Hi Fidelity

I have been on a quest. 

The quest initially seemed a simple one. Find a way of transferring all my physical music to electronic storage in one place, where I and others can play it around the house.

Seems like a simple requirement doesn't it? However, for some reason industry does not seem to have caught up with my needs.

So let me explain..

The Holy Grail

The main place I listen to music is in my car. The car has a brilliant system where I load music/podcasts to an SD card and plug it in. This gives me enough content variation to make any journey viable (especially on days I wish to avoid the radio)

I also have a whole stack of CDs. 

My last dedicated CD player hi-fi disappeared many years ago, and I never felt the need to replace it. This meant that they are just lying around the house gathering dust. Therefore, I finally decided to do something about it.  

The obvious solution was to rip the CDs onto an SD card and put them through some sort of player. I did not want to be tied to physical speakers, so I wanted speakers on a network, which meant I could play them in any room.

For the latter requirement, I decided that a pair of SONOS speakers would meet my needs, and being cheap, I decided to get the IKEA versions.

Sourcing the player proved more difficult. 

I felt my requirements were modest, but there turned out there was not much out there. Yes, I could buy one of those integrated HiFi units where you could plug a thumb drive, but they would be large, and come with a CD player and Radio that frankly I did not want or need (I was trying to avoid the CD player). Also, they would not connect with the SONOS speakers. 

The only product that seemed to meet my requirement was the Brennen Helix. 

The Brennan helix has the following specification according to its website

• Play CDs directly to Sonos loudspeakers
• Optical and 3.5mm outputs.
• Rip CDs to SD card 
• Play music from an SD card to Sonos or the wired outputs.
• Display Album Art, Artist, Album and Track names.
• Apps for iPhone and Android for remote control.

However the app was not available when I 1st used it and relied instead on a webserver hosted on the machine

This generally it seemed to fit the bill, and while the cost of £230 seemed a bit much, I was out of options. 

I had one other requirement. My solution had to be usable by my wife, so a simple UI on the device was a requirement, which the Helix seemed to provide.

I had one other problem. 

Where to put it. 

The size of the device was such that I would need a shelf to place it on. I resolved to place an IKEA cabinet in the dining room. The new addition to the room, however, did not go down well with my wife, who did not like the idea of adding more furniture just to host a music device, but I decided to go ahead anyway.

It was then that I was dealt a blow that meant I had to overcome my natural procrastination. SONOS announced they were ending its arrangement with IKEA, and the speakers would no longer be available. So it necessitated an emergency trip to IKEAland to buy a couple of speakers and stands. All I had to do then was order the Brennan and start ripping some CDs. I anticipated that a month later, I would be CD-free.

Double Helix

The Helix came without fuss, and after some initial fun setting up one of the SONOS speakers, I started connecting them together. I then hit my 1st issue. The control panel on the Helix is small and not well laid out. Finding the right option to connect to the speaker proved hit and miss. However, it was the only method to set it up.

My second issue was the process of ripping CDs to the Helix SD card. The whole idea of the Helix was that it would be an all-in-one solution. Put a CD in, rip it to the SD card. Job done.

This proved not possible. While it could do this, it would only do this when playing in real time. So if you had an 1 hour long CD, the helix would take 1n hour to rip it. Obviously, with 100 of CDs this was unsustainable. I therefore had to revert to ripping them on my PC. 

It was then I found that the helix only supports WAV files rather than the more compact OGG or MP3.

When I had converted some CDs, the helix provided no easy navigation of the files. Because it did not use album references, finding a track by Album, Artist, or Genre proved impossible. Instead, it just had a flat file structure. Also, the only remote access at the time was through a basic web page, which again provided no navigation capabilities.

Still, I used it for a few weeks, playing random classical tracks at the dinner table. Then it for no obviouis reason it disconnected from the SONOS, and I could not find out why.

I sort of gave up at this point and reverted to doing what I said I would not do. Playing random Spotify tracks over the SONOS speakers that worked far better.

Thank you for the music

It was clear, this was not going to work. There was a more expensive Brennan B3, which offered faster rip speeds and had an in-built hard disk, but again the lack of track navigation put me off. 

I therefore appealed to the SONOS community for an alternative solution. I was hoping there was something I missed, but the only replies were that most people were using a NAS or a Raspberry Pi connected to the hard drive to drive their speakers. There seemed to be no decent commercial alternative out there.

I therefore considered my options. I could give up and get a Spotify/Amazon account. Yes, it would give me access to some of my albums, but my 100's of CDs would then be landfill and I would be tied to a continual subscription. 

Secondly option was to get/build a NAS.

In truth, most NASs were over the top for what I needed. I didn't need 2TB RAID disks to store and play my music. All I needed was about 256GB (and the ability for an SMB share). Nor did I want my collection on a spinning rust hard disk, when the silent and more modern SSDs would suffice

Making my own NAS was an attractive option, but I wanted it running downstairs, and another loose pile of components would not go well with my wife.

Having my Pi

I then stumbled on this

 

Network Attached Storage(NAS) All-In-One Mini-Computer for Raspberry Pi from waveshare

It was an enclosure for 2 SSD disks and the processor was a Raspberry Pi, but in the form of CM4 module, so removing the need for SD storage. At £85 (without disks), it seemed perfect. It even had a front panel display showing its state of the controller and disk.

I therefore ordered one, plus two 512GB SSD disks to go into it.

I was assuming that some construction would be required, so I was surprised when it arrived that not only did it have a Raspberry Pi pre-installed, but it was already loaded with Pi OS and had a copy of open media vault running (which was what I was intending to install). All I had to do was install the 2 disks (which required some disassembly, but helpfully it arrived with a screwdriver), and configure OMV, and I was ready to go.

The only caveat was that I could not enable RAID via OMV. However, that was not really needed since I was only updating the disks rarely. Instead, I enabled RSYNC, which did a backup once a day. (still not sure whether RAID or mirroring is supported.  In theory, I need more OMV plugins installed.

The only real challenge was getting SONOS to recognise the SMB share. In the end, I enabled SMB3 only via OMV and finally got it to connect.

With that I started ripping my CDs. With an SMB share, I could rip them on my laptop, copy them to the NAS drive, refresh the SONOS list, and they were instantly available. I could then navigate via  SONOS to the Album, Artist, or Genre of my choice.

The downside? 

Well I can only control the music through the SONOS app, so if my wife wants access, she will need to set up the app herself. Also, I now have a new cabinet that is basically a small box, which, considering my wifes previous objections, now seems overkill. 

The Brennan Helix - A retrospective

Brennan has a strange selling model. They eschew Amazon et al and instead rely on direct ads and sales to catch the unwary. 

While this can be seen as poking the eye of the behemoth, the downside is that there are few unbiased user reviews to guide you.

I thought that the Helix offered just what I needed. A way to bridge the world of virtual and physical music formats in a pleasing, reasonably sized package. 

The reality, however, turned out to be less than advertised.

Firstly, while not expensive in terms of a high-end HiFi, if you add up what it would cost to create yourself,  £232 is actually quite expensive. What you get is a CD, a processor and a few audio outputs. Most of the software could be replaced with open source alternatives. 

What you don't get is any internal storage, a good music cataloguing system and well well-designed UI

For me, the user interface is the biggest issue. I am big on UI's, and this one is not good, and little time has been spent improving it.. The small screen is difficult to navigate with little documentation, making using the physical controls difficult. 

This would not be so bad if there were a way to manage your music collection easy. However, there is no indexing capability or way to list music in composer, genre etc. What you get is just a flat file structure, which would quickly become unusable if you have too many tracks.

This could be forgiven if it came with a good app, but despite what the website showed, the Helix does not support the Brennan app, and instead, you rely on a simple web page. Web pages can be sophisticated nowadays, but this one isn't. The result is that in terms of a music collection database, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Then there is actually getting the music onto the machine. The inclusion of a CD player would make you think that at least it makes ripping your music easy. Unfortunately, it does not. To rip one CD, you basically have to play it, so it will take hours. Even then, it only supports WAV files, rather than OGG or MP3. In the end, it was easier to rip on a PC and copy it to the SD card. The more expensive B3 will do a better job, but that is another £300.

Then there is the size. This is not a small device, especially for what it does.

It's one plus point it is it is  one of the few devices that actually supports SONOS directly, but even that is a challenge in setup and the fact that it often keeps losing connection, so limiting its usefulness

The Brennan promised a lot, and if done well, it would have fitted the bill, but instead it has the feel of an enthusiast DIY project, but at production prices. If I were in charge. I would dump the CD, shrink the device, add a decent screen and invest in both the UI and App experience. We would then have the product I thought I was buying. Instead, I got a product that could easily be usurped by a £130 DIY device, a quarter of its size

Final Thoughts

One of my big surprises when I went on this journey was the lack of alternatives. You would have thought the market would be awash with music servers that played to wireless speakers. However, the market seems to be split. Traditional HiFi players with fixed speakers and maybe support for a USB stick, and purely devices to connect your phone to a physical speaker. The latter seems to cater for the Spotify generation, who never owned any physical devices.

For people like me, who want to retain their music collection but in a more easily accessible format, there is little available.

However, since I have moved cheap NAS, it has been an eye-opener. I have only transferred half my CDs, but I have started playing music I had not played for years (or in some cases, never). It almost means I can merge it with my download collection, also.

So far, it has worked smoothly. The SONOS app allows music to be indexed (it does get it wrong sometimes), and starts easily. The only downside is that I still have not managed to set my wife up with access; however, my daughter found that her Apple phone could link directly to the speaker and play from her Spotify account

My only disappointment is that there is no physical UI

Post Script

When I started writing this, I had a road-to-Damascus moment. My main issue with the solution was the lack of a user interface for anyone in the house to use. I controlled playback from my phone, but (and anyone under the age of 40, take a deep breath), not everyone is tied to their phone. 

Then I realised. Why not just add a cheap tablet, running the SONOS app? So I ordered an Amazon Fire tablet.

Why this one? Well, Amazon sells these things as a loss leader to sell things. Therefore, you get good hardware at a discount price. The downside is that app support is limited; however, SONOS is supported.

So I installed the SONOS app, added Spotify, BBC Sounds, etc, and now it lives on a stand next to the music player. This means anyone in the house can access it and choose the music they want to play.

The solution is not perfect. It needs to be powered at all times, and creating an unobtrusive charging solution is a work in progress. the plan is to add a magnetic connector, so that the tablet can be connected/disconnected at ease. However, £30 for the tablet compares well with the cost of a bespoke screen, plus, if necessary, I can use it for other things. Also, now I can easily play BBC Sounds, free Spotify etc, through the speakers with minimum effort.