Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Sooloos sometimes severly tests the sanity & the patience

Feeding in more CDs, being meticulously careful about covers, titles & track data but Sooloos is severely testing the patince and making me wonder about my sanity.

CD1 was labelled as a complete unknown yet with CD2 in that set the cover and ALL data was retrieved. Someone explain how that can be when it is the one work (Bach's Xmas Oratorio - Gardiner).

A 3 CD set of more of Bach's cantatas. No covers (so they were scanned and inserted), titles which needed editing, and some, but not all track data. All three were burned in with track data upgraded and saved, only to find CD1 had vanished!! Burned it in again with no warning it was already there so the whole laborious process had to be repeated.

I've struck "disappearing CDs" before although that could often be traced back to weird artist interpretation but this was certainly not the case above as I was eagle eyed looking out for this. So, maybe the latest software upgrade has cured some problems (although none I've been dealing with lately) and introduced new ones? Unfortunately this does happen and looks like it could be the case with Sooloos. The old problems about non registering covers in Control:PC remain although I struck another newie today in that the thumbnail on the Control:10 had changed but not the bigger graphic. It is getting more & more weird. And the reluctance to accept changes in ordering in sets remains, whether the edit is done via Control:PC or Control:10.

Apologies if I appear to be continually griping but all this needs continual nagging or else Meridian will never improve things. I've tried communicating via my very good dealer but he seems to have as much difficulty being heard as the rest of us. The only feedback I've received in the last 6 months is "they are working on it" or lately "they are busy getting the iPad APP ready to release".

OK, I'll accept the problems are not simple ones to solve, but some sort of reassurance & communication from Meridian to their customers would be appreciated to -

1. Accept they recognise there are problems (and apologies for them could help soothe the savage breast)
2. Give some sort of committment to fixing them

Meridian, you reputation is at stake here - show some sort of commitment to your customers if you want us to recommend you.

Frankly, at the moment, I would not advise anyone with a classical music collection to buy into Sooloos.

John

Hi John

I turned down your big bright red writing. Please remember that we have no evidence that Meridian read what we write - and plenty of evidence that they don't. On the other hand, there are 3187 registered users of HH (and plenty of unregistered readers) many of whom own Sooloos and many of whom are already well aware that it is not a perfect system. Mostly your red neon just irritates those readers. We respect your feelings but you would do better directing any anger at Meridian through your dealer, on a regular basis.

I have the specific disc you mention as a part of this set. Which release do you have exactly? That or one of the separate releases?

I will try it in my Sooloos when it arrives in a few days.

To answer your specific question, I have ripped almost 1000 mostly classical CDs in the past few months, and I have come across this sort of thing, though statistically speaking it is rare. As far as I can see, it can only be put down to differences between pressings, which I know (having produced my own CDs) happens quite a lot. There is all sort of information on the disc which is not sound-related and which can change between pressings for one reason or another. I can well believe this could lead to discs not being recognised by a system. (Universal Music also press discs specifically for Australia - such as the Eloquence series - so it's possible you have a country-specific pressing.)

In any case, you found the disc on AMG and told Sooloos the correct number and it inserted the Metadata for you?

I can't comment on disappearing discs or unsaved changes (yet).

Hi John, when you say an album has disappeared can you confirm that this is the case specifically when you look at the C15 'view albums by import date'.
When I import or rip new Albums they appear top left of screen 1/x. When a multi-disc set is there I use the create set feature to group them and also correct any misalignment in artist or title detail.

Let's unravel this step by step.

John, you mention the artwork issue again. Pleae confirm if you have done as Carl suggested as a work around.

Just casting a glance over to Meridian Chat, they have problems there with CD drive doors not opening, CDs being scratched. So we exchange on set of niggles for another, this time software. At least the files don't get scratched!!

I'm a big Sooloos (music server ) fan. We are nearly early adopters and as such we have to live with niggles. I remember the first time I got on the Internet (WWW) in 1994, it wasn't easy. Now it's plug and play. In a few years, all this will be plug and play, meanwhile...

Great product though, sounds fantastic, that's what were here for.

Yes you can get around it but irritating to have to do so. My comment was designed to inspire Meridian to really do a digital extraction to fix it. With a product as highly touted and as expensive as this the bugs like this should have been attended to ages ago.

But the Control:10 showing the correct thumbnail but not the correct larger graphic was a new one on me.

John

If you read my post you will see that yes, I have spent many hours detailing problems and sending them to the dealer with absolutely no feedback - are bold & italics acceptable? I'm really despairing about how we ever get any reaction from Meridian.


Those 2 discs are not part of the set you mention but a stand alone 2 disc set Archiv 4233232-2 with specific bar coding stating 28942 32322. Made in West Germany/Fabrique en RFA if that is any help. Australian pressings are few and far between on discs like this these days.

I appreciate your loyalty to Meridian and, as a moderator of this forum, understand you desire to defend them. I'm not anti Meridian as such and have spent many thousands of dollars on their products over the years - their audio quality is brilliant. But I really am sick of their attitude in ignoring their customers. Insisting on living in a high tower runs the big risk of losing touch with those who previously were followers.

John

dBpoweramp PerfectMeta� uses 5 providers: AMG, GD3, SonataDB, MusicBrainz and freedb, so it probably has a larger database for hits, however, until Meridian fixes the "Prefer local metadata" bug the point is moot.

I find with the CD's I rip with dBpa it finds 500x500 cover art, the Sooloos rip covers tend to be 200x200. I use higher-res sources, as 200x200 looks terrible on Control screen, 500x500 is OK, 600x600 or better looks good.

I wrote up my recommended ripping methodology on Sooloos ripping and put it on the Wiki : Ripping suggestions

I have talked to Meridian-Sooloos product managers, I think the persistence of bugs is not due to indifference, but rather prioritization of work, lack of manpower (not enough programmers, QA, etc) . Gentle encouragement is recommended, as the more boxes they sell the more headcount they can justify.

IMHO, Sooloos is the premiere digital audio solution on the market, with integration with my fav. prepro so it is mostly good. Audio Quality concerns at Meridian trump all others, and that's how we got here, and hope it stays that way!

I don't think the problem lies solely at Meridians door. Rick on here seems to have a batphone that gets through to the right people so it may be worth going via someone more proactive and/or connected than your local dealer.

Unfortunately having worked in IT for many years, I feel that some of your queries may never be resolved. Its just the nature of the industry that the moment something is identified as either cosmetic or has a work around, its priority drops and continued development or serious bugs further up the list will take priority. Its still worth reporting bugs as sometimes the lower priority ones are resolved when other work takes place in the areas impacted - often by some kind developer working late so that it does not impact the time scales of the work that they are meant to be working on.

Hi John,

I understand your frustrations, as you�re not getting good service from your dealer/distributor. May I suggest writing or faxing to Meridian directly. I feel this may be more conducive expressing your feelings on here.

Meridian Audio Ltd
Latham Road
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE29 6YE
England
T: +44 (0)1480 445678
F: +44 (0)1480 445686

If you wish to make it an open letter and post it here I'm fine with that too.

You�re not the only one frustrated; I too (amongst others) have a long outstanding issue with continued Native Export failure bug that I would like to see closure on; and we all want the track level metadata to be enhanced.

Regards,
Carl

I may be relativly old, but I still make a living writing code, over the years c, c++, c# etc. One of the biggest bug bears is user saying
"... doesnt work on my machine"

Now contrast that with what happens here on this site. Carl et al spent what must have been ages investigating the export issue, to the point of packaging a reproducible failure. The result, as far as I can tell is nothing. In my opinion, this is simply not acceptable.

BUT, lets face it. M are small and probably dont have the resource to do it properly. So I put up with it because, frankly, the sound quality is stunning.

But the thing is, with a product like Sooloos, the investment in terms of money is just the start. The ripping, metadata sourcing, image copying takes up an enormous amount of time. So when it doesnt work quite right, it is incredibly frustrating. So I really do sympathise with Johns viewpoint.

Cheers
Greg

So, I am sure that whoever goes to the Oxford open day and the Bristol session (where HQ staff will be found) can have a good discussion about these issues.

Ronnie showed Roland specific issues in Control:PC last year so will be very interesting to have an update from him on those (for example)