Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Andre Gosselin · (This post was last modified: 01-12-2013 03:57 by Andre Gosselin.)

(30-11-2013 12:53)mystream Wrote: Hi All,

Not sure whether I should post it here, but I wanted to hear if there's any MiND 180 users that faces the same problem I have.

I have recently updated the latest MiND iPAD App and notice that the MiND 180 constantly freeze after a few minutes of usage which would require a reboot inorder to get it up again, after which it will freeze again and reboot will be required and the stories goes on.. I have contacted Simaudio on this and they advice me to update the firmware of the MiND 180, I tried updating the firmware following their instruction but the issue is still there...the most frustrating part is that MiND doesn't tell you whether the firmware update is successful or not....only the blinking light.

Not sure whether the new App or fimware is causing some kinda of conflict with Minimserver..

The only way I can manage the MiND 180 now is via the iPhone app which has not been updated yet.

I own a Moon 380D with an embedded Mind module. I recently read about a new version of the Mind app which, according to Simaudio, requires a firmware upgrade. I was wary about applying the upgrade since, as you mentionned, the upgrade procedure is completely silent about its success. So I managed to get a demo 180D unit from my vendor yesterday in order to test the benefits of this upgrade. I applied the firmware upgrade and installed the new Mind HD app on an ipad mini.

As far as the firmware upgrade is concerned, it went well after following the instructions until the update light stopped flashing, altough I have no way to tell what this upgrade did exactly. After having installed the new Mind HD app (v 1.0.2) on my ipad mini, I took a tour of the UI with both of my Moon renderers (380D and 180D) active. The app could see both of them. I took a tour of the app with the updated 180D selected, and then a second tour this time with the 380D selected as the rendering device (which was *not* upgraded at all). Quite honestly, I did not see any difference, so I am wondering if this firmware upgrade is needed after all. But maybe my 380D had been previously upgraded when I purchased it in the first place (could it also be the case with the 180D ?). It is a pity that the app provides no means to know about a device current firmware version. A glaring omission in my sense.

I was able to stream my music files with the new app without problem using the updated (was it really?) Mind 180D renderer, using MinimServer 0.72 as music server running on Win7. The same holds when streaming from the old app version on an ipod. I did not experience any freeze after more than one hour of testing. I must mention that the use of MinimServer with the Mind app previously required the definition of a proxy for MinimServer with the help of BubbleUPnP server. This workaround is not needed anymore, so here is something the new app version is helpful for.

I am however very disappointed with the new app version. I find the UI really under par, especially if you compare with for ex. BubbleUPnP. You're in for lot of frustration if you music library is composed of classical music albums with long track titles or composer or artist names longer than 15 characters. Since it uses a tiled display providing only a small space for each entry, the app provides no way of seeing full titles and artist names when browsing the library tree, you have to select a specific album to finally be allowed to see more details. No way to get a list view or to get at a track metadata, composer not displayed. The playback queue listing is simply ridiculous due to a display space which cannot be adjusted, with the titles so heavily truncated as to become unusable. No way to control any of the app settings, most notably the width of the display columns. I expected to be able to drag the right border of the Queue column in order to see more of the track titles, but no such luck.

When browsing the music library up to the point you get at the album level, you see album art only if using AssetUPnP as the music server. With MinimServer as music server (I also tried MediaMonkey with the same result), you only get genery folder icons. I do not know why, maybe because all my album art is embedded inside tracks, without any art file at the folder level (but then, why do I get album art displayed with AssetUPnP ?) You can read in the Moon documentation that the company heavily recommends using AssetUPnP, but it appears that their app somewhere depends on AssetUPnP to work properly.

The app documentation does not give any clue about how to get around all those issues.

I really like the quality of the Moon devices. However, and I hate to say that, when it comes to their control app, I frankly think that the company is shooting itself in the foot by releasing software of such a poor quality. Your experience with a Moon renderer will be much more gratifying if you use a different control point like, on android, BubbleUPnP. If you have access to an android tablet, give it a try. However, I am not knowledgeable enough to recommend an equivalent product on the ipad platform.

Regards