Hi all,

I thought it was probably time I wrote something about a project I've been working on for quite a while now, as it has grown rather beyond what I originally intended.

It started with **Meridian Control**.

Like quite a few Meridian owners, I still have a lot of Meridian equipment that I genuinely like and have absolutely no intention of throwing away just because the surrounding software ecosystem has moved on.

The original aim was therefore fairly modest: get Meridian Control working properly again, fix some of the annoyances, and make it practical to continue using a Sooloos/Meridian system with modern computers.

That was the beginning of the rabbit hole.

### From fixing Control to building Core

Once I started pulling it apart, it became obvious that simply keeping an old control application alive wasn't really the answer.

I wanted something that could manage my music properly, retain the things that were good about Sooloos, and work with both Meridian equipment and everything else that has appeared in the house since.

The obvious commercial answer is Roon.

Roon is an impressive product, but personally I didn't want another ongoing subscription simply to use and manage a music collection I already own. More importantly, my requirements were beginning to go beyond what I wanted from a conventional two-channel music server.

So the project changed direction.

**Brimstone Core** was born.

The idea is a self-hosted music and media core which you own and run yourself, with **Control** applications acting as the user interface.

There's no intention to replace the character of Meridian/Sooloos with a generic media player. A lot of what made Sooloos pleasant to use is precisely the sort of thinking I'm trying to retain.

But I also don't want the system frozen in 2010.

### More than stereo

One of the big reasons for building this rather than simply moving to another music server is that I want to go considerably further than two-channel playback.

Core is being developed with things such as:

- Meridian/Sooloos playback and control
- Sonos and other network audio devices
- local CoreAudio/Windows/Linux audio endpoints
- high-resolution PCM
- DSD
- multichannel audio
- DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Audio extraction/playback
- optical disc ripping
- Spotify integration and playlist access
- Bandcamp purchases
- internet radio and podcasts
- audiobooks with resume/progress
- multiple editions and copies of albums
- proper metadata and artwork management

Multichannel is particularly important to me.

There is a huge amount of interesting surround material sitting on SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray and other formats, and I'd like Core to treat that material as a first-class part of a music collection rather than assuming that music automatically means two speakers.

I'm also using Meridian hardware in the development and testing, including HDMI into a Meridian HD621, alongside more conventional USB and digital audio interfaces.

### Where it is now

What started as an attempt to repair Meridian Control has now become a complete server and control platform.

The current Core library and playback system is working, the new Control interface is taking shape, and we're now at the stage where most development is about fixing edge cases, improving usability and making installation sensible for people who don't particularly want to become Linux administrators just to listen to an album.

The user interface has also moved considerably beyond the original Meridian Control application.

The aim is a modern dark hi-fi interface, while retaining the simple idea that your music collection is the centre of the system rather than burying it underneath endless configuration screens.

This is still very much an enthusiast project and **it is not finished software**.

There will be bugs.

There will almost certainly be some magnificent bugs.

But it has reached the point where I'd like some other Meridian users to start abusing it and finding the things I've missed.

### Beta

I'm aiming to release the first public **Beta of Brimstone Core and Control within the next few weeks**.

The project will be at:

**core-audio.uk**

I'm particularly interested in testers who already have Meridian/Sooloos equipment, because testing against a wider variety of real Meridian systems is going to be far more useful than me repeatedly testing against the same collection of boxes.

I'd also be interested in people with unusual music libraries, multichannel material, high-resolution audio or mixed systems involving Meridian plus Sonos/USB/network players.

If you'd like to help test it, please email me directly:

**Chris.swain@brimstonecottage.uk**

At this stage I'm not looking for people to simply say whether they like the colour of a button. I'm looking for people willing to actually use it, break it, tell me what doesn't work and help make it better.

It has been a slightly ridiculous journey from **"can I fix Meridian Control?"** to **"apparently I'm building an entire music platform"**, but that's where we are.

And, if nothing else, it means some very good Meridian hardware gets to carry on doing what it was built to do.

Chris

Various music kit, lots of IT stuff