dhartert

Happy New Year! When I hit the same challenges with tagging as you do, I switched to JRiver Mediacenter (after comparing with many other programs, such as MP3Tag). The great thing about JRiver is that you can do mass changes to the tags, i.e. if you have hundreds of tracks that do not have an artist, but for the sake of seeing them in a client software, you could initially select all these tracks within JRiver, and then fill the artist field at the Information window with "tbd" (or anything else) - and all tracks will get updated accordingly. You can also copy tags into filenames and vice versa. In any case - it will still be a lot of work - but worth doing it!

I'm not running Kinsky (tried it on the iPad, works, but don't see any advantage over Lightning DS). iOS Lumin runs well on my iPad (iPad Air) and finds the Auralic as well as my MinimServer (so I can play my library). It looks pretty good, actually a bit nicer than Lightning DS, but I won't get access to the WIMP music service - which reverts me back to the Lightning DS app. Don't know about harddisk & Auralic - I just use a NAS and have no need for a harddisk ..

What files types - and where do you store these files?

I never had any dropouts with the Zero 1 - did you have them on the source side, or between the two speakers of the Zero 1? Regarding the sound quality, the Zero 1 requires about 80 - 100 hours of "playing in" time. The drivers are very stiff, and they tend to return to their original manufacturing position after playing. Therefore it helps to play them for hours at high volume, again and again. The difference between the first play after unpacking and days later was huge!

I have several sources connected to the Zero 1. The USB is currently connected to a laptop, the Auralic is connected via AES. The remote control of the Zero 1 allows you to switch between the different sources (there are several inputs such as Coax, Optical, USB and AES, and I also have an analog module installed which connects its source by XLR.

Hi, I'm new in this forum - seems to carry a lot of useful information - great! I'm using the Auralic Aries since two months now, and I'm really happy to have it! I replaced my traditional equipment of Accuphase players and amps alltogether with B&W Nautilus speakers, and went all digital. My Auralic is directly connected to the Avantgarde Zero 1 active speakers - I never had such a great sound experience before. The Zero 1 has its own amps for each of the drivers, and therefore its own built-in DAC. I fetch my music from a QNAP NAS on which I'm running the MinimServer - that works really well. In addition, I'm subsribing to WIMP, which I access through the Lightning DS app on my iPAD (which I'm using in general to steer the Auralic). All my music is lossless (FLAC), and I'm building a larger collection of Hi-res audio files. I still have a SONOS connected to the Avantgarde Zero 1 as well, so I can compare the standard audio files as they arrive via SONOS or Auralic at the Zero 1. There is no comparison - although both SONOS and Auralic are playing the same audio files and are just forwarding the digital content to the Zero 1, the difference is huge. And of course, once you play the hi-res files via the Auralic, it's unbelievable what I get. Just another little piece of my setup: I'm maintaining my audio files with JRiver MediaCenter on a Windows PC, which I use for proper tagging but also to rate each individual track (1 .. 5). With MinimServer I was able to configure it in a way that I can see the ratings when I browse my music files with the Lightning DS app. With so many music files, it helps to see what you like most and to select the best tracks from an album vs. playing the whole thing ... So having a lot of fun with the Auralic, although I'm also running occasionally into formware issues, i.e. when a new version all of a sudden wouldn't allow to adjust the playing volume. But overall, I can work with those little glitches, they have so far not prevented me from playing my music.