My Brennan b2 is excellent .... BUT

[PMW]

What a brilliant machine the Brennan b2 could be.  It does everything Mr Brennan claims (some of the time - but not all of the time).  The UI, in particular, is one of the flakiest pieces of software I have ever encountered (and I have been working with computers for more than 45 years).  Every time I open the UI on my iMac it looks different, with fields appearing and disappearing randomly.  Today I cannot search for artwork when ripping CDs.  The volume control slider increases the volume in huge jumps, but cannot reduce it at all (this annoys my wife, who thinks I am trying to deafen her).  Sometimes pressing an arrow to play an album works, sometimes it doesn't.

I think that the number of posts on the Brennan Forum is a very good indication that I am not the only person to be frustrated by these idiosyncrasies.

Come on, Mr Brennan!  You have produced an excellent machine, but you really need to sort it out.  For £500+ I expected better.

[Lorraine Cousins]

I couldn’t agree more.

I spent 35 years in IT mainly as a systems designer, programmer, tester and technical author (finally IT Manager - but surrounding myself with bright young things as technology moved on so quickly!).

I also owned my own international software company for 28 years before selling it and retiring. So I guess I know just a little about software testing. I can’t believe that a company can issue software upgrades without completely testing it on the various different brands of os - eg Android and IOS etc. and different hardware. I would never use my customers as guinea pigs and let them become software testers by default.

I am surprised that there hadn’t been more complaints on this forum about this.

Mr Brennan needs a full time tester and a full time technical author in my opinion.

Please stop issuing new software on the fly. Bundle new features/functions up, test them to destruction and then issue an upgrade. Let’s have stability as this is driving us all crazy.

[Ed]

Also a veteran IT person, I used to design and write operating systems for a living. I'm afraid lots of old software engineering practices are seen as charming archaisms by today's developers. "It's all different now" they say. Regrettably not!

One issue I noticed initially (last week) was the GUI central panel rearranging itself (is this PMW's issue?), this seems to have been resolved by updating the firmware.

A current issue (Oct 24 firmware/Safari/MacOS) is that when ripping a CD, the album list shows one of my other albums at the end of the list until the rip has finished.

The web UI is an evolving piece of software and at the moment it is somewhat flaky. This is perhaps unsurprising as the environment in which the web app runs is inherently unpredictable and so threads like this would be of more value to the developers if people said what OS/browser they were using. Note also it is very common for clearing cookies and history to resolve issues in web apps, this is always worth trying.

[Tony Johnston]

Microsoft is another company that doesn't test it's software either and is a tad bigger than Brennan😂😂

[Iain Horbury]

The sound quality of my B2 is excellent. The ability to download music from different sources is straightforward.

In February 2018, I purchased a jukebox (as Martin describes the B2 on his video) with many options available to hear music in various ways. However, my IT skills are virtually nil ………..  and why should they need to be?

I have lost albums and playlists, for no apparent reason, that took hours to create. I shouldn’t need to know how to protect B2’s unstable features and ultra sensitive settings by procedures such as ‘sorting’, ‘cleanup’, ‘scan disc,, ‘reboot’, ‘repair HDD’ and other contents of the complex B2 Menu Summary. I don’t understand the majority of the terminology and, again, why should I need to? ‘Save’ should be the only precaution I need to take.

Would more thorough testing before the B2 was launched have prevented my problems? I don't know.

Paul and the Brennan Forum have always been very supportive but I have now decided not to rebuild the latest lost playlists (32 of them).

I just listen to the brilliant sound quality, keeping an eye that the tracks don’t leap from the second track to the forth track  - or another album.

Iain

[Dennis Lefebvre]

The B2 is a computer that plays music. If you have a backup on your B2 music, you should also have a backup of the playlists. The backup procedure is arguably too rudimentary because it seems easy to overwrite a good playlist with an empty one, BUT I am not seeing anyone report that they have restored their playlists from backups. Does the process not work?

[Lorraine Cousins]

Hmm..that’s an interesting analogy Dennis.

If it had been described as a computer that plays music, I for one wouldn’t have bought it because I already have a computer with iTunes on and a pair of perfectly good pair of Bose speakers plugged into it. Also, I have some excellent and expensive Sonos speakers that play via my computer (I even have a Sonos speaker in my bathroom ceiling! - in fact I have Sonos speakers in 6 rooms)...but Sonos upgraded their software and we lost the ability to play music via using the little iPod dock without having to switch the computer on.

I wanted a music system that played my albums and playlists without having to leave my computer permanently switched on. A simple system that I could understand.

I’m still ripping my CDs but now terrified of building playlists that might be here one day and gone the next!

Out of the frying pan springs to mind.

[Lorraine Cousins]

Maybe I should scour ebay and pick up a vintage Hi-fi system and lose some weight by getting up off the sofa to change the album!!

It’s becoming more attractive by the minute!

[Rearwing]

This may sound a little mean, but I don’t mean it to be, I don’t really understand what the issues are. I have had a b2 for four years, having seen my father in laws jb7, and in that time I have loaded nearly 2tb’s of music and created numerous playlists. I use the optical out to an external DAC that feeds an Onkyo amp and the sound quality for “red book” files is very good. I have not lost any files or playlists, I have created a new sd card to experiment with the ‘nas’ functions and I have loaded and created back ups using the usb commands. I use the original ui on my iPad and my MacBook and I have tried and liked the new ui, but I am waiting for it to be out of the beta phase before I use it exclusively. Without sounding smug, I don’t know what I am doing right, but I haven’t encountered the issues or problems that are being described in many of the more recent posts.

[Dennis Lefebvre]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 12:30:45 PM UTC-4, Lorraine Cousins wrote:

Hmm..that’s an interesting analogy 

It's not really an analogy, because it is literally true that a B2 is a Raspberry Pi in a metal case with a CD drive and amplifier, and this is mentioned in the product specifications.  

[Lorraine Cousins]

Before I bought the Brennan I thought a Raspberry Pi was something you ate.

I thought the little black box was a miniature hi-fi system - especially when I bought the Brennan 50 speakers to go with it.

Sometimes I think I’m living in a parallel universe.

[Lorraine Cousins]

Did you touch wood and cross your fingers as you posted this?

Seriously, I love an optimistic post..hurray.. maybe there are others out there in the universe that are also happy so they have no need to post about their problems..maybe we are in the minority by contributing our miseries here?

Who knows....

[Tony Johnston]

I'm very happy with my B2. I was an early convert from the JB7. With over 3K CDs/LPs loaded I'm well pleased. It's on most days and nights for up to 8 hours. The Android UI works well and meets my needs.
Everyone always wants something better, but few have the skills, or drive to turn those wishes into something tangible. As they say about film and art critics "those who can perform do so, those who can't, become critics"😊

[Daniel Taylor]

I try to remain objective about the B2.  I've been quite happy with mine.  However, I have the technical skills to cope with the occasional problem.  Remaining objective, I can commiserate with those who lack unusual tech skills.  I say unusual skills because the majority of the general public are not computer engineers/technicians.  A great deal of the audio/video equipment manufactured these days is computer controlled.  In many cases, people are not even aware of that fact because the stuff mostly just works.  And that's how it should be.

Still trying to remain objective, I view the B2 as a tech intensive product.  What other product expects the user to take the back off the unit and replace the operating system memory card when the software becomes corrupt?  What other product has software that even becomes corrupt?  For reasons like that, I can see why anyone without better than average tech skills would want to avoid a Brennan product.

[Lorraine Cousins]

Well said Daniel and I completely agree with you.

When I retired from the world of IT 5 years ago, I thought I’d really retired and could take life easier. Now it seems I might have to rely on some long-forgotten skills to simply listen to my music.

Eat..Sleep..Repair...Repeat

[MRB]

I would agree - that the equipment is not really consumer-ready, more of a techie/hobbyist purchase - but I personally love the stuff.  Turning on DLNA, and burning booting SD cards is not for the faint of heart ... :) 

[Margaret Hall]

Actually, non-techie, non-hobbyist music lovers can enjoy the B2 too. Being a previous JB7 owner helps. It's possible to avoid many problems discussed on the forum by keeping things simple, but I expect that fiddling around with audio connections is part of the pleasure for those who are technically inclined. I don't look forward to the day when I may have to reboot an SD card, but I expect I will learn. Only real problem I've encountered in 2 years is a switch from HD to SD & that was easily fixed.

[Tony Johnston]

As a 70+years old non-techie I find the B2 2TB version fully meets my requirements. My extensive CD and LP collections are now confined to the loft.
As a former JB7 owner, which I found that a little more difficult to organise. The B2s UI is great for the likes of me. I download the updates regularly but don't expect to need all the additional benefits.
All I need now is to invest in a new record deck with 78rpm capability so I can record and download my modest but currently unplayable collection.

[SMG]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:36:10 AM UTC-7, PMW wrote:   "I think that the number of posts on the Brennan Forum is a very good indication that I am not the only person to be frustrated by these idiosyncrasies."

No, you're not.  I wrote my own thoughts several weeks ago about the dysfunctional menus, poor navigation, unwieldy number of layers one has to go through in order to find answers to questions or solutions to a problem ... if found at all ... etc., etc., etc.

I'm reasonably happy with my B2 for the most part.  It contains all of my CD music and sounds pretty good, at least as good as my Rega Planet standalone CD player.  But I'm not at all happy with certain aspects and features, such as the Equalizer (which sounds simply dreadful when activated; I went back to the simple Bass and Treble controls). My issues with the Equalizer (others have posted about the Equalizer's functionality as well) have yet to be answered or addressed by Brennan, as far as I can see.

The proposed UI changes are incomprehensible on my MacBook or iPhone.  I have no idea what it really looks like or how it's supposed to function.

I receive forum emails each and every day ... on the order of perhaps a dozen or so.  The problems most users are having and the answers they receive (if they receive one) are usually stated in a tech language that even an experienced tech person like me has difficulty understanding.  This shouldn't be.  This should NEVER be.  The explosion of the general digital domain, including online commerce, smart phones, GPS, DVDs, CDs, Bluetooth, etc., etc., etc., happened because companies like Apple made it all very easy for the average person to jump in and get involved.  The B2 is one thing.  The back end of the B2, including the UK web site, needs to be simplified if not completely reworked ... which is what I stated about 2 months ago.

To the folks at Brennan:  be aware that a single posting of complaint (or of unresolved problems) represents a thousand complaints that were NEVER posted ... meaning users just figured things out by themselves or sold their B2s.  This is a well-known phenomenon in the business world, which is why the best CEOs take a single letter very seriously.  I recently wrote to Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, about a delivery problem I've been having over and over again.  His response was immediate.  I was contacted the next day by a senior Amazon executive, and the problem was solved two days later.

A word to the wise ....

- Steve       

[Brian Allars]

I concur with Tony's comments re JB7 and B2. Yes I have had some minor issues that I resolved through experience and playig around. I now rip some CDs on Windows media player and upload them to the B2. This is far easier than mucking about with USB sticks etc .

In response to a previous post, I do not accept that one post on the site represnts thousands of others who sort the issue themselves becuse most of those issues (in my view) are due to not understanding the B2 and how it works or not fully reading through instructions etc. II have done this myself! It's great that Jeff Bezos has replied directly to a disatisfied customer but just look at all the blogs etc. from thousands of other Amazon disatisfied customers who do not get that gold standard treatment!. Bottom line is that Brennan (as far as I can see) do all they can to sort issues out with a product concept that is very popular with a select number of consumers; yes it's not perfect but the fact that B2 is so far ahead of JB7 (except for the bit rate on MP3 compression) that it is a no brainer to upgrade.

Having had my own product design consultancy for many years I know very well the trials and tribulations of creating a product idea and developing it for  production, I take my hat off to Martin and his colleagues for giving the vast majority of us users a device that works extremely well.

[Brian Allars]

Hi PMW, 

For a start I must confess that I am not using the latest UI (I saw it but preferred the older layout so I have not upgraded). I have had the same problems with connection but that was mainly due to assignment of DNS by my router, the last number would randomly change sometimes when the power was switched off and on. Feeding CDs in most times resuts in first time hits on CDDB, but sometimes two are more attempts are needed for success. Sometimes the UI does not identify the album but the display claerly shows this on the B2; this is an issue but is easily sorted.

Most times the CD cover is found no problem, but weirdly looking for it after the CD has been ripped is sometimes more successful (the weirdness being that the same source is being searched with a successful result rather than failure). In my opinion this is not the fault of the B2. I could not find the artwork for The Beach Boys 'Thats why God made the Radio' on either Musicbrainz or Amazon so searched for it on the web and copied it to the B2 by dragging and dropping to the artwork box in the UI (funnily enough this was from the Amazon online shop so why didn't it find the artwork before?).

I use a couple of dataplugs with Wi Fi to make sure that the Wi Fi signal is a s strong as possible, (I tried Wi-Fi extenders but these did not work for me); maybe something like this would help your setup