DavidL

My experience may be helpful as I have my library on an external drive and am running the Music App under Big Sur OS. The library has grown substantially over the years (now 109k+ tracks) and recently I noticed some anomalies occurring when I edited the meta data for new additions. Posting on the Apple support site produced a suggestion that I set 'Keep Music Media folder organised' in music preferences. I'd never set this before as I was wary that my carefully organised library might get scrambled but I thought I'd give this a try. Before doing so I backed up 2 copies of my library to external drives. My library file structure was very similar to yours, but I did not have the extra 'Music' subfolder under 'Music'. After setting 'Keep Music Media folder organised' it took 5 days to complete! I then closed the music app which took a further 31/2 days to complete! Examining the resultant new file structure I found I now had the extra 'Music' subfolder. Nearly all my music tracks (~98%) were identified there - I ran the Doug Script 'List MIAs' to identify what was missing. Some tracks were not 'connected' in the new Music subfolder but others were left in the original Music folder. I also cross-checked in my library backup to find the others. To replace these I copied the tracks from the backup to the desktop and then imported them to the new Music library. As far as I can tell nothing is missing now. Interestingly the original Music folder contained practically all the album art I had accumulated and stored as files at the album level i.e. not embedded with the corresponding tracks. It took me several days to embed the album art in the music library tracks in the new Music subfolder. I've been using the 'organised' library for a couple of weeks without any issues. The library loads noticeably faster than before.

I note you said 'designated it as the location of iTunes music'. In the past I've had similar problems when I pointed to the 'iTunes Media' folder, rather than the 'iTunes' folder at the higher level. I guess you may be missing the other library meta files. I suggest therefore that you start again with a clean disc and copy the 'iTunes' folder (with all its contents) to the the disc and then point to this folder.

I suspect the reason for this happening may be because the iTunes Media folder (i.e. the actual Artist/Album music library) lost its link to the other top-level files under the iTunes folder (iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library .xml etc) when the switch of operating system was made. Many folk keep their iTunes Media folder in a separate location to the other folders in their top-level iTunes folder. The solution to this is to keep all the folders under the iTunes folder in the same location. I've been doing this for many years (keeping the iTunes folder on a USB disc separate from the system disc) and have had no problems when upgrading the Mac OS (now on Catalina). @Pamelane do you have all these iTunes folders still available in the their state before you upgraded? Is the old iTunes Media folder in a different location to the top-level iTunes folder? If the answer is yes to both these questions I suggest that you create a new top-level iTunes folder containing both the old iTunes Media folder as well as the old iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library .xml etc, in a new location. Then whilst depressing the alt key run the Music app. This will request you to choose a library: make note of where your current library is and then select the new iTunes folder you have created (NOT the iTunes Media folder). This should pick up your library in the form it was before your current problems. Note if this does not work you can always go back to where you were by restarting the Music app whilst depressing the alt key and choosing your old library location. Hope this helps.

A useful review. Not sure if this is the right place to ask but here we go........ When I started ripping CDs and storing them on a NAS about 10 years ago I was faced with a huge variety of tagging. In particularly classical CDs were particularly bad as they often have works br a range of composers and artists. My solution was to re-purpose 'Album' to 'Work'. This has resulted in my library being very easy to search and play classical music. My question is what would mp3tag come up with when faced with all these albums that now contain a single work?

I've had the first tracks of an album dissociate from the rest. I could usually fix it by editing the dissociated track together with the rest and adding a character at the end of the album title. Then if all comes together re-edit to remove the character. If this does not work look at 'Get info' and the 'sorting' property; there may be some inconsistency there you need to correct.

Storing and serving audio is a doddle for the latest NAS boxes. The real test is whether they can stream 4k video which is why I've started looking for a more powerful replacement for my DS412+ which is filling up (2TB music, 2+TB home video, 12000 hi-res photos etc) and it looks as though the latest Synology '+' models would be more than powerful enough (e.g. DS 420+). If you expect your library to grow considerably there are models that have expansion boxes (e.g. DS 920+)

This subject can be very confusing to a newcomer because unfortunately there is no agreement on terminology by either users or manufacturers. While there is no general consensus on this it may be helpful to distinguish between capabilities/content of the boxes as follows: SERVER - basically stores and serves digital music files as packets over an ethernet local area network. A cpu is required to do this e.g in a general purpose computer or a NAS. The music files can be on hard drive(s) attached to the computer or in the NAS. RENDERER - input is music packets, either from a local server or from the internet, which is converted to a digital stream to feed a DAC. STREAMER (Now this where confusion is rife) - seems to be used to denote a combination of 2 or more of SERVER, RENDERER and DAC. For the best sound quality I'd suggest (as other have already stated) keeping the SERVER element, with all its digital noise, remote from the RENDERER and DAC. (I've found a wireless ethernet bridge gives good isolation of the SERVER.) For the same reason I'd also suggest that a RENDERER be chosen that has the optimum output to maximise the performance of the DAC to be used.

Very interested in this occurrence. Many years ago I had corruption in iTunes with the media folder on a USB hard drive and the top-level iTunes files on my Mac. My solution (which has worked well for 6+ years) was to put everything on a NAS. I have multiple backups of this on- and off-site. As kirkmc indicates the downside to this approach is the latency but this is manageable. The latency only became an issue for me when Apple changed the Mac files structure to APFS (in High Sierra OS). APFS appears to write large buffers intermittently to disc rather than immediately store file changes. I can live with this as I only use iTunes for curating my music library; primarily editing meta data. I tend to leave iTunes open for some time after finishing library edits to allow the necessary file transfer to be done (when the buffer is full I assume). Tag data can still occasionally be missing when new music is added to the library but this is quickly apparent. Note: My library has 105k tracks and I play music using MinimServer which directly accesses the iTunes music media folder.

Some wonderful looking speakers have been suggested, many with high prices. How important is sound quality to you? I'd suggest as a point of reference you listen to the larger models in the Harbeth range (SHL5-XD and 40.2-XD). Harbeth speakers are all transparent and natural sounding - you may be surprised if you compare the sound of these with that from some of those recommended above. OK they are ugly traditional boxes but they do disappear once you start listening!

Very informative article. A couple of points on using a computer for recording. I started recording using Firewire on a Mac tower many years ago; first direct and then via a RME Fireface 400 interface. Very happy with the resulting recordings. I much regretted the demise of Firewire input on macs but solved the problem by buying a Belkin Express Dock which has a thunderbolt input and Firewire, USB3 and thunderbolt outputs. The RME firewire devices are excellent; their ADCs are very good - the ADI-2 Pro in particular.

If you are seriously considering moving to a NAS as your music source the most effective setup would be to buy a NAS with a sufficiently powerful cpu to run MinimServer (& MinimStreamer), together with an ethernet-to-SPDIF/I2S renderer. Adding an optical fibre element in the ethernet leg immediately before the renderer/DAC can improve performance. Not sure why you posted this question on the Sonore thread as they (currently) do not make this type of renderer - their focus is on USB, as it is for your system. Both approaches can give excellent sound quality AFAIK, but the non-USB route is less complex, easier to manage and makes playing music independent of your computer. You will still need to use the computer for curation of the music library of course. When I started out streaming from a NAS in 2014 I bought the original Sonore Rendu ethernet-to-SPDIF renderer, which is no longer available (though Jesus has hinted at a new potential product in this area).

Interesting question. I started considering which was the best element I'd bought for my system; DAC, power amp, Network Bridge or speakers? Couldn't decide between them - all gave a similar, worthwhile increase in sound quality. Then I realised that actually the best was a Synology DS412+ NAS. Before I bought this in 2013 my music was all over the place: CDs in 3 rooms, LPs (partially ripped) somewhere else, not to mention DAT tapes and cassettes of concerts recorded off-air and stored away in cupboards. Now most of this music (I'm still ripping) is easily accessible and I spend far more time listening to music. Furthermore because I can dial it up immediately I can listen to a specific piece of music as the opportunity arises without the room search and loading stages previously required.

As erasergate indicates it really depends what your priorities are. Are the speakers required almost entirely for background listening while you work on the computer? In that case there are plenty speakers to choose from - I'd suggest a pair that are 'smooth' i.e. not too up-front or analytical in their sound. On the other hand if you are going to do critical analytical listening that could match that typically available from a pair of good headphones I'd suggest high-quality, sealed-box (infinite baffle) smallish monitors. I'm assuming your computer system is not in a large room and there is limited ability to arrange speakers in an ideal position: sealed boxes are less critical as regards positioning. I've tried several speakers for this environment; most recently PMC DB1 and, since 2013, Harbeth P3ESR. I'd strongly recommend the latter as being very transparent and also enjoyable for listening for pleasure.

I suspect the dreaded USB. Have you considered using any other output? I too use a Chord Hugo 2 and have just added a 2Go so I can play the music via ethernet. I've installed Minimserver on my iMac and have the library on an external disc, with BubbleUPnP as the control software. Total lack of clicks, dropouts etc, etc. I suggest you switch to something similar so you can just enjoy the music.

There was at least 1 thread here a year or 2 ago discussing how to set up a database for a music library. I've not been able to find it in the old Computer Audiophile threads so I'll recap. I continue to use iTunes for curating my library as it is mature and meets all my needs. I use the following simple, free process: 1) In iTunes, setup a playlist for all the tracks in the library - for a large library do this for each genre to keep the size manageable. 2) Set up the view options for this playlist so only those required for the database are visible, probably Album and Artist (or Album artist). 3) Click on a row and select all, and copy this. 4) In Excel, open a new worksheet, highlight the first cell and paste the data copied in iTunes. 5) Delete the first column (the track title) 6) Insert a header row before the first music record e.g. Album in col.1 and Artist in col.2 if that's how you copied the data. 7) Select all the records and use the advanced filter command (Data>Filter>Advance Filter) and check the 'Unique records only' box. Click 'OK'. Copy the resulting columns to a new worksheet (as the repeated rows have only been hidden not deleted) and edit this if required. This database can be used direct or exported to a mobile device. To manage this database I use Tap Forms Mac on an iPhone, iPad and iMac with syncing via dropbox. I also keep a separate list of Album 'wants' in a similar format.