Bryston Manic Moose Interface

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BigGeek

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #60 on: 9 Jul 2020, 02:15 pm »
Is scrolling difficult? :o

A well executed scroll bar with the ability to jump to your choice quickly is great. A scroll bar to see the bottom of a pane that is on screen with another scroll bar within the pane to see the contents below the bottom is just bad programming and very annoying. Side by side scroll bars are not good. Especially when the albums I wish to see are at the very bottom of the list (This seemed to happen to every album I wanted to find) and they disappear from the list entirely if you select one and then back up to the search window again.

The default zoom on an iPad is ridiculous and so is the rest of the interface. GBaby I cannot for the life of me understand what you see in this thing.

Also this is exactly the forum where James and the team need to hear our input. How can they hope to make it better if we aren't giving them feedback. Of course I shouldn't hit submit when I am angry because it comes across harshly. Apologies for that, but I really tried yesterday and completely failed to get your interface to work properly, and I do software testing and analysis for a living.

BG

terrycym

Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #61 on: 9 Jul 2020, 04:34 pm »
Well said, if all we hear is praise from fan-boys and anything bad is suppressed, how do Bryston know what needs improving and what really needs improving.
Even the Stax headphone users are not afraid to criticise Stax when they get it wrong, for example.

I remember the old UI where there used to be two update buttons, that can't be good?

The only time I use the my.bryston UI is to use the Update button after I've added music to my USB drive or to check for updates with the Update Firmware tab
See, Update used in two different contexts on the same page!

My previous comment regarding scrolling was referring specifically to the tab buttons on a Windows PC in a web browser
They're visible at the bottom of the screen, but click on Services for example and they're no longer visible, you have to scroll down. These buttons really need to be always visible.

BTW
While i'm here...
If I go to the Services tab, I see a "Settings" bar which says (amongst other stuff) MEM 97.4%
Is that expected?
Seems extremely high?

gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #62 on: 9 Jul 2020, 06:52 pm »
A well executed scroll bar with the ability to jump to your choice quickly is great. A scroll bar to see the bottom of a pane that is on screen with another scroll bar within the pane to see the contents below the bottom is just bad programming and very annoying. Side by side scroll bars are not good. Especially when the albums I wish to see are at the very bottom of the list (This seemed to happen to every album I wanted to find) and they disappear from the list entirely if you select one and then back up to the search window again.

The default zoom on an iPad is ridiculous and so is the rest of the interface. GBaby I cannot for the life of me understand what you see in this thing.

Also this is exactly the forum where James and the team need to hear our input. How can they hope to make it better if we aren't giving them feedback. Of course I shouldn't hit submit when I am angry because it comes across harshly. Apologies for that, but I really tried yesterday and completely failed to get your interface to work properly, and I do software testing and analysis for a living.

BG

Personally, I find no problem with scrolling on both sides. I don't get it.  :o Just remember, ever time we complain about minor things there is a possibility of an unnecessary design change accompanied by a price increase.

WildPhydeaux

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #63 on: 9 Jul 2020, 08:19 pm »
Personally, I find no problem with scrolling on both sides. I don't get it.  :o Just remember, ever time we complain about minor things there is a possibility of an unnecessary design change accompanied by a price increase.

It's become crystal clear to me, gbaby, that in your eyes Bryston can do no wrong and any/all inconveniences are trivial or non-existent when it comes to your adoration for their products. I intensely dislike the "Fanboy" handle that people bandy about as though defending a preference defines an individual, so I won't use that term  :)

Of course you have a right to your opinion and indeed a right to share it here, just as others can disagree and we can all agree to disagree. But when James initiates a thread here specifically asking for feedback on Manic Moose, why do you feel the need to jump in and defend the Bryston honor when someone points out a UI anomaly they find annoying? The thread is about what users like/dislike about MM so that Bryston can better understand how the next version should look and function. If you see the conversation heading down a path for a feature you wouldn't care for, by all means let your opinion be known. But comments to the effect of "no, don't fix that bug because it doesn't bother me" are just unhelpful noise.

I've seen more than one person in this thread pussy-foot their way into pointing out something they don't like about MM, prefacing it by pandering about how great Bryston is and how they worship at the feet. What the heck folks, the Bryston guys have broad shoulders, they're not going to take their ball and go home because you hurt their feelings. They're in business to make money and part of that is listening to customer feedback, good and bad. No one is saying Bryston don't make top flight gear that competes with the best in the industry. It's the control software that could use some work, in the opinion of many. And Bryston want that feedback raw not flowered up between praises.

Cheers,
Robert


gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #64 on: 10 Jul 2020, 08:05 pm »
It's become crystal clear to me, gbaby, that in your eyes Bryston can do no wrong and any/all inconveniences are trivial or non-existent when it comes to your adoration for their products. I intensely dislike the "Fanboy" handle that people bandy about as though defending a preference defines an individual, so I won't use that term  :)

Of course you have a right to your opinion and indeed a right to share it here, just as others can disagree and we can all agree to disagree. But when James initiates a thread here specifically asking for feedback on Manic Moose, why do you feel the need to jump in and defend the Bryston honor when someone points out a UI anomaly they find annoying? The thread is about what users like/dislike about MM so that Bryston can better understand how the next version should look and function. If you see the conversation heading down a path for a feature you wouldn't care for, by all means let your opinion be known. But comments to the effect of "no, don't fix that bug because it doesn't bother me" are just unhelpful noise.

I've seen more than one person in this thread pussy-foot their way into pointing out something they don't like about MM, prefacing it by pandering about how great Bryston is and how they worship at the feet. What the heck folks, the Bryston guys have broad shoulders, they're not going to take their ball and go home because you hurt their feelings. They're in business to make money and part of that is listening to customer feedback, good and bad. No one is saying Bryston don't make top flight gear that competes with the best in the industry. It's the control software that could use some work, in the opinion of many. And Bryston want that feedback raw not flowered up between praises.

Cheers,
Robert

Everything you said is true. Cheers.

Robert II. :D

gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #65 on: 10 Jul 2020, 08:23 pm »

.... GBaby I cannot for the life of me understand what you see in this thing.

BG

I did not always like Manic Moose, but once I go the hang of it, I loved it. It simply does everything I need for it to do and the flaws go into the nothing is perfect category. I have heard both Qubuz and Tidal and neither sound as good as Manic Moose. Plus, I like the black and white interface with the color cover art in the middle and the sprinkle of blue elsewhere. It is easy on my eyes and looks great on my 15" MacBook Pro that sits on a table next to my sitting chair. Again, its alright with me.  :|

BigGeek

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #66 on: 10 Jul 2020, 11:52 pm »
Personally, I find no problem with scrolling on both sides. I don't get it.  :o Just remember, ever time we complain about minor things there is a possibility of an unnecessary design change accompanied by a price increase.

I was referring to two scrolls on the right hand side right next to each other. This happens by default on an iPad when using Manic Moose!

BigGeek

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #67 on: 11 Jul 2020, 12:16 am »
I want to be more clear about the drivers for my opinions of Manic Moose. I hope this is useful to the Bryston folks.

LPs are serial listening devices. You start an album and you usually listen to the end. CD's are random access devices at the disc level. You can pick any song on the disc randomly on a given disc only. Ripped music on a hard drive is truly random access at a Music collection level. You can listen to whole albums from beginning to end if you want, but the possibility of listening to various music in any order is what drew me to this approach to music storage. In fact it opened up a whole new way of listening to music for me and it has driven my interface preferences for the software I use to command my BDP. Firstly I use an iPad. Light, easy to use, visually stunning. A great tool for this. That means I used a touch interface. Manic Moose is fundamentally a mouse/touchpad interface. It is not great on a touch device. It has a tree structure that is tough and the need to pull in the windows and scroll a lot with difficult to touch scroll arrows is also tough.
Additionally, it has limitations in looking at my library, that the other interfaces I use enable. A touch interface pretty much means you need sizeable screen elements you are meant to touch. This is partly why I like grids of artist images and album covers. I can peruse the grid, and use easily accessed scrolls to move to a different part of the library and peruse a different part of the grid and so on. A grid is a 2D way to visualize my library options. With the scroll it is as close to a 3D way to seeing it as is practicable. My preference. Also on any given day I want to sort that grid in different ways. One day I want my albums sorted by date (let me look at 1967). Another day I want albums sorted by artist. The next maybe I want to see it sorted by title to give me an almost random way of seeing my library. Another time I want to use the artist grid. It depends upon my mood. The moose is very limited at providing these kinds of interactions with it. The ability to instantly create playlists for my listening session is an important option for me and the ability to walk through my library in this way is fundamental to me being able to do that. It makes my music listening follow my thought flow. I might want to recreate a point in time when I was with friends listening to certain artists. Or a concert I attended or maybe I just want to listen to a variety of jazz pieces that go well together.
These are the things that drive my preferences. A web based viewer with limited ways of looking at my collection simply won't do it. Now, can I use SoundiRok or Rigeliean with my BDP? Of course I can. However SoundiRok is not being supported these days and I have seen Berrie step away from supporting old platforms as well. Bryston should step up and provide apps for tablets that allow a broader way of selecting music from my collection and leave the browser interface to settings and firmware updates.

BG

gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #68 on: 11 Jul 2020, 01:01 am »
I was referring to two scrolls on the right hand side right next to each other. This happens by default on an iPad when using Manic Moose!

It does this with the MacBook Pro also, but I'm cool with it. It works. I'm simply in awe with a product enabling me to access my entire CD collection of 2,700 with every composition at my fingertips. For me, this is the Jetsons in real life. The only time I am even looking at the interface is to select music. Otherwise, I looking straight ahead at my speakers and monitor.

unincognito

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #69 on: 11 Jul 2020, 01:19 am »
Why make a Alpine sports car and put a Dacia interior in it?

Because that’s would make for the coolest car with a Dacia interior ever!

WillyP

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #70 on: 11 Jul 2020, 09:33 am »
This time I really enjoyed the last reply from BigGeek, very insightful. Thank you very much.

The BDA-3.14 is in the house for only one week and is my second streamer. I had my first one for two and a half years and I was completely satisfied with it, but after I heard the BDA-3.14 I knew this would be my next streamer. So please see all my comments with that in mind.

For me, a streamer is a digital jukebox. I found out that after all these years, I am still a serial listener!

My personal preference is classical music. That is why I am interested in complete works: symphonies, concertos, cantatas, opera, string quartets, piano sonatas, etcetera. I don't care for the shuffle mode or parts of a work. The only exceptions are evening filling operas and oratorio. In that case, I would like to listen to a complete act or part.

The music on my hard disk is organized in folders, containing albums in alphabetical order. I have about 1000 albums on the hard disk, neatly tagged. Another 1000 albums are already ripped but I haven’t finished the tagging yet. That takes even more time than ripping the CDs. So what I normally do, is listening to albums, only this time in digital form.

A 15-inch notebook is used for Manic Moose. A 17-inch would be even better. In my opinion, Manic Moose is not perfect, but for the moment it is more than good enough for me. It does what it has to do, although I am still learning. A manual with all options declared would be helpful. The manual is not bad, but it could be better. I don’t have enough experience with Manic Moose to suggest improvements now. Therefore I need more time.

My first streamer was based on Logitech Music Server software. A bit outdated, I would say and I prefer Manic Moose by a wide margin. The app was iPeng, with some cosmetic changes.

At this moment I would say that Manic Moose or its successor is fine and the Rigelian app seems promising. The iPad version, I think the iPhone screen is too small for so much information.

Perhaps Bryston could seek cooperation with a company that can develop an app like Rigelian for iOS and Android.

Anyway, BigGeek and I have completely different needs for the software and I am afraid it will not be easy for Bryston to develop an app and a GUI that will satisfy everyone’s needs. I feel that the combination of the two is the way to go.

WillyP

terrycym

Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #71 on: 11 Jul 2020, 10:59 am »
Because that’s would make for the coolest car with a Dacia interior ever!

Wouldn't you want a cool car with a cool interior unlike BDP perhaps which is the point of some of the previous comments?

BigGeek

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #72 on: 11 Jul 2020, 04:42 pm »
It does this with the MacBook Pro also, but I'm cool with it. It works. I'm simply in awe with a product enabling me to access my entire CD collection of 2,700 with every composition at my fingertips. For me, this is the Jetsons in real life. The only time I am even looking at the interface is to select music. Otherwise, I looking straight ahead at my speakers and monitor.

You have written that you usually play albums all the way through, you have a trackpad with your laptop and you have a service provide your album art and tags. I can see why MM is OK with you, based on these preferences.

I use random access extensively, have a touch interface and I meticulously curate my tags, album art, artist images and liner notes ... (in booklet.pdf files).

We have two very different approaches to listening to our music collections.

Cheers

BG

James Tanner

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #73 on: 12 Jul 2020, 12:49 pm »
Anyway, BigGeek and I have completely different needs for the software and I am afraid it will not be easy for Bryston to develop an app and a GUI that will satisfy everyone’s needs. I feel that the combination of the two is the way to go.

WillyP


Hi Willy

Interesting thought - maybe there is room for a web and an app version.

james

gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #74 on: 12 Jul 2020, 03:29 pm »
You have written that you usually play albums all the way through, you have a trackpad with your laptop and you have a service provide your album art and tags. I can see why MM is OK with you, based on these preferences.

I use random access extensively, have a touch interface and I meticulously curate my tags, album art, artist images and liner notes ... (in booklet.pdf files).

We have two very different approaches to listening to our music collections.

Cheers

B

Wow BG, that is a lot of work. You mean to tell me you get liner notes too? I did not know the BDPs were capable of storing liner notes. If this is true, we do have different approaches. Can you share how you get liner notes? I will say the dbpoweramp is the best software for importing CDs I've ever used and it has improved sonic to go with it although my point of reference is iTunes only. But, I always get cover art so its use is convenient.  8)


terrycym

Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #75 on: 12 Jul 2020, 04:38 pm »
I use Soundirok which allows me to view PDF’s. Some downloads have liner notes, for those that don’t, I create my own, there are archives on the web with liner notes as well that I use on older material. Wikipedia and the artist’s web site is also a good source for information for the liner notes I create.
Roon can also deal with liner notes as well as quite a few other apps.

Can’t Bryston come up with a deal with the owner of Soundirok, he’s not updated it for quite a while after all?

vonnie123

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #76 on: 13 Jul 2020, 06:42 am »
I have a BDP-2 (IAD) and two BDP-1s.  Manic Moose is a workable software program. It is far more stable than previously. The MYBRYSTON webpage is helpful to locate the device, especially with more than one in use.  I have had some issues with the CF card being corrupted during MM updates.  I have learned to properly reformat the CF cards In the event of corruption.  The written instructions provided were excellent. 

I would like to see better instructions provided on the Dashboard interface, and what things do as the settings are changed and the boxes are checked/unchecked.  I also use Rigelian on my iPads.  I think Bryston should buy the Rigelian app and make it a Bryston product.  You'd save me $3.50 a year on the annual app fee that way.

The BDP-1s are a bit memory taxed changing Manic Moose settings and building databases; I am using one BDP-1 for MPD, and the other one for Roon in the same stack.  Darn things are nine years old and still kicking.  Another BDP-2 or BDP-3 is in my future.

I've have had Roon for several years, and it's a great program to use and has many convenience features.  That said, I think Bryston MPD is flat out sonically superior. 

BigGeek

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #77 on: 13 Jul 2020, 01:32 pm »
I use Soundirok which allows me to view PDF’s. Some downloads have liner notes, for those that don’t, I create my own, there are archives on the web with liner notes as well that I use on older material. Wikipedia and the artist’s web site is also a good source for information for the liner notes I create.
Roon can also deal with liner notes as well as quite a few other apps.

Can’t Bryston come up with a deal with the owner of Soundirok, he’s not updated it for quite a while after all?

Ditto.

One last comment for now.  I wouldn’t be using a BDP player if it wasn’t for the mobile apps. I would have sold it long ago if MM was my only choice of interface.


gbaby

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #78 on: 13 Jul 2020, 02:11 pm »
I have a BDP-2 (IAD) and two BDP-1s.  Manic Moose is a workable software program. It is far more stable than previously. The MYBRYSTON webpage is helpful to locate the device, especially with more than one in use.  I have had some issues with the CF card being corrupted during MM updates.  I have learned to properly reformat the CF cards In the event of corruption.  The written instructions provided were excellent. 

I would like to see better instructions provided on the Dashboard interface, and what things do as the settings are changed and the boxes are checked/unchecked.  I also use Rigelian on my iPads.  I think Bryston should buy the Rigelian app and make it a Bryston product.  You'd save me $3.50 a year on the annual app fee that way.

The BDP-1s are a bit memory taxed changing Manic Moose settings and building databases; I am using one BDP-1 for MPD, and the other one for Roon in the same stack.  Darn things are nine years old and still kicking.  Another BDP-2 or BDP-3 is in my future.

I've have had Roon for several years, and it's a great program to use and has many convenience features.  That said, I think Bryston MPD is flat out sonically superior.

Great post. Your last sentence is all that should matter to BDP owners.  8)

rhassle

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Re: Bryston Manic Moose Interface
« Reply #79 on: 13 Jul 2020, 04:12 pm »
GBaby you keep bringing up MPD versus other ways to listen. This thread is about the interface. Both SoundiRok and Rigelean use MPD for streaming the sound from the hard drive just like MM. There is no sound quality difference from that type of mobile app.

My Tidal rant was about the interface. It wasn't a statement about the sound quality. I seldom stream music from one of those sources and then only to find albums I would like to purchase.

BG