Local Library Search - Some Positive Suggestions

 I don’t think they will ever seek out servers like MinimServer etc.  Totally different approach to music streaming.  Bluesound uses the same share concept and will probably also never change to working with a server.

 I did, however, use Bubble UPnP Server on a Windows PC to make my Sonos Port an Open Home device and can now use the Linn app to stream from MinimServer.  UPnP is also an option, but it’s not gapless like Open Home.

I think Lenbrook would much prefer you to buy a BlueSound Vault than open blueos to dlna servers 😂

Curiously NAD are releasing a network player that isn’t BlueOS based, supports Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, Google Chromecast, DLNA, Roon and is only £299, which seems a bit low for NAD.

I wish OpenHome had taken off with Linn making it open. For me a bugbear with upnp was the queue being per control point side, rather than per device. OpenHome fixed that flaw.

I suspect the biggest headache for Sonos opening up upnp support is available tags becomes even more uncontrolled. ReadyMedia/Minidlna is pretty basic in the tags it makes available, I use Asset rather than Minim, but with both the catalogue tree can be customised. Then there is the various random NAS implementations.

By keeping the tag extract and catalogue server within the devices, in theory they control end-to-end from extraction to presentation so can keep it consistent. It seems they’re unable to understand how to make it work though.

@Walter Eagle 

Surely there's a market out there of people with local libraries who want to listen to their music. And they'd like software to allow them to enhance that experience, either finding and selecting the music, or to supplement the listening. Can it be that hard?

I still have a local library, but in reality it is used as more and more as a backup for when my internet connection is down than my primary source. Almost everything I have on it I can just stream. The last few CDs I bought I haven’t even ripped and put on my NAS yet because Qobuz have them all. Even the digital downloads from the Qobuz store I have downloaded and stored, I usually stream.

A large part of my listening is also transient. Streaming gives me access to far more music than I could ever buy or even want to buy. There will be things I listen to for a month or two this year, because they are right, but it’s not something I ever want to keep or listen to in the future.

Last.FM used to find me all sorts of out of the ordinary things I liked back when I started with Sonos ZP80/100 scobbling to it. Over time it got worse though.

While technically it isn’t that difficult to take a clean data set about the tracks, the data set of what you have listened to and a data set of what other people listen to and generate recommendations, it’s not going to give the greatest results without a lot of intervention and people who have insight into context and why someone who likes track A from artist X might also like track B from artist Y.

At a high level it would work, but it misses the more complex connections that are rarely logical. Music is emotional, situational, a memory, a mood change. From one album to the next as I listen I will often have a complete change in genre, mood, tempo, sound. Without understanding the context of why I like something it’s going to be tricky to predict good fits for the next thing.

 I favor local library access because most of my music is classical orchestral and is easier to search for because of the way I tag classical.  Also I have several pieces that are not available on streaming services.  There is slightly better quality streaming local rather than the cloud.  Granted I can’t tell that much difference using Sonos speakers, but with my higher end system there is a difference.

Yes, this is the why the math for a local library numbering in the 10s of thousands of tracks no longer works. By the time you filter down to rare tracks not available on streaming that you’re planning to listen to enough times to justify the manual labour and infrastructure investment required to curate them, you arrive at a very small number of tracks. That number probably measures in the 100s.

@edmountain 

I'm old enough to have lived through several incarnations of recorded media. Vinyl (first time round), CDs, MP3s etc. Each time I chose to embrace the next technology, it wasn't because the previous medium player stopped doing what I wanted. Turntables still went round, CDs still shone their lasers … I made the choice based on personal reasons and preferences.

Eventually, before streaming sources emerged, I decided to rip all my many CDs and use the ripped audio files as my source, plus subsequent downloads that I continued purchasing. I selected SONOS to deliver that music to me.

Now I find I may be in a position where my MP3s and SONOS really don't work well together. I may have to alter my listening technology yet again - but this time it's been forced on me by SONOS.

Quite frankly, I don't want to change. I like my music. I'm so old I don't want to explore strange new genres, seek out weird artists, and boldly go where my ears have never been before. If I were younger I'd kick my SONOS equipment out the door in a heartbeat. But I'd have to spend silly money to replace it and I just don't see me getting value from any equipment for the years I have left. Obviously an individual with no investment in a music collection (financial or emotional) and with many more years of listening to come wouldn't reach the same conclusion as me.

But why oh why did SONOS have to remove or disable functionality while claiming it to be an upgrade or advance? 

That makes sense, especially as there isn’t really a good source of online data, free or paid, to use for comprehensive tagging.

I’m curious to see what Samsung/Harman do with Roon, so drop in and out of their forum. There have been some positive steps already. A big gripe is still the state of meta data added to peoples libraries. When you consider Roon use both paid and volunteer crowd-sourced providers and it is still lacking, manual tagging is the only way to really get what you want.

High quality metadata and tagging is a resource intensive data entry and fact cross checking process. Labels generally aren’t going to dedicate spending money and staff time for more than the bare minimum.
As the number of people with local libraries dwindles, even crowd-sourcing ends up limited in scope. Some people who in the early days helped build up the free online sources are less willing when it’s becoming mostly used by commercial companies who then just sell it back to them rather than help contribute.

Exactly my thinking. But, if you have already spent hours curating and invested in infrastructure for local library, its harder to make the decision to remove files or turn off completely, as you are reminding yourself all the time and money you spent ‘building’ the local library.

I decided to ditch my local library a couple of years ago, even though I had invested considerable time in importing and tagging. It had its time and place.

I used Spotify initially, but then moved to Apple Music, my playlists migrated with Song Shifter.

All playlists now managed in Apple Music, they are with me all the time, and can easily be shared.

Shazam occasionally used to add a track to playlists on the move, that I can then listen to when at home.

I wonder in some ways if this is the space ‘outside of the home’ Sonos are thinking of as referenced on the recent call… The irony for me here is that in order to use Sonos to manage playlists across different providers outside the home for use on say Sonos headphones, you need the ability to edit an effing queue or playlist easily which doesn’t appear to be a core function of the new experience! 

It would also make local libraries stand out as a bit of a sore thumb as serving those over the internet via a speaker would presumably require a bit more oomph than some older speakers have. 

I still use my local library a lot as I listen to music quite a bit in the car, and use wireless CarPlay which gives lossless audio, unlike bluetooth connections. So my local library is effectively shared between Apple Music, Sonos and Minimserver which drives my Naim streamer for ‘serious’ listening. I can also feed the Naim with a Port which works well. 

Having music on my phone in the car is a big plus as I don’t have to worry about patchy connectivity and variable quality. 

I also prefer to buy an album if I really like it still as more money ends up in the hands of those who deserve it. Streaming is however a great way to explore new stuff. 

I am aware however that much of this puts me in a minority … 

I can't argue with your personal choices regarding how you curate music. That's completely up to you.

But from the perspective of Sonos, considering that they are a for-profit business it's no surprise that they're focusing on the market segment that's growing rather than the segment which is shrinking.