These are examples of what I call „one-step cascading views“ like „by genre (and subgenres) and albums listed“ .
What I look for are views like „by label, then by genre (and subgenres) and albums listed.
That’s why I ask for self customizable multi hierarchical views. Because you can’t think of everything, someone looks for.
Otherwise functionality is extremely basic (for my needs) and in other terms probably for others, too.
This is quite normal for many applications, I just think the demand regarding library SW is quite individual and in case of an application being the only choice for a piece of HW it’s even harder for some.
I then get a long list of works, some of which are individual pieces; others, contain a sublist such as all of the individual Goldberg Variations.
This is of no use to me unless it does something I do not understand.
As a separate matter, can someone post a list of metadata fields and how they are filled in for a variety of genres? I am most interested in classical and do not understand what is in the metadata which leads to the results I am seeing.
As an early adopter of Roon it always concerns me when I see people say Jriver or something else sounds better. Many Roon users would disagree (I am on the fence) so how do you qualify that Octave sounds better than Roon?
Paul, what makes you think Roon isn’t going to be around long term? It’s versatile, and can be used with many products. On the other hand, PS Audio Octave should be targeted to be available for the same wide array of products and users, and any subscription fees for Octave should be greatly reduced for owners of PS Audio music delivery hardware.
It’s not that I don’t think they’ll be around. I haven’t any thought that they won’t be. That said, I can’t in good conscience build and deliver a product to my customers that depends on third party software that is expensive and exclusive. That’s not the right thing to do. We originally went with our current strategy, UPnP, because there are many available third party apps. Not the best user experience, but certainly this method won’t risk bricking our products should something happen.
Octave will be free. It will not have a monthly charge. It’s only restricted to our own hardware and that’s for more technical reasons than anything else.
No. Unfortunately not. Octave takes a ton of processing horsepower and Bridge II just doesn’t have it. Have to be Bridge III. That said, we’ll make it as easy and financially painless as possible for trades.
This might have been covered in previous requests, but using Jremote one of the problems I’d like to see dealt with is in Octave is when you have multiple versions of the same album, sometimes different sample rates, a flac and an aif version, two different masterings only distinguishable by year mastered, and albums with 2 channel and multi chanel versions. They come up in a list with 2 or 3 listings of the same song.
I’d also like to be able to tag a preferred version of the said album I wish to play.
And also perhaps a way to either delete an album via the remote control or at least mark it for deletion and delete the media later.
As far as meta data editing, some of the albums I have are missing a tagging category (for artist sometimes) so I’d like to be able to add that data.
Another thing I like about jriver is the ability to send to other zones (for casual listening) that are not ps audio renderers.
How would that be done?
It would be a shame to have to switch to another server software to do that. And even worse if my library on the PS audio device was innacessable from another server software.
If this not possible would the PS server be able to run octave and jriver at the same time so jriver could serve the background music zones?
At the very least I would think you could keep your library on a NAS and access it from the Octave and any other servers you have. Just guessing but a library on the Octave server itself might not be accessible to other servers because I think they want to stay away from UPnP.
Paul,
I spent 15 minutes with OCTAVE and like the GUI and features. I would use it. Great (fantastic) work by the design & development team you have on this. FYI, my avoidance of ROON has to do with the fact that since they touch the bits at Fs frequency for volume or DSP they will also diminish resolution and fideltiy - despite being at 64-bit (or whatever) resolution. I much prefer that these features are integrated (in hardware) in the DAC or DAC/XOVER at the final upsampled frequency …like Ted’s 1280Fs@50bits. Yes, our ears can hear this. So although OCTAVE can calculate per-track volume leveling and maintain preferences for bass boost or room correction etc., you just pass these on down to the DAC/XOVER along with the original music bits for hardware processing. I anticipate and hope that this is your goal. I want OCTAVE to look good, work well and sound great.
Dan
I agree, I use Roon now mostly for it’s ability to help me find new music I’ll likely enjoy from Tidal. It also helps me find music in my own library. I see the Discover option but it’s not clear how sophisticated the relationships it builds and presents to me as a listener.
I would like to be able to connect to any/all of the online music services. I simply don’t want to purchase any more physical media. I haven’t put a disc in for many months, perhaps years.
Furthering Dmance’s request for supporting digital crossover (which Jriver currently has- but everything has to be converted to PCM) it would be amazing if it supported digital crossovers and multiple dacs. Send the bass and above a certain frequency to one dac for your main speakers and low bass to another dac for subs. The dacs have to be synced to do this.
Had a play, looks great so far.
Couple of comments?
GUI customisation
Too much can lead to audiophillia Nervosa…keeping it simple is a good thing.
One thing,
Offering a Light/Dark theme is a good option to have though, be real happy to run Octave ‘dark’ as it looks better to my eyes.
Keeping it simple - but not too simple.
One thing Jriver does well is keep its complexity hidden, its there if you Want to shape it to how you want, but doesn’t bamboozle those that dont.
Please dont sacrafice functionality for simplicity?
Some the cool stuff Roon and Jriver can do can really add to the experience.
We’re all music lovers regardless of what software we use, lets spread the love!
I know many people just want a one-box streamer solution with nice features, like Naim with Roon and this makes real sense in the PS Audio product line.
I build my own computer music servers and have different needs. I’d like a rich control point with Roon-like browsing that we could install on our own computers (like a fancy control point) and use the music server and renderer of our choice, say via Minimserver + Jplaystreamer. Could this perhaps be a spin-off product from Octave?
Re the Octave interface, for me the thing that stands out is the need for different interfaces for PC, tablet and phones. Serious library maintenance will probably be done on a PC and playback will be controlled on a mobile device.
I think a design point of Octave was for it to run entirely in its own exclusive ecosystem. Trying to get hardware and software to work with vendors of other products that you have no control over can be inherently difficult and subject to random outcomes.
Which is why we’ve developed both a robust webpage interface and a mobile one. You’re looking at the web interface which is hosted internally on the server and is what you’ll use for any serious maintenance via a PC.