drs;401730 Wrote: > I apologize for this rant in advance, but I am really frustrated. > > I've had a Squeezebox 3 since early 2006, and had wanted one for a long > time previous to that. Conceptually, I think it is about the best idea > ever, but in practice, I am thoroughly unhappy with it -- indeed, my > wife refers to it as the bane of my existence. I am wondering if > perhaps anyone can suggest ways to make me happier with it. > > At the root of the problem is SqueezeCenter. I have it running on a > reasonably fast (2.8GHz, 3GB) XP computer connected via ethernet > cables. But, no matter what I do, it is too slow. The process of > finding music is slow (I have about 11,000 tracks to dig through, and > adding a song generally requires numerous clicks, and lots of waiting), > the process of adding/removing things from a playlist is cumbersome and > slow, it doesn't seem to keep any statistics on what is played or when, > the process of scanning my library was horrible -- most albums have > wrong album art, the same album will show up multiple times, each with > only some of the tracks in it (this is after ripping with EAC), if I > have 2 versions of a track (MP3 and FLAC) no distinction is made until > one drills down meaning that it takes as long to find a track as the > previous one took to play, and playback drops out or freezes > periodically. Moreover, it is buggy software -- I listened to an album > the other day. Then, last night I listened to something else. Today, > the playlist from days ago was back in the queue. When I move tracks > around in the list, they don't always move to were they were put. Often > what is playing and what squeezecenter says is playing are different, > etc. > > The Squeezebox has been back and needed a new CPU at one point, so the > device itself seems to work fine. And, the computer has been rebuilt > and been clean installed. Moreover, I tried other computers with no > better results. > > Basically, what I am saying is that the Squeezebox, for me, should do > three things. It should play music, it should make organizing music > simple, and it should present a clean interface. It utterly fails at > the second two, and periodically fails at the first. > > Conversely, programs like Winamp, Foobar, iTunes, and even WMP present > user interfaces that are remarkably better. Yes, I understand that > Squeezecenter presents a web interface so it can be used from remote > systems, but does that need to preclude a reasonable non-web interface > from running locally, or via remote desktop? And yes, I understand that > it is opensource, so I can implement these things myself, but that it > not an excuse. Logitech is a big company and can supply reasonable > software for their hardware. I am a programmer, and I designed and > build my whole stereo (DAC, preamp, power amp, and speakers), and I > don't have that kind of time. > > So, what I think this thing needs is either its own non-web based > interface (I've tried Moose -- neat software, but too slow both because > .Net is miserable and because it is still just interfacing with the same > horrible backend), or a plugin for Winamp, Foobar, or whatever to make > it behave like a remote soundcard. I have seen a few scattered posts > of others asking for this, but to date nothing that works has jumped > out at me. > > As I say, I really wanted this to work, and I am really sad that it is > just not the device for me. Conceptually, everything about is > fantastic, but every time I try to use it it makes me angry.
What Internet Browser are you using? What Tagging software do you use? What version of SC are you currently running? How do you think of your music? What I mean is do you treat all music as Albums/CDs, or artists, or genre. Are you using any of the plugins to help with your music selection? Many users really like using the Custom Browse plugin. Have you thought about building or using a dedicated PC as an SC Server? I keep my MP3s separate from my FLAC library except where I don't have the MP3 in FLAC format also. So those few MP3s I have in the FLAC directory are for use with SC only. I don't let iTunes see that library and SC does not see the directory that my MP3s are in that I use with iTunes (only reason I even have iTunes is because of my iPhone). And I dislike iTunes because it was made so even my parents and my sister can use it. It is my opinion that one should never ask iTunes to repair/fix/find album art or tags. If iTunes would ask if this IS the correct album art one wants to use, then maybe, but just like Windows, it does what it wants and hoses ones whole library. Now for my rant as you are not alone. Is SC perfect? I dont think its perfect, but it sure does a bunch of different and important things. I have some overly large Playlists and have to agree that the one area that SC is really lacking for me is how Playlists are built, maintained, and edited. I really wish there was a drag and drop that spanned the page breaks or a way to move a song to position "X". Its just a pain to have a Playlist with 250 songs in it, need to add a song, and have that song then be the second song in the Playlist. It has to be dragged from position 251 where it was added up to the top of each page, switch to Classic Skin, move it up one so its at the bottom of the next page, repeat. There should be a drop down box when the mouse hovers over the album art for a song in a playlist that allows one to move it to a position anywhere in the playlist or double click on a song to do the same thing. Somebody might even have some suggestions for me and others that use really large playlists. -- iPhone *iPhone* 'Last.FM' (http://www.last.fm/user/mephone) Media Room: Transporter, VTL TL-6.5 Signature Pre-Amp, Ayre MX-R Mono's, Vandersteen Quatro, VeraStarr 6.4SE 6-channel Amp, VCC-5 Reference Center, four VSM-1 Signatures, Runco RS 900 CineWide AutoScope 2.35:1 Living Room: Duet, ADCOM GTP-870HD, Cinepro 3K6SE III Gold, Vandersteen Model 3A Signature, Two 2Wq subs, VCC-2, Two VSM-1 Kitchen: Squeezebox BOOM Bedroom: SB3, GFR-700HD, Thiel 2.3, Second Boom Home Office: SB3, NAD C370, two VSM-1 Home Gym: SB3, Parasound Vamp v.3, Thiel PowerPoint 1.2 Mobile: SB3, Audioengine A5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ iPhone's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13622 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60755
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