A Brennan B3 (or B2.5)?

[Scott Tietjen]

Has Mr. Brennan ever considered doing a simple hardware update to the B2, in terms of at least a processor update, along with USB 3.0 (or USB-C) ports, making sure the hardware Ethernet port is gigabit, and other minor updates as appropriate?  The software can be the same, just a slight hardware update to more recent standards?

(If such a thing were to happen, there might need to be a published upgrade path for current owners, to migrate their data off the old onto the new, maybe taking the old unit back for refurbishing and resale, etc., etc.)

[Rob Harriman]

Speaking personally, I suspect that the reason this does not happen resides in your second paragraph.  Brennan are a niche company and will not have the corporate resources to handle such a logistical nightmare. They're based in England and these machines, being bought online, could potentially be anywhere in the world, so the costs and risks of trying to physically install such hardware upgrades would  be far too daunting for a small company to consider. I also suspect the user base wouldn't be too thrilled if told they needed to install hardware upgrades themselves or send their kit back to Brennan.  Just my sixpenneth, other's may beg to differ.

Rob  

[Scott Tietjen]

 Not saying they *Have* to do returns, just that it might be a nice thing to do; might need several return points like one in the US, one in the UK and so on.  Not saying the returned B2s would be upgraded, just cleaned up, drive wiped, tested, and resold at a lower price.

[Daniel Taylor]

The possible upgrade, as you've described it, provided that it didn't need any software changes, suggests that it could be done by anyone who wanted to buy the upgraded Raspberry Pi board.  It seems too good to be true.  There are a few people here who I think have enough experience with R.Pi boards who could clarify this for us.

[Kevin Murnane]

How about offering a more powerful computer? Many of the issues that crop up with the B2 (SD card problems, slow port speeds, multitasking-related problems, slow read/write related problems etc.) seem to root in the Raspberry Pi's limitations. The B2 is brilliantly designed for the intended task, the WebUI is also very well-designed but the R.Pi keeps getting in the way. A more powerful system would be a different product that fulfills the same function, not an upgrade. Customers could choose the unit that works with their pocketbook.

--Kevin

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

I have considered trying to upgrade the Pi in my B2 but after talking it over on the forum the consensus was that this would not be possible. Later Pi's may have chip heating problems in the B2 enclosure, and the position of the USB and Ethernet

outputs has also altered in later models.

I think that to accommodate a Pi 4 there would need to be substantial engineering modifications within the B2. Also I am not convinced that once you have ripped your music and have it backed up, there is a NEED for a more powerful processor.

The current device works fine!

Fred

[Daniel Taylor]

If people would follow at least these two rules, it could greatly reduce their problems:

1) When shutting down the unit, use the proper shutdown proceduce (press/hold STOP key until SAVING has appeared and then gone);

2) Do not ask the unit to do more than one thing at a time (eg. do not play music while renaming or building playlists)

[Scott Tietjen]

yeah, that was my general idea.  if an up level Raspberry Pi  could be found, redesign the case a bit as necessary,  maybe update the CD player (maybe DVD?, maybe not...) maybe with a tray, but hopefully a bit faster.  Such a new B3 would keep the same price point (or slightly higher) than the current B2; the Current B2 would drop by a hundred or two.  Maybe stop production of the B2, replace it with refurbished returned B2s from upgrades -- or continue producing both, and as said, some might like a lower price point B2 and enter the market, or go after the higher price B3  the idea would be to get more people buying either a B2 or a B3, instead of not buying a high priced B2 at all.  Or find a better small board than a R.Pi.

As for me -- I'm willing to purchase a B2, but if a better hardware version B3 were coming, I'd wait for that instead; maybe I'd get the B2 if I knew there was an upgrade path to a B3 with B2 trade in.  Just hoping, that's why this is Wishlist.

[Raik]

Hi guys,

a more powerful Raspberry Pi would indeed be nice.

A Raspberry Pi 3b+ is the latest generation that should basically fit by form factor (perhaps with added heat sink?) and provide a noticeable performance boost.

I fiddled around with the original SD card. Copied its contents to another SD card with Raspbian for RPi3 (and similar old Linux kernel) but of course it didn't work.

Maybe someone else with more experience or the original author could pull this off.

Kind regards

Raik

[Paul Frere]

I am in pre-buy mode looking at the B2.  IMO the concept is brilliant but the execution is late alpha or early beta, partially due to the limitations of the hardware. (I have spent my career in high tech.)  In particular, the inability to random play folders is a near-show-stopper for me and the idea that it can suffer from task overload is worrisome.  Fortunately, my need is about six months out so I have time to watch and wait, which I probably will do unless I stumble on a bargain used B2 to gain hands-on experience.

One question is about a possible workaround:  If I create a playlist for a folder and its subfolders, can I randomly play from that list or does the box simply march down the list from the beginning each time it is invoked? And one more:  I see many suggested bug and crash fixes that involve re-scanning/reindexing the disk.  I have maybe 1000 songs; will that process be time-consuming?

[Daniel Taylor]

You can play a playlist either as Random or sequential.  Indexing 1,000 songs should be pretty fast, maybe a second or two (is a guess).

A playlist can consist of individual tracks, albums, or artists.  When Random is enabled, it is on a song by song basis, regardless of whether the item in the playlist is an artist or album.  (I just tried it.)

[Paul Frere]

Hmm ... So if I have a bunch of albums in a folder and its subfolders and I create a playlist that is simply a list of the albums, the box will randomly play all the songs with the order varying each time I invoke the playlist?  That's a better workaround than making a list of all the individual songs.  Thanks much on that. 

[Daniel Taylor]

If you already have a library of music, be mindful of the requirements the B2 has for folder structure.  The top level is for the Artist. Then each artist folder contains one folder for each of it's Albums.  Then the tracks are in each album folder.  The folders can be named anything you want, but the B2 interprets them as Artist\Album\tracks.  Those folder and file names are what the B2 uses for naming; it does not use the metadata tags.