Pre-purchase questions Assistance appreciated.

[Stuart Fraser]

Sorry, if these are repetitive questions. There's so much info on the forums now it's difficult to keep up to date with it all. I have a JB7, and have had for about 8 years or so. It's the one with the 500Gb hard drive, and I now have a little over 300Gb of music on it.

 

I know that I have more than enough music to fill it twice over, and am thinking about buying a B2 model, with a 2TB HD. I have a few questions, the answers to which may help me make up my mind.

 

1. Can the music files be transferred directly from one to the other, or must they be downloaded to a hard disk, then re-uploaded to the new device?

2. Assuming it needs to go onto a hard disk first, can you give me a rough idea of how long it will take to back up 320Gb from a JB7 on to an external HD. A quick calculation tells me it should be a little over a week, if running 24/7. Is that about right?

3. As a bit of a technophobe, I see references to updating memory cards, and refreshing firmware etc. Although I may not get optimal performance, will the unit still function if I permanently leave the memory card and firmware as they were when the unit is first taken out of its box?

4. Before the demise of CDDB, the CD recognition on the JB7 was pretty good. It still is, with the cobbled-together solution currently in operation - I probably get over 80% hits. How good is the system on the B2?

5. Is the "Random Play" function on the B2 better than on the JB7. My one gripe with the JB7 was that the random player doesn't seem random enough, with far more repetitions than I would expect. Some tracks crop up almost daily, sometimes two or three times during a 10 hour session. Some artists and/or albums also seem to be selected far more often than they should during a session.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Stuart,

In answer to your queries;

1.  The music on the JB7 will have to be downloaded to a USB device, an external HDD or memory stick will be required, formatted to FAT32 then uploaded to the B2.  So 'Backup music' will complete the download from the JB7 to the external USB device, then on the B2 run 'USB Functions' --> 'JB7 Functions' --> 'Restore USB C'.

2.  My estimate is 8.9 days (say 9 days) running 24/7 for theJB7  'Backup' function.  The B2 'Restore' function on the B2 will take about 13 hours to complete.

3.  The references to updates are regular sottware updates.  These are as simple as selecting in the menu  'Settings' --> 'Web Upgrade' and about 30 seconds later the upgrade is completed automatically.  I would recommend regular updates because these are bug fixes and also new functionality is being introduced very regularly.   I keep my B2s (x2) and my BB1s (x2) up to date for these reasons.

Here is a link to the 'Latest Software' webpage which give high level details of these.

https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/latestSoftware

4.  The B2 CDDB is considerably better than the JB7's.  I have a JB7 and it has not recognised a number of CDs that the B2 did.

5.  I can't say if there is any difference in 'Random Play' between the two units.  However, the B2 has a great new playlist function where you create a playlist called 'Blacklist' into which you can place any artists, any albums or any tracks and these will not be played when 'Ranndom Play' is selected (this is a reason for keeping the B2 software up to date, 'Blacklist' capability was introduced on 20th July 2021 version)

Is your JB7 content stored as 'wav' or 'mp3' or a mix?  If you post the number of tracks and albums, I could refine the figures givn above, although they should be reasonably  good.

I hope that this helps.

Regards,

Peter.

[Stuart Fraser]

Thanks for your quick response Peter. I'll be putting in an order in the next few days.

I think your estimate of 8.9 days, while disappointing, will prove to be pretty accurate. If you have a moment, I'd be obliged if you'd re-calculate, using the figures below - going by  the figure you gave, I'd expect it still to be around 8 days.

My content is all on MP3 @320k - 2214 albums, 32762 tracks, totalling 285.64Gb (I've been deleting stuff this morning, in anticipation of the transfer.) I know it looks like I don't need to upgrade yet, but I've been sidetracked lately, and that represents only about a quarter of my collection.

Thanks,

Stuart

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Stuart,

Re-running the figures reduces the 'Backup' to 7.9 days which means that the B2 'Restore' should complete in 11.5 hours. The calculation for the JB7 is that it backs up at 1.5GB per hour.

Yes, the JB7 Backup/ Restore is very slow!  Fortunately, the B2 runs much faster!

Regards,

Peter

[PMB]

Hi Stuart,

The B2 'randomises' the list of all Tracks on the HDD so repeats are possible. So I think this may be similar to JB7.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Stuart Fraser]

Thanks for your answers. I have this morning started the "backup" process onto a 500Gb FAT32 HD. I'll order a B2 at the start of next week, as I don't want to buy a new "toy" which I can't use until the backup is complete, which should probably be sometime next Tuesday. I have no doubt I will be back on these forums with further questions, and hopefully I'll get similar quick, clear and courteous responses when I do. Thanks again.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Stuart,

This is just a thought, but you could purchase your B2 now and then rip a few of your favourite CDs in 'flac' compression.  That will give you an opportunity to get used to the great new featues that the B2 has over the JB7.  If you rename the artist or album slightly then  the 'Restore' will not overwrite the existing music when you run that.

Good luck with your collection!

Regards,

Peter.