Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release

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Rockyboy

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2300 on: 5 Nov 2017, 02:00 pm »
Upon moving (with much trepidation) from MPOD to Manic Moose, I've noticed cleaner, more pronounced treble. I can't imagine that this is a result of using MM. but I have no other explanation. Or could it be a result of the latest firmware update? If it's just my imagination (running away with me), just say so.

CanadianMaestro

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2301 on: 5 Nov 2017, 03:17 pm »
^ Manic Moose is not to be equated to MPod -- the latter is just a user interface.


Rockyboy

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2302 on: 5 Nov 2017, 03:47 pm »
Sorry, I’m 67 and technically challenged. Hence my reluctance to download MM all these many moons. So......are you telling me that MM can/does effect SQ?

CanadianMaestro

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2303 on: 5 Nov 2017, 05:51 pm »
So......are you telling me that MM can/does effect SQ?

No sir.

NorthMac

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2304 on: 14 Nov 2017, 11:43 pm »
I check into this forum only infrequently, as I actually enjoy listening to music more than making changes to firmware that works, and I have read most of the posts here (too many to claim all) and the thread "end of MM" .  I admit to being very disappointed to where the MM interface has evolved to, after several years, it is in my view inferior to the original MPad as a simple means of finding, and playing, your digital music.  My music is properly tagged with consistent album names, cover jpgs, and my own 14 genres - MPad let me quickly decide which sort method was fastest to find what I was looking for, or which genre I just wanted to browse.  There is no single sort that works always - having rapid choice of which tags to sort means that your digital music is accessible quickly.

After goodness know how many iterations of MM and its predecessors, there is still only "Artist" as a sort option, and genre seems missing in action... may as well not even have these tags.  Why is Bryston constantly fiddling with internet integration, Tidal, etc when the most basic methods of accessing your own music (which after all is why the BDP series was developed) are not there yet?

I know that this forum has many constant contributors who help debug new firmware and suggest changes, however I also noticed that at least some of these super users access music only by browsing their folder structure.  To each their own obviously, but to me this is just a waste of the power of digital metadata, and it appears to me that MM in its current state (I am one version back) has failed in one of its most basic functions, rapid access to a large library of digital music files with multiple sorting options.  That the default view is a browser rather than a sort of tags is telling.

It is inevitable that the original BDP-1 will end up with a "final" firmware, due to the limitations of its memory and chip.  Can we at least ensure that the "final" firmware does at least what MPad did for so many years?  I very much enjoy my BDP-1, and would entertain an upgrade at some point, but I also want to see that Bryston can take the software side of this new equipment as seriously as they take the hardware side, and I honestly am not seeing the two pieces at an equal level of quality now.

Pundamilia

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2305 on: 15 Nov 2017, 03:36 am »
Well said! :thumb:

dznutz

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2306 on: 15 Nov 2017, 10:55 pm »
I check into this forum only infrequently, as I actually enjoy listening to music more than making changes to firmware that works, and I have read most of the posts here (too many to claim all) and the thread "end of MM" .  I admit to being very disappointed to where the MM interface has evolved to, after several years, it is in my view inferior to the original MPad as a simple means of finding, and playing, your digital music.  My music is properly tagged with consistent album names, cover jpgs, and my own 14 genres - MPad let me quickly decide which sort method was fastest to find what I was looking for, or which genre I just wanted to browse.  There is no single sort that works always - having rapid choice of which tags to sort means that your digital music is accessible quickly.

After goodness know how many iterations of MM and its predecessors, there is still only "Artist" as a sort option, and genre seems missing in action... may as well not even have these tags.  Why is Bryston constantly fiddling with internet integration, Tidal, etc when the most basic methods of accessing your own music (which after all is why the BDP series was developed) are not there yet?

I know that this forum has many constant contributors who help debug new firmware and suggest changes, however I also noticed that at least some of these super users access music only by browsing their folder structure.  To each their own obviously, but to me this is just a waste of the power of digital metadata, and it appears to me that MM in its current state (I am one version back) has failed in one of its most basic functions, rapid access to a large library of digital music files with multiple sorting options.  That the default view is a browser rather than a sort of tags is telling.

It is inevitable that the original BDP-1 will end up with a "final" firmware, due to the limitations of its memory and chip.  Can we at least ensure that the "final" firmware does at least what MPad did for so many years?  I very much enjoy my BDP-1, and would entertain an upgrade at some point, but I also want to see that Bryston can take the software side of this new equipment as seriously as they take the hardware side, and I honestly am not seeing the two pieces at an equal level of quality now.

If you are so unhappy with the bryston software then what digital player are you using?

NorthMac

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2307 on: 15 Nov 2017, 11:59 pm »
If you are so unhappy with the bryston software then what digital player are you using?

If you mean what interface, MPad, till it was recently buried, now Soundirok which is close to MPad. If you mean what actual player, a BDP obviously (1 in my case).  To be clear I love the Bryston hardware, I just think that 5 years into the digital player world, the company needs to seriously decide how it can compete with software and interface, and in a way that does not depend on 3rd parties which, as we just saw with MPad, can just decide to do other things tomorrow.  As my audio dealer noted recently, “the interface certainly doesn’t sell these things”. 

Ola_S

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2308 on: 16 Nov 2017, 09:29 am »
I'm also a very frustrated user, I was using MPOD (and was happy with that) until I had to update my IPhone. When using MM my first 30-40 artist or so are just numbers, albums with various artist are divided and I have to scroll through the file structure to play the whole album. Some albums are completely missing in the database. For the kind of money we are talking about here, the usability is just not good enough. I have installed Soundirok as well but it is not close to MPOD imho. The Tidal integration into MM is also very buggy with dropouts etc.

I have tried the BDP-2 as a ROON endpoint, ROON manages to sort my library correct but the audio quality is unfortunately significantly worse than with MDP.

I have started to look elsewhere for a solution that actually works but I hope Bryston can sort out MM so it works reasonably well. In terms of sound quality I’m happy with my BDP-2 (in MPD-mode).   

Ola_S

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2309 on: 18 Nov 2017, 05:32 pm »
So I have to take some of my criticism back! :duh: Today I spent several hours trying to go through my files and the metadata was kind of bad in many cases. I have edited a lot manually and it looks better now. The BDP-2 still does not find files it should find since they have accurate metadata. I have to investigate more into this and try to finish the databas overhaul tomorrow. The Tidal problems remains

dznutz

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2310 on: 18 Nov 2017, 11:55 pm »
I think most people are expecting too much from the BDP, it cant do everything perfectly.  For me, the BDP2 replaced me spinning disks.  I have an internal drive, load music onto it via my network, and play the files.  In this regard it works perfectly, atleast for me.

OTM

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2311 on: 19 Nov 2017, 12:31 am »
+1

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2312 on: 19 Nov 2017, 03:12 pm »
...

I have tried the BDP-2 as a ROON endpoint, ROON manages to sort my library correct but the audio quality is unfortunately significantly worse than with MDP.


I would have agreed with you, using an earlier version of the BDP firmware that incorporated an earlier version of the Roon software (raat_app).

But, with later versions of BPD and Roon, I think the sound quality is on par with MPD playback.

Here is something you can try: go into the Roon app and completely disable ALL DSP functions (i.e. the top most slider on the DSP settings for the audio device).

There is quite a bit of chatter on the Roon community forums that the DSP functions may be degrading SQ. As always, YMMV.

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2313 on: 25 Nov 2017, 03:29 pm »
FYI, Updated to:

S2.37 2017-11-23
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486
COPYRIGHT BRYSTON LTD. 2010

I rebuilt everything: cleared cache and reset bryston DB. When I load the Artists View, all I see is this (forever):



For what it's worth, here are my Bryston DB settings (yes, I tried turning things on/off, but nothing worked):




James Tanner

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2314 on: 25 Nov 2017, 04:24 pm »
Here's mine with 11/23







Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2315 on: 25 Nov 2017, 05:11 pm »
^ That doesn't look like 11/23 to me, because it's missing the letters/index-jump on the left-hand side of the list of Artists.

A cool feature, btw, which is what prompted me to try it out.

EDIT: I reverted back to:

S2.36 2017-10-06
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486
COPYRIGHT BRYSTON LTD. 2010

...and I still have the same problem. Also, the Settings dialog is reporting "Space Used: 52%". I previously did a factory reset, but that doesn't seem to have changed anything.

I don't know what to do from here, except disable the Bryston DB and just use Soundirok. Sorry... I'm sure everyone is feeling chilled from the Larry Dickman's thread on Bryston cultists, but I am frustrated trying to make MM work for me.

James Tanner

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2316 on: 25 Nov 2017, 07:50 pm »



unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2317 on: 25 Nov 2017, 09:09 pm »
^ That doesn't look like 11/23 to me, because it's missing the letters/index-jump on the left-hand side of the list of Artists.

A cool feature, btw, which is what prompted me to try it out.

EDIT: I reverted back to:

S2.36 2017-10-06
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486
COPYRIGHT BRYSTON LTD. 2010

...and I still have the same problem. Also, the Settings dialog is reporting "Space Used: 52%". I previously did a factory reset, but that doesn't seem to have changed anything.

I don't know what to do from here, except disable the Bryston DB and just use Soundirok. Sorry... I'm sure everyone is feeling chilled from the Larry Dickman's thread on Bryston cultists, but I am frustrated trying to make MM work for me.

Hi Ken,

The letter thing is found in the artist view section of the setting which is separate from the bryston db portion, those little drop down menus that separate the various settings.  It looks like something has happened to your mediaplayer.set file (found in the user share).  Regarding what happened to your settings my guess is somethings gone wrong with the mediaplayer.set (found in the user network share), a copy of it would help.

Chris

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2318 on: 26 Nov 2017, 01:55 am »
^ Thanks, Chris. Here is my mediaplayer.set:

artisit_view_album_sort;title
tag_data_library;0
dis_res_library;1
setting_playlist_jump_to;1
setting_album_tag_to_use;albumartist
cover_art_priority_one;folder
cover_art_priority_two;cover
cover_art_priority_three;front
media_player_marquee_title;0
check_database_dif;0
crossfade;0
enable_bryston_api;1
merge_similar_genres;0
bryston_db_disable;1
just_added;0
invert_interface;0
altSort;2
altJump;2
bryston_db_cover_disable;0
bryston_msg_mp_enable;0
enable_bryston_api;1
artist_view_artist_list_menu;1
bryston_db_auto_fill;0

...and here is an image showing the entire contents of the USER folder:



The only change I've made was to add some *.m3U playlists and I've added the last line to mpdplayback.set:

repeat;0
random;0
single;0
consume;0
buffer_before_play;15%

...to help with 192/24 playback stuttering issues.

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2319 on: 26 Nov 2017, 01:57 am »
^ Thanks, Chris. Here is my mediaplayer.set:

artisit_view_album_sort;title
tag_data_library;0
dis_res_library;1
setting_playlist_jump_to;1
setting_album_tag_to_use;albumartist
cover_art_priority_one;folder
cover_art_priority_two;cover
cover_art_priority_three;front
media_player_marquee_title;0
check_database_dif;0
crossfade;0
enable_bryston_api;1
merge_similar_genres;0
bryston_db_disable;1
just_added;0
invert_interface;0
altSort;2
altJump;2
bryston_db_cover_disable;0
bryston_msg_mp_enable;0
enable_bryston_api;1
artist_view_artist_list_menu;1
bryston_db_auto_fill;0

...I have re-enabled Bryston DB and Music Scraper; reset the DB and let it finish, then looked at the above file. Same symptom: Loading forever.

Here is an image showing the entire contents of the USER folder:



The only change I've made was to add some *.m3U playlists and I've added the last line to mpdplayback.set:

repeat;0
random;0
single;0
consume;0
buffer_before_play;15%

...to help with 192/24 playback stuttering issues.