Sgt. Blumenkraft

Re various posts looking to compare it to iTunes, JRMC, or Winamp: it's apples and pears; You are trying to compare players (with rudimentary library management capabilities) with a customizable library management system (which has to then include a customizable player). So when comparing library management, MusiCHi is definitely going to win; When comparing player features only, the results are also given by definition of what MusiCHi is: MusiCHi will win on display and search flexibility (hands down!), and lose on things like DSP, remote control, add-ons (hands down!). None of that should be a surprise. Because MusiCHI is for organizing collections of Classical (Jazz, World, ...) music. It has it's own reference database (like FreeDB for classical), and, as I said earlier, the tagger is where it's really at. Remember, MusiCHi is modular, so you can use a different player (I use Winamp when I want DSP effects), and a different Ripper (like dBpoweramp), and still have the full library management and tagging power from MusiCHi. You can still remote control with an iPad or any device with a large enough screen, or simply use a different player. I don't know who created it, but the inspiration for it is pretty obvious in hindsight: Have you never gone mad with the mess (and imcompleteness) of FreeDB? (and therefore the mess in your own collection?) If not, your collection is either not very large, or doesn't have Jazz, Classical, World, etc. (or both).

I use it everywhere. Three different places, and on the move. It is perfect of you want to really be professional in your library management and spend some time customising multiple libraries differently. But do spend some time to learn how to use it to it's full capacity. For example, it will handle your classical library differently in every way from your Jazz library or dance library, if you want it to. For example, in classical, you may want categories like composer, instruments, venue, conductor; In pop, you may want to have producer; In dance you may want to have dance-genre (Mumbo) as well as genre (Latin), for example. So, while the whole suite is more than adequate for me, the tagger is where it's really at. If you have never managed a really huge library, from different sources, you won't know the trauma of not having this. It has so many ways of searching, filtering, grouping, and then mass-correcting fields, it is difficult to do it justice in a short note. Just think of how many cases where you have pop rock, Pop Rock, pop-rock, PopRock, etc etc all as genres in your library, Genres you don't even want, and end with thinking about wanting to reclassify a whole group of songs into a new genre 70s just because you feel like it for a new custom library which you want to use at a party where you don't want people to find your grunge collection and drive your guests out. Or what I did, that is to reclassify all pop-like genres in line with Wikipedia conventions. In which software could you do that? The player is very versatile, and you can add and subtract loads of browsing cascades, display styles, etc. be sure you have at least a medium size screen tho. Don't expect to use this via remote desktop on your iPhone! Of course sound is always bit-perfect via ASIO, and I don't know how high it can go, but definitely to 384, way beyond HD, and still be bit-perfect for my Zodiac Gold. Even down sampling on my Beresford Caiman which can only handle up to 24/96, it sound better than others I have tried, and certainly still better than the true CD source at 44.1 The ripper allows you to use multiple metadata sources at once, for example FreeDB for album and title, Amazon for cover art, and musichi's own database ( which is mostly for classical ). That's what I use it for. I am pretty sure it can do a lot more, but time to learn it all is too short. For starters tho, there are many help videos to guide you through it. I have many set-ups for experimantation, but my main system for the last 6 months or so has been driven by a home-made music server with absolutely nothing installed other than an anti-virus and MusiCHI.

Not sure whether opening up means also making a somewhat more natural, broader sound. I have a Zodiac Gold with Voltikus, tested against a Stylos Styx, against a Beresford Gatorized Caiman, and all tested on different setups. In all set- ups the Zodiac, although being clearly the most expensive, has the most narrow and hyped sound. Too much emphasis on clarity in the high pitches, killing your ears after a few hours. It is almost as if it wants to make up for a deficiency in your system that isn't there. I like the simplicity of use, the fact that you can feed it's clock back to the PC (with a Lynx AES16, for example, although the set-up is somewhat unorthodox through digital XLR out rather than clock cable). What really annoys me though is the inevitable clicking between tracks! I want to forget that I am listening to music out of a can! Anyone have a simple hint on whether I am doing something wrong here? Also, on USB, even with clocking, I cannot get the quality I get on optical. Maybe not the DAC's fault in this case, as the Beresford shows the same behaviour.