detailed write-up. Thank you for this!

[tedwoods]

I am reading that Tidal integration will come some time after the initial 2.0 release.

My question might be stupid but here goes: Does this mean we won't be able to listen to Tidal at all upon the initial 2.0  release or is it just a limited functionality thing?

Currently, ipeng/LMS has a limit of 1000 albums in Tidal, sorted only by album name.

This is a severe limitation, which makes it awkward for people like me with over 4000 titles in their Tidal library.

Usually such libraries can only practically be accessed by artist name or better still by genre and assigning your own genre in albums -and hopefully artists too, so that all albums of a said artist can fall under the same category if one so wishes- is a big plus in 2.0.

Lastly, a few more things I'd like to point out to the Innuos team, Nuno Vitorino or anyone interested:

1. Compilations by various artists must be under V and not scattered around ones library by album title (a Roon feature)

2. We must be given the choice to drop the "the" prefix from a band's name, in order to organise things and not end up with a bunch of titles under T, eg Beatles under B and not the Beatles under T (a Roon feature).

3. It would be great if all albums by the same artist were grouped together, like cover over cover, which is especially handy for users that have most or all of an artists discography in their library (a JRiver feature).

[tedwoods]

1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

Tidal seems to have the same status as Qobuz in that there’s simple way to input your account password and log on. I don’t have a Tidal account, but on my beta version Tidal looks like its ready to roll. Check with Innuos if you want to be 100% certain. 

1. Compilations are filed under the album name AND the Artist name is Various or Various Artists, so there are several easy ways to access all those type of Albums as a group from pretty much anywhere. You can search for Various, you can hit ‘V’ in artist search, or you can click on any Artist appearing on the Album, then look under ‘Appearing on’ and you’ll find the album. Very straightforward

2. You can do what you want with Meta Data.  But instead of modifying the name, just click [Search], <The Beatles> and you’re done.   Or, just type <Beatles> In any search field and you’ll get what you want.  

3. Just type any artists name in a search field and you’ll get exactly that. I requested that the default listing of all albums is by Artist name rather than Album title, but that’s only important if you want to chose something to listen to by browsing i.e scrolling through your albums  

On the other hand, if you start in the [Artist} field you just need click on the Artist you want and you get all his/her/their albums in your library, all albums in Qobuz and Tidal and all albums on which the artist has appeared.     

Tidal seem to have a lot more "underground" or obscure bands in their catalogue that Qobuz seems to be missing, so despite the former's MQA leanings (not something I'm really comfortable with), I am stuck with them, if I want access to that particular material, which in my case is quite a lot.

As I see it, the problem with large libraries that are composed of different source material, like for example any combination of local and streamed over the net files, maybe even by multiple streaming services, is what I call "intuitive management":  one has to be able to wade through their collection by "intuition", when memory fails him/her.😁

For example it's easy to get to "The Who" by just searching, but what about that little known progressive band from the early 70"s that their name totally escapes you right now and you're sure  they had two albums released, but you can't really remember the titles but you would certainly recognise them from the cover art...sort of thing🤪

Now multiply that times ten...😂

Anyway, I am always up for spending some quality time tagging and re-naming...😊

 

[tedwoods]

40 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi there Ted,

Bear in mind that no index works without a name. Nevertheless, lets see if we can develop a logical approach using 2.0 to find your lost albums. 

 

Do you remember the names of any band members? If so, just search for the [Artist] and you can then list all their album covers in a consolidated listing from across all your sources. 

Any idea of the band’s name?   May begin with ‘V’. Click [A-Z], type <V> and scroll through the resulting Album covers. 

Not there? The next step is to search all Album covers but if you have thousands, as you indicated, you need to cut down the number you need to look at. Here you can search by [Source] (if you know whether you own the albums or stream them). Sounds like Tidal is a likely source, so tick Tidal, so that cuts out all you Qobuz favourites and locally stored albums

 

You can also sort by resolution …..Hi-res or CD?  Let’s say CD, so click that

 

You can also search by multiple genre, so just click any genre it could be and leave the others blank. Now scroll through the album covers that remain. 

 

I just tried the above approach before making the suggestion. My target was to find Steeleye Span but all I knew was the name of the guy who played Didgeridoo on a couple of tracks. I input his name into Search. It came up with [Artist] and all his albums and tracks. And there was SteeleyeSpan. Click on the Steeleye Span album and there were all the other ‘Span albums from all sources. 

Thanks, that was quite comprehensive.

Please excuse the panic attack, but after having gone through a bunch of audio software over the course of my computer audiophile sojourn, each with its own library management techniques and each with its pros and cons or just plain old quirks at that, I feel I just need something to call "home"...🙂

 

 

 

[tedwoods]

On 5/30/2021 at 3:39 PM, Claude said:

Not stupid at all. +1

The response from Innuos:  

Tidal will work exactly as it works today under innuOS v1.x and still use the same process through mysqueezebox.com. That will change soon (it’s one of our priorities) and it will become directly integrated on future innuOS 2.x updates (not requiring myqueezebox.com at that time).

[tedwoods]

12 hours ago, yellowblue said:

I really like what I see and what I hear after installing 2.0 (without any problems). It´s not night and day against the experimental mode plus Roon I used before but I hear some distinct improvements. Music sounds more relaxed with silkier treble and more air around the instruments. If there was something like silkier midths I would even use this term to describe the more pleasent listening experience. I get a feeling of more intimacy listening to voices with a slightly improved depth of soundstage. Or you just can say that voices sound more real to me. For the first time I can listen to Lana Del Rey on my Hifiman HE-1000 SE earphones without jumping up from my seat when she is singing a word beginning with "s" 🙂. Now I have to learn to live without all the enjoyable features of Roon because there is no way back.

 

Innuous MK2 SE with Phoenix USB and Phoenix Net into MScaler-DAVE

Indeed, 1.4.9 and now 2.0 provide a marked decrease in siblance. With a good switch (or other solution...) before the server, it all but dissapears.

Less latency perhaps...

[tedwoods]

4 hours ago, Heonius said:

Hello,
I am the only one who has the InnuOS with the zen MK3. Update 2.0.4. can not download. I haven't received an answer from the support so far. Or are the guys just overloaded at the moment, so that not every banal question can be answered.

Assuming you have your music backed up somewhere and you wouldn't think it too much of a hassle, you could try a factory reset first and then try to upgrade. Just a thought...

[tedwoods]

11 hours ago, Vangelis said:

I’m felt compelled to chime in here about the gain in sound quality with 2.04. I’m totally stunned by the leap of musical involvement. The change is reminiscent of my early days of my HiFi hobby when I made a serious component upgrade and experienced one of those audio wow moments. There had been rumblings about the new OS would improve sonics, but I was unprepared for how much of an improvement would be realized. I was an old Linn turntable fan and my Zenith now sounds as if it’s had an injection of LP-12.

 

 

The whole 2.04  presentation has a much less mechanical construct with far more harmonic flow and ease, on a historical footnote, Harry Pearson called this contiguousness.  My Zenth MK2se sounds phenomenal now with 2.04. I can only speculate what improvements Statement owners must be experiencing.  With 2.04 everything is far more resolved and dense, the notes simply hangs together better, with a far more intelligible musical connection.  With this big gain in resolution and refinement, what’s been left behind, is grunge. I’m not overstating, that when I switch back to iPeng on the same track the music line becomes confusing and uninvolving. Hats off to the folks at Innuos for this wonderful gift they’ve given us. 

Very well said, the sound quality is the star of the show!

I was also impressed with the "change cover" editing tool.

It's super fast and if you elect the option to search the net for a cover it gets a wide variety of pretty decent covers to choose from, for even some of my most obscure of albums. Neat!

 

P.S. 2.05 is now out.

[tedwoods]

13 hours ago, jvvita said:

Just downloaded Innuos 2.0.5 to my zenith. Yes, the sound quality is amazing, and qobuz integration works very well.

 

Two questions: is it possible to edit tags on several albums at once? Also, I can’t find how to play the tag filter on the artist page. Am I missing anything?

Regarding your second question, there are no tag filters (yet...) on the Artists page, although I believe it is (or soon will be ...) proposed as a feature on the Innuos Feedback Zone. A similar functionality will be provided by a future feature update (it's on "planned" status right now) for the layout of Albums page, where albums could be organised by Artist name and not (just) by album title, effectively meaning you'll be able to search through your collection, using whatever filter (e.g. genre) and all albums by the same artist will appear grouped together. I realise this is not exactly the same as adding tag search under Artists, but it will be close enough, from a functionality standpoint.

[tedwoods]

2.06 is out now and it’s a joy to use, plus it sounds unbelievably smooth and transparent.
Great work Innuos!

With Tidal integration on the horizon, I really feel there’s not much else to ask.

 

[tedwoods]

If you mean whether they stopped developing their software, far from it.

There is a beta version of their latest release -2.1- available (through the innuOS feedback zone), which will presumably be out by means of an official release, soon.

And of course they've just announced their new series of streamers (Pulse mini, Pulse & Pulsar), which seem like a really interesting bunch of products!