New Brennan B2 owner

[Stuart K]

Hi everyone, 

I've just purchased a B2 and had some general questions if you don't mind please..

Should I leave it on all the time or switch it off every evening?

Over the last few years all my CD's have been ripped to Apple Lossless, it seems to play them fine, so is there any need to convert them to FLAC? 

and if so am I best converting apple lossless to WAV via iTunes and then uploading wav files? will the B2 automatically convert them as it does with CD rips? 

When adding files in Bulk upload does it automatically sort the files into the right Artists folders?

Finally if I do a back up will it autmatically remember what has been already backed up and just add any new additions?

Thanks for all the help. I'm moving over to B2 from a 1st Gen Innuos with a large music collection so any tips appreciated.

Best,

Stuart.

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

Hi Stuart, welcome to the forum.

To answer your questions in order

1) some people leave theirs on (you can get it to turn the front display off when idle). If you decide to turn it off then please shut it down properly, dont just turn it off. Note when idle, if there is compression to do this is when it does it.

2) the B2 will only apply compression to WAV files it sees on its HDD. Therefore your Apple format files will not be touched by the B2. It can play some Apple formats but not all.

The 'normal' format used on a B2 is FLAC thus if you can convert to this before loading, this is best. However WAV files are OK and the B2 can convert these to FLAC.

3) sorting files. The B2 does not use any music tag information that may be embedded in the music (although it does not mind this information being there). When loading and storing music the B2 uses the directory and file names used to organise the music. Artist/Album(CD)/Tracks. So I think the answer is no.

4) the "Export to USB A or C" backup function is INCREMENTAL in operation - new stuff is added to the backup.(but deleted stuff is not removed).

Fred

[Daniel Taylor]

Just a couple things to add.

The B2 will play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) files.  However, ALAC is not a universally recognized format - used mostly by Apple devices.  If you will only be using the B2 to play them, it isn't necessary to convert them to FLAC.  If you will be using your B2 as a NAS device for some external program to use as a music source, that program will have to be happy with ALAC.  One common possibility is Sonos.  I don't know if Sonos likes ALAC or not.

If you do decide to convert your ALAC files to FLAC, I'd recommend that you do it on your computer and then just import them onto the B2 as FLAC files.  Simpler and faster.

Regarding Exporting files for a backup:  If, after you have done a backup (Export command), you happen to edit and change the name of an Artist, Album or song title on the B2, the next time you do an Export, you will get a new copy of that folder or file with the new name.  So then you'd have duplicates.  If you find yourself doing a lot of editing, you'd probably want to do a fresh Export with a new empty disk before deleting your previous backup.

[Mark Fishman]

For converting ALAC to FLAC on a computer:

 - if you have a Mac, I recommend using XLD -- it is fast, easy to use, runs in native (not emulated) mode on Intel and Apple Silicon CPUs -- and it is free to use. (If you really like it, consider making a donation to the uathor. It's a really good program. It also does CD ripping with proper error-correction and offset correction.)

 - if you use Windows, many people here use dbPoweramp, which is a commercial program, or foobar2000, which is free.