Brennan B2

Anyone got one of these machines?

I've spent all afternoon trying to record a vinyl album from turntable to the harddrive of the Brennan.
This is a preliminary experiment to see if it's worth recording all my other albums.

I've followed the directions to the letter but now it's done and copied to the harddrive I can't find the album!!!!!

Re: Brennan B2

Sorry I can't help Ruthio but I've been interested in buying one of those machines. I quite like the idea of relegating hundreds of CD's up into the loft to free up some space and also perhaps putting my extensive collection of vinyl on there as well.

What I'd like to know is; Is the output satisfactory to run through some speakers without the need for an external amplifier?

My existing amplifier is good quality and meaty but is almost as old as me and ready for replacing.....

Hope you can find your stuff, I lose files on this computer sometimes when I forget to tell it where to save it to...

Re: Brennan B2

Hi OGF... I'm thrilled to pieces with the Brennan, I bought the machine plus the speakers. Small and compact.
I've successfully burned 83 CDs into the Brennan harddrive and play it all the time on random, so I never know what's coming next! I haven't recorded any classical stuff yet though.
If you're clever you can sort them into different files according to genre.

I did find the vinyl I'd attempted to record in the end, it was where they said it would be in a file marked Recordings. But when I played it back the volume was so low you couldn't hear a thing!
So back to the drawing board, there must be a way of setting the volume before recording vinyls.

But I got the hang of recording/burning the CDs quite easily which is pretty good for me so it can't be hard!

The Brennan website it a good one with plenty of help, but you do need time...

Re: Brennan B2

Had a quick look at this Brennan and confess I don't really get it or rather I don't see what niche it is trying to achieve in the market place. At roots level it's just a hard disk on which you dump your music.

Thus, a juke box.

Juke boxes have been around for years.

One can easily buy a USB Hard Drive to copy all your music too.

Then there's the aspect of playing the music. Mainstream devices do this. Even an XBOX 360 will let you copy all your music to it so you can then play it back at your leisure with a full GUI interface on your TV to easily navigate through your content.

As a stand-a-lone box the Brennan just appears to have a tiny display. Can't imagine it would be fun trying to wade through 1000s of CDs and albums using that dial or next/prev buttons.

It's primary GUI is via the internet. But why should one have to use the internet to make a home device operate?

There's a ton of "jukebox" style boxes on the market that serve as your home "Media Centre". So what is the Brennan bringing to the table that hasn't been there already for years?

Actually it looks like a home made box in which a Raspberry PI board has been stuffed (these are programmable circuit boards they give to school kids to use) and a hard disk. Seems a bit, cottage industry if I'm honest.

Not trying to put this down. I'm sure it does what you need it to Ruthio and offers simplicity. It's just there are so many media boxes already out there by professional manufacturers I'm not sure what this one offers that is different.

Re: Brennan B2

Thanks Ruthio, glad you were able track down your missing recording, as with all this modern technology once you get used to it it's a piece of cake...
Did you record the vinyl straight from the deck Ruthio? You mention that the volume was low on your recording......Output from the deck is very low and would possibly need some level of amplification, one of the problems with connecting different pieces of equipment together is the matching of the output with the input impedance of the recording device.

And thanks also for your appraisal of said equipment Realist.
Presently adorning the lounge is a Cassette player, Tuner, Amplifier, CD player and several towers containing more CD's than HMV. The CD's have overflowed into the study (Daughters old bedroom) and in my workshop I have a record deck and a shed load of Vinyl Albums and 45's. Music is also distributed between my desktop PC and this netbook.

The Brennan, seemed like a good repository for all my music, and if the sound is of a decent quality would be a very useful and space saving bit of kit. Connecting to other devices is not an option because it makes it far too complicated for Mrs Fox to operate. Flat screen TV's produce rubbish sound quality due to the limitations of the speakers and for the 19" flat screen TV in the kitchen I've bunged it through the big amp in the lounge so I can listen to Eggheads and Pointless over the drone of the Extractor fan while cooking dinner. Not to mention hearing loss from thirty odd years in a noisy engineering factory.

So the Brennan seems like a good alternative to all that equipment, and one that Mrs Fox will be able to get her head around, but only if the amplifier is up to the job. In my opinion, silence and the rhythmic hum of the extractor fan is better than poor quality music.....

Re: Brennan B2

I think the things I was thinking about are called NAS.

Network Attached Storage.

Basically boxes with large hard disks (1,2,3TB etc) on which you store not only your music files but also video, photos and other things.

They act as a server and as such you can connect your other devices to them, laptops, smart phones etc.

Thus you can stream the content from it to any device you have.

When you are away from home you can connect to it over the internet and stream stuff from it just the same, so in effect your entire library is available to you anywhere you go.

Re: Brennan B2

Well maybe it has clever advertising then, I dunno...

A jukebox? Fine! That's more or less exactly what I wanted... I'm not in the least interested in the stuff you've posted about above, don't begin to understand any of it.

I've never bothered with MP3 or iTunes or running my music through the computer or TV or anything like that, it's totally passed me by!

If I want to listen to anything I put on a CD or a vinyl...only I don't!!
That's the whole point..
Which is why when I saw the Brennan it appealed to me in its simplicity...all my music in one place and available at the touch of a button, as random or as organised as I care to make it.

It's in the dining room which is right next to the kitchen (double doors, always open) and across the hall from the sitting room, so whatever music is playing I can hear it.

The niche market you mention is me!

Re: Brennan B2

I remember Brennans when they were a thing - a bit outdated now though, (you can't even create a playlist) and what happens when the internal hard drive breaks?

Alternatively music can be placed on a hard drive on differing devices and navigated through a large screen.

Or played through a microSD or USB stick.

Any music of mine I wanted to keep (around 40,000 tracks) I simply uploaded to Google Play Music for instant access anywhere.