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[JimH]

What services matter to you most?  Where will we be in 5 years?  What does JRiver need to do to be current?

This thread is a branch of this one:

Media in the Future

Thanks for your thoughts.

[mwillems]

I was having a conversation with a few younger friends the other day, and I asked about their music consumption habits these days.  I have a lot of younger friends, and I'm surprised by how many of them have never really paid for music in their lives.  They were teenagers in the early 2000's, and the accepted practice was to use torrents to download whatever they wanted, and they've never really connected with physical media except as a conversation piece (a few vinyl records for decoration).

But they're (mostly) becoming adults now and several of them are trying to "go legit" in their music consumption (meaning actually pay for the goods and services they're consuming), so I was interested to hear about their experiences.  One of them is buying mp3s of stuff he likes to add to an already large digital collection; I've recommended JRiver to him in the past, and he's thinking hard about converting from Clementine (he's a Linux user and makes music so is a little more interested in good playback software). 

On the other hand, one of them uses spotify for all of his listening.  If he's got an itch to hear something that isn't on spotify, he just looks it up on youtube.  The premium spotify service will allow you to download onto a PC or device, but it's encrypted and only playable in their app.  A third one uses Amazon's music service which can stream, but has a similar device download model to spotify.  When I talked to them about JRiver, they were sort of confused about what it could even do for them, and given the lack of integration, I wasn't sure how to pitch it.  When I showed off my JRiver home theater setup, the thing they seemed most impressed about was the user interface in Theater View, and (curiously) the image search now playing function.

I feel like the streaming services are increasingly working to prevent interoperability and to create walled gardens.  That's why I think the proposed WDM driver is an important part of the future of JRiver.  Being able to intercept audio from any source will effectively create integration no matter how hard the services try to prevent it.  It's not as convenient as native support, but audio streaming services are proliferating like weeds (Google Music, Qobuz, 8Tracks, Pandora, etc.) and native support may not be achievable.

Obviously I'm coming from a different spot than all that, but I thought I'd offer my anecdotal observations.

[glynor]

When I showed off my JRiver home theater setup, the thing they seemed most impressed about was the user interface in Theater View, and (curiously) the image search now playing function.

Same here.

I feel like the streaming services are increasingly working to prevent interoperability and to create walled gardens.  That's why I think the proposed WDM driver is an important part of the future of JRiver.  Being able to intercept audio from any source will effectively create integration no matter how hard the services try to prevent it.  It's not as convenient as native support, but audio streaming services are proliferating like weeds (Google Music, Qobuz, 8Tracks, Pandora, etc.) and native support may not be achievable.

This is good.

I don't know about the audio quality thing, though.  We're nerds, but they've already got us, by and large.  DVD didn't "win" over VHS because it was better quality.  DVD won because you didn't have to rewind, and you could skip chapters instantly to find the part your kid wants to watch (over and over and over).

Convenience trumps quality almost every time.  There are notable exceptions, though.  Usually, though, you need both (and one is decidedly more important than the other, once you reach "acceptable" quality).

In a perfect world, you could aggregate all of that content and make it easily searchable and browsable via MC's interface.  But, I think you can't.  Certainly not with a team the size of yours, but I don't even think Google could do it.  Because the problem set is too big, and as you pointed out, they want to close them all off into walled gardens.  And I don't see that changing.  It is DRM plan 2.0 from the media conglomerates.

DRM has never been about piracy, by the way, it has been about "controlling the gates".  Otherwise, the artists (film producers, TV producers, etc) could just release content directly to consumers (taking a MUCH bigger cut of sales), and media conglomerates would be just big, way overpriced ad agencies and banks.

[6233638]

I don't know anyone other than myself buying music now.
Almost everyone has now switched over to streaming services—primarily Spotify here.
When people come over, they are surprised that someone who is obviously into music, only has such a “limited” library compared to what they can access on Spotify.
They don't understand the quality argument—the 320K premium stream is good enough and vinyl is seen as the “quality” option these days.
 
Computer-based setups are either confusing to many of them, or something they actively don't want.
People want to spend less time in front of a PC these days.
They bought into either Sonos or AirPlay and are used to controlling everything from their iPhones or iPads.
 
They have essentially discarded all of their old media. They don't care about loading up their devices with music, or serving music from a PC to their speakers, since they can just do it directly from their phones. Why add something to complicate matters?
 
When they visit, they still have access to all of Spotify’s library and all of my AirPlay devices just show up for them.
They don't have to configure anything or install a new app. I don't know what the situation would be like with Sonos devices, but I do know that DLNA is useless since guests can't send audio to it.
 
When I used to have shelves of CDs and a multi-CD player, we'd decide what we wanted to listen to together, but that's long-gone.

Most don't care about accessing my library now, and for those that do, I have to hand them one of my devices since JRemote is a paid app, it requires a password/access key, and even if it got that far, that now gives them external access/control to my media, which I don't want.
The app really needs to be free, and have a guest mode where the password is optional, it only gets local access with completely separate library views, and only has access to whitelisted zones.
Maybe make the current functionality an in-app purchase if you don't want to go totally free.
 
I don't know how I would sell them on Media Center to be honest.
It doesn't support the major streaming services, doesn't transmit or receive AirPlay audio, and even I can't get it to do synchronized multi-room audio so there's no chance of it replacing their Sonos system.
 
If it aggregated multiple services and treated them no differently from local music, that might be something of interest to people. But it has to work with their existing music systems first. There needs to at least be a free version of JRemote and yes, AirPlay support, for it to convert anyone. And I think Sonos already does that?

[mwillems]

When they visit, they still have access to all of Spotify’s library and all of my AirPlay devices just show up for them.
They don't have to configure anything or install a new app. I don't know what the situation would be like with Sonos devices, but I do know that DLNA is useless since guests can't send audio to it.

If/when the WDM output driver becomes a reality, something to seriously consider is creating a JRiver input driver as well that would route input from various external sources (wired, bluetooth, etc.) into JRiver.  Creating a general input interface would probably be a serious investment of resources, but would effectively "cinch" integration with apps like spotify because you could then capture playback not just from the webstreaming service on the JRiver PC, but could actually capture the output from the apps in people's phones (which is key to successful integration).  All they'd have to do is plug it in to an audio jack or do the bluetooth pairing, etc.  I agree with Glynor; if the integration is not convenient, it won't happen.  

On a related note, getting guest's music onto my speakers has been a bit of a sticking point in my system, since JRiver is effectively my preprocessor.  It has been surprisingly difficult get an external input into JRiver.  I have hardware that can provide the input stream (I have wired analog to digital converters, and I have a bluetooth receiver that I could interconnect), but there's not a native way to get those audio streams into JRiver. The ASIO driver helped, but it still requires an external program to route the audio from the input to JRiver's playback.  Even a mundane input like a USB record player requires using some kind of ASIO bridge for playback in JRiver.

So better input integration would not only allow for more robust integration with streaming services (which are probably the future of audio consumption), but would also simplify some of the kinds of "guest" problems that 6233638 is describing, and improve JRiver's functionality as a whole-system front end.

[6233638]

Yes, being able to let guests send audio to Media Center would be good.
There are some hacked-together solutions that kind-of work for this, but it isn't pretty.
Basically run an AirPlay Receiver app on the PC and enable Loopback in Media Center and you should be able to play the audio through it.
 
Loopback itself is not a user-friendly solution though, and something that a WDM driver would hopefully solve.
 
This works to allow guests to play their own music through your system while still including any DSP you normally use, such as room correction.
 
But it doesn't provide a good way for guests to control your library through their own devices.
I think the options I described above for JRemote would cover most of those requirements.
They should be able to download a free app on their devices which gives them local-only access to a customized/restricted view of my library, completely separate from what I see with JRemote connecting using an access key and password on my own devices.

[connersw]

The days of a massive music library are dead.  The amount of money and time required to acquire and maintain a large catalog cannot compete with the convenience of streaming services.  The way I see it, the market has been split into two camps:

1) The main market of online streaming which favors convenience over quality.  MP3 streams are "good enough" and catalogs of "nearly" any song I want.  

2) The smaller niche market that consists of audiophiles, DJs, and live music affectionados.  They either want the best possible sound, or they have a distinct musical collection that you will not find easily in traditional streaming catalogs.  

JRiver has traditionally served the 2nd market.  Competing in the 1st market requires heavy overhead and the ability (and willingness) to adapt quickly.

In order to compete in the 1st market, you need to offer something that just using a regular streaming service cannot provide.  The only thing I can see that being is truly integrated search and playback.  A user has Amazon Music, Spotify, and a small Library of rare remixes or live performances.  Search needs to be able to provide seamless results of all content, including filtering only the best possible result when duplicates exist (whether that be the highest quality or local playback).  And it has to be able to do this with very little set up required on the end user.  While a WDM driver goes a long way into helping the 2nd market have more options, it doesn't do anything to win over the 1st market.  They don't want to search multiple times on different pages.  They don't want to take the time to organize and tag all their music.  They want to search, hit a button, and hear music; that's it.

Sonos provides an integrated search, with a clean interface, but it lacks high quality playback.  You've talked about competing with Sonos, but are you really ready to invest in what it would take to do so?  It would mean a dramatic switch in operating philosophy.  The interface would have to focus way more on ease of use and looks.  API's would need to be paid for.  Additional engineering staff would need to be brought on board.  Personally, I would love to see it happen.

The other option is to stay within the 2nd market, and dominate it by winning over users from other multi-media software (Plex, XMBC, Media Browser, etc).  In order to do this though, it still requires some shift in core company philosophy.  I already believe JRiver offers the best Audio (and Video) playback.  Where it struggles is ease of use, set-up, user friendliness, and interface.

[High-End]

The days of a massive music library are dead.  ...(from start to end).... Where it struggles is ease of use, set-up, user friendliness, and interface.

I totally agree!
Stay in "market 2" and work on the user interface ( app)

[pahunt]

The days of a massive music library are dead.

I have to disagree with this. I live in the middle of nowhere (south west of England) and mobile connectivity here is patchy at best and while the idea of streaming everything from Spotify or some other service has a certain appeal it is not practical for me unless I'm sat in my home. As soon as I walk out of the front door I have to have anything I want to listen to stored on a device. I've no doubt this will change in years to come but it's just not a possibility for me at this time.

[StFeder]

The days of a massive music library are dead.

I'm not sure about this either. At least not in this general statement.

I'd say for the masses you're quiet right in saying so. Anyone who doesn't spend much time in actively listening to music will go the much easier way and use a streaming service with radio/playlist services and without the need to manage anything (or at least not much) on his/her own.

But there are many active music-listener around here at interact. They spend much time in managing their library and right now (as far as I now... I may be wrong) we don't have the ability to manage music at streaming services as easy and extensive as we are able to do with local stored. Is it possible to tag all the music at streaming services with custom tags? Create static Playlists (and more important) dynamic Smartlists as a function of (custom) tags? And what about losing the right to stream a file? Not a single customer but the whole service. If some songs get delisted from a service, every customer will lose access to this song as well even if it was a in any way important one.

So in conclusion I agree that for the majority streaming services will indeed marginalize music librarys, but I don't think in middle term music librarys will be dead. We'll see what happens the long term...

[6233638]

I have to disagree with this. I live in the middle of nowhere (south west of England) and mobile connectivity here is patchy at best and while the idea of streaming everything from Spotify or some other service has a certain appeal it is not practical for me unless I'm sat in my home. As soon as I walk out of the front door I have to have anything I want to listen to stored on a device. I've no doubt this will change in years to come but it's just not a possibility for me at this time.

Spotify lets you store a local cache on mobile devices for offline use.

[...]we don't have the ability to manage music at streaming services as easy and extensive as we are able to do with local stored. Is it possible to tag all the music at streaming services with custom tags? Create static Playlists (and more important) dynamic Smartlists as a function of (custom) tags?

You should sign up for a free trial of Spotify to see what it offers. You might be surprised.

[rec head]

I agree with most of what has been said including large libraries being dead. My wife used to buy music but is basically done with it and only buys CD's she really wants because she knows I want her to. Maybe she would buy mp3's but she does a lot of streaming.

Sure some of us will keep buying tracks to own locally but I think this will keep dwindling. The new huge library might be an aggregator of all the services.

[Vocalpoint]

You should sign up for a free trial of Spotify to see what it offers. You might be surprised.

The only think I am surprised with on my new Spotify Canada account is how it simply does not work. Last week I was in for a couple of hours. Last three days - nothing but a big spinning circle via their Web Player. This is a classic example of why streaming services cannot be relied upon for anything. If this was my only music source - I would be totally hooped.

I am in the third largest city in Canada with a dedicated 100 MB connection and I cannot even access the site. And this is a good thing?

VP

[mwillems]

The main limitation of Spotify and similar services from my perspective is that (at least for the kind of music I'm interested in) their reach is very limited.  I like a lot of unusual and/or unpopular music, and when I've demoed spotify it often (about 50% of the time) just didn't have what I was looking for.  And even when my searches provided hits, spotify might have one album by a given artist, but none of the other albums.  There's definitely some unusual stuff in the spotify catalog, it's just not necessarily the unusual stuff I'm looking for.

It's a lot like my netflix experience frankly; I can usually find something that I'm willing to watch, sometimes even pretty weird stuff, but I often can't find what I actually want to watch.  Because of the way the rightsholders have carved up the landscape, I'm not confident that things are going to improve much in the short term, but I'm open to being surprised.

And, frankly, my music "problem" has been more or less the same since the 90's.  Record stores didn't carry what I wanted either.  I still buy about a quarter of my music the exact same way today that I did 20 years ago: directly from artists and small labels (I just order it on their websites instead of sending them a letter).  And I would 100% buy from Amazon or stream if I could, believe me; I don't particularly enjoy having to sign up for accounts all over the internet and pay shipping from overseas.  At least now there's paypal  

I have a couple younger friends (in their 20's) who do actually buy music, and it's mostly for the same reasons; what they want isn't currently available unless you buy it outright or torrent it.  None of that will displace streaming services entirely, but it represents a supplement.

[Vocalpoint]

It's a lot like my netflix experience frankly; I can usually find something that I'm willing to watch, sometimes even pretty weird stuff, but I often can't find what I actually want to watch.  Because of the way the rightsholders have carved up the landscape, I'm not confident that things are going to improve much in the short term, but I'm open to being surprised.

+1 - while I have enjoyed my new Spotify Canada basic account - but I find myself hitting Skip almost every second song. The service provides music that I am willing to put up with but does not provide the music I actually want to listen to. This is why MC (and my very large local library) will never be beat in terms of serving up what I want - when I want it.

VP

[6233638]

I understand this—and it's part of the reason why I still want to manage my own library.
 
But the people who buy software to manage their own media library are a very small minority, and the people who hang around discussing this sort of thing on their support forums are an even smaller subset of that.
 
For most people Spotify has a big enough library that it covers almost anything they would want to listen to, and as I understood it, if you're hitting the thumbs up/down buttons on tracks, it should get a better idea of what you like over time, if you're playing "radio" rather than listening to albums.
 
 
I do agree that things are basically splitting off into two separate markets, and it seems like Media Center should strive to be the best alternative to streaming services possible, for the people like us who do want their own music library.
 
But I've even noticed a lot of people with their own libraries moving over to streaming services now, rather than buying more music—especially as these services start using higher quality audio.
If Spotify upgraded their premium stream quality from 320K MP3 to lossless 16/44, or added a higher tier above the current subscriptions I would start using it and buy a lot less music.
 
If these streaming services could be integrated, it would mean that people would still be using Media Center rather than switching to another app—Spotify integration would be a big deal.
 
I do also agree that without running their own streaming service, JRiver will always be at the mercy of others though, so I can understand why Jim would be hesitant to invest a lot of money on integrating these services.
 
Being able to at least play audio from those services through Media Center with a WDM driver or being able to receive audio directly from apps running on mobile devices would certainly help.
 
 
And for what it's worth, Spotify absolutely does let you do things like build playlists, it has Play Doctor functionality with the Radio feature, and still lets you save tracks/albums to your own "library" on the service—that's why I suggested trying it.

[JimH]

The user interface is a different subject.  I've removed a couple of posts.  If you have something specific in mind, please start a thread.

[thane108]

Perhaps it will fade but there seems to be an emerging trend to move past mp3 players to hi-def devices that play flac, etc. - e.g. Neil Young, FIIO, Sony, and the HTC smartphone.

If the trend holds then there will be a growing demand for higher def music than is currently provided by streaming services.  I'm downloading most of my music in 96/24 flac these days, or ripping in flac from CDs.

This comment is just a long winded way of suggesting that the move to higher def music may give some added life to local music libraries rather than exclusively going to streaming services.  Especially if you have a good system or higher-end earbuds or earphones.

Maybe this niche will grow in market share?

[Listener]

What services matter to you most?

MC's database and UI that let me browse, select and play music the way I want to is most important to me.

I'd like to select music from my MC library from any devicer and play it through MC.  I'd like to browse YouTube or Spotify or some other streaming solution from any device and play the music through MC.  (I use YouTube for music rather than for general video.)

Where will we be in 5 years?  

I'll be using a desktop PC less and a tablet more.  I'm hoping that you will be equally relevant to me.

My music buying has dropped off and my needs have stabilized.  I want to customize MC so that is simpler for me and for my wife to use in terms of our use. (You provide the tools that I can use to tailor MC to my needs.)

What does JRiver need to do to be current?

Offer value added for my use of streaming services.

Get simpler as my needs mature.  Get simpler so that my wife is comfortable finding and playing music.

[Humbledore]

What services matter to you most?  Where will we be in 5 years?  What does JRiver need to do to be current?

Wimp HiFi offers streaming audio in lossless quality. That kind of service would be nice to have integrated in JRiver Media Center... :-)

[Vocalpoint]

Wimp HiFi offers streaming audio in lossless quality. That kind of service would be nice to have integrated in JRiver Media Center... :-)

MC already streams all my music (internal network) in lossless FLAC. Always has.

I have never tried to connect to it from outside my network (say with JRemote) - but I see no reason why I couldn't stream FLAC to the outside as well?

VP

[JimH]

JRemote could play from your home server anywhere on the Internet, if your firewall and router allowed it.

[justsomeguy]

Am I the only one that finds this topic kind of depressing. Maybe I'm just old now.

[JimH]

I knew I might be asking if people would like to use JRiver as a punching bag, but it's good for us.  There is a lot of good insight here.

And while there is a lot of talk about streaming services here, we're getting close to wrapping up the development project we've been doing for Neil Young's Pono download service.  I give it a very good chance at success

[theoctavist]

i use spotify for trying out things, but the quality sucks....if i like what i hear, I always buy it.

i *DO* use the playlist option in spotify a heck of a lot though.  i have dozens and dozens of playlists.

[glynor]

I, for one, have no interest in any of the current "mainstream" streaming offerings.

They are way too limited, spotty, and the players are all a piece of crap.  Most importantly, though, I'm not going to pay another monthly bill for that.

Besides, many of the benefits they provide (mostly, access to my collection of music, streamed to me wherever I can get network access), I already have.  Granted, I don't have the discovery benefits, but I also don't have the creepy social-media "we're watching everything you do" privacy tradeoff.  And, frankly, I do well enough with that on my own.  And, you know, there's YouTube and SoundCloud.

So... Meh.

SoundCloud integration into MC would be sweet though.

[InflatableMouse]

They are way too limited, spotty, and the players are all a piece of crap.  Most importantly, though, I'm not going to pay another monthly bill for that.

Spot on.

[Humbledore]

SoundCloud integration into MC would be sweet though.

+1

[BillT]

They are way too limited, spotty, and the players are all a piece of crap.  Most importantly, though, I'm not going to pay another monthly bill for that.

Yes.

With all this discussion I thought I'd give in and try it - after all, the enthusiasts say that it has everything.

Thought I'd search for Janet Baker, a very popular mezzo fl. c1960 - c 1990. It did find something, but a mere 9 albums, most of which were compilations. Thought I'd try one which I've owned since about 1965. Admittedly it's a poor recording and a copy of the LP (I think the tapes must have been lost years ago) but the sound quality was appalling - digital compression artifacts all over the noise and distortion from the original.

O.K. it's an old minority recording. Let's see if they've got the new Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithful albums. They did, but they were level compressed and also unlistenable because of the excessive compression. Yes, I could pay £10 a month and get a higher bit rate, but I don't trust them to present the music in a pristine state - nor to have much of the music that I listen too.

This thread's made me buy 24 CDs!

I'm old and have minority music tastes, so I'll carry on with JRiver as it is, but that's not much help for deciding how to develop in the future.

[InflatableMouse]

Right, here's another trend.

That's Vinyl for those born after the 90's .

I love playing vinyl for two main reasons, and I'm not alone. Not looking to start any arguments on this (please don't), but a lot of vinyl simply sounds better (I know, subjective) because it was specifically mastered for vinyl, or because it was mastered and produced before CD's even existed. If recorded and digitized properly, I believe there is no audible difference (again, no discussion here please).

For the second part I don't need MC, is the emotional attachment to the media, the fun and excitement playing it and the dedication it takes to maintain a vinyl collection (also called a hobby  ). For this reason I believe vinyl will never go away.

Some of these albums are very expensive (especially if they are no longer being pressed). I would love the ability to record them so I don't always have to pull them out to play them. Or listen to them in the car or going mobile. No vinyl fan can deny digital has very clear advantages . MC can rip virtually anything digital. Recording vinyl can be easily automated, split into tracks automatically, apply a high pass filter and possibly even remove ticks and pops.

I've seen the request made before on the forums, but I also believe there is a potential for new users out there. Many use Audacity to manually record, amplify, filter, split and tag. There is no single integrated solution. MC could be the first to do it properly.

[MusicBringer]

I'm old and have minority music tastes, so I'll carry on with JRiver as it is, but that's not much help for deciding how to develop in the future.

I, for one, have no interest in any of the current "mainstream" streaming offerings.

@BillT
@glynor

I agree. I am the same.
Ned Ludd rules.

[Vocalpoint]

Most importantly, though, I'm not going to pay another monthly bill for that.

Same here. While I am dabbling in a basic Spotify acct - there is no way I would ever actually pay for Premium or whatever the call it.

And even after 3 days - I still cannot use the Web Player Kinda shows you where their interests lie.

VP

[drmimosa]

. MC can rip virtually anything digital. Recording vinyl can be easily automated, split into tracks automatically, apply a high pass filter and possibly even remove ticks and pops.

I've seen the request made before on the forums, but I also believe there is a potential for new users out there. Many use Audacity to manually record, amplify, filter, split and tag. There is no single integrated solution. MC could be the first to do it properly.

+1!

[rec head]

Streaming services are just so easy. I have spent hours trying to get MC accessible outside the LAN and can't get it to work. Pandora takes a minute to install and a couple more to register. Easy and cheap will always win.

[shortie]

How can JRiver remain relevant to me?

• Store my music at my original format and quality and let me stream it at my selected quality to any of my devices
• Give me the ability to transcode the music you store for me and stream or download it
• Let me get/stream my music from my own NAS wothout worry about tweaking my firewalls and routers
• Aggregate other services in a manner similar to TuneIn and Sonos
• Let me search across ALL of my music sources
• Let me set alerts so I know when new music is available (genre, artist, specific track/album) INCLUDING TV PROGRAMMING
• Let me use you as a proxy to access other online services so you find out more about the music I like
• Give me a streaming service that combines my music with the tracks you offer
• Give me apps that run on my devices (iOS, Android, Windows 8/Phone) and play music on my various devices (Sonos, Squeezebox, DLNA, AirPlay, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc)
• Let me do this via a web-based services, i.e. without dedicated server hardware here on my premises/without a desktop/laptop

Pipe dreams.

[AndyU]

I want to listen to my choice of all the music that's ever been recorded, and live feeds from every concert on the planet, wherever I am through whatever equipment I want. I don't want to own anything except playback hardware, and the right to listen. I'd like to construct my own view(s) of recorded music, and search it in ways that are intelligible and useful to me. I'd like to connect it with anything of interest; libretti, biographies, other fans, the musicians, rehearsals, press reviews, the score, whatever.

[theoctavist]

bandcamp integration would be nice too. very nice.

[Vocalpoint]

Some of these albums are very expensive (especially if they are no longer being pressed). I would love the ability to record them so I don't always have to pull them out to play them. Or listen to them in the car or going mobile. No vinyl fan can deny digital has very clear advantages . MC can rip virtually anything digital. Recording vinyl can be easily automated, split into tracks automatically, apply a high pass filter and possibly even remove ticks and pops.

I do vinyl restoration at a very high level. But because there are so many ways to get the job done - saying that MC "would be the first to do it properly" - is IMHO - a bit forward.

None of my transfer work requires any need for MC and my actual end results are as good (or better) than any digital equivalent (like a CD) of the same album.

MC does come into play - as usual - when it's time to tag up my new FLACS and convert to other formats - but I would not be a fan of MC going into "recorder" mode as this would certainly add resource, complexity and ultimately cost to the program.

VP

[InflatableMouse]

I do vinyl restoration at a very high level. But because there are so many ways to get the job done - saying that MC "would be the first to do it properly" - is IMHO - a bit forward.

None of my transfer work requires any need for MC and my actual end results are as good (or better) than any digital equivalent (like a CD) of the same album.

MC does come into play - as usual - when it's time to tag up my new FLACS and convert to other formats - but I would not be a fan of MC going into "recorder" mode as this would certainly add resource, complexity and ultimately cost to the program.

VP

All new features add resource, cost and complexity.

My request has nothing to do with restoration but simply to record from an input, recognize gaps, split and possibly do a high pass filter to get rid of some surface noise or rumble. It might be easy enough to to dampen loud ticks but other than that nothing special for restoring should be done. Basically, if I would record non stop radio, it would work as well.

I don't think your work should be be done in MC. Basically, what I'm asking for is no more than ripping a CD or DVD. What you're comparing it with is fixing damaged media. You probably use professional tools for that with a lot of expertise. I don't expect nothing like that.

[contium]

Another vote for soundcloud.

On the go, I mainly use google play music and soundcloud. I have my entire library in google play music plus just about anything else I could want to listen to. Quality is good up to 320 kbps. Kind of hard to compete with that.

In the car, I use JRiver to manage our iPod classics.

At home, serious listening is almost 100% vinyl. Otherwise it's soundcloud or JRiver. I don't use google play at home for some reason.

[Sheriff1972]

Spotify rules in our household, and my eldest son puts his music on Soundcloud.

I use these two Apps on the road and in the home. I will buy music when i hear it first on Spotify, and i find its feature set in terms of finding new, interesting music very useful. Also using other people created playlists is always interesting using playlists.net

Sonos is the delivery mechanism of choice amoungst my friends who simply dont understand my fascination with high quality audio. For them Sonos is generally good enough

[daveman]

As noted by others..."I'd like to browse YouTube or Spotify or some other streaming solution from any device and play the music through MC. "

These are MUST have features. 

[adlelare]

IMO the future will be:

the death of mp3 and the rebirth of super hi-fidelity music as the standard (is that what the PONO thing is all about??)  the few SACD's i own far exceed the fidelity of anything else i own.  the next best to me is concert DVD's that i strip the audio out of.  the move to super hi-fidelity is just as hard and soft tech thing as best i can see.  from what i barely understand SACD's were just "scratching the surface" of what is possible.

What are we three years away from 1tb micro-sd cards??  then if Android could upgrade its music limitations... then....