I have a Core, but with so much on vinyl, well tape etc…, I don’t use it every day. Noticing a small stack of CD purchases awaiting ripping and, on the back of this thread, I decided last night to fire it all up, do some ripping and then some playing. The ripping all went very well - fast, good metadata lookups, sometimes from Rovi, sometimes from Musicbrainz, only issue being no artwork, but not so much an issue for me as I like to find and choose my own, which thanks to Discogs again was easy to find and to copy into the metadata. Playback was again very simple, worked without a hitch and sounded great into my Naim DAC. This morning I’ve been using it as a server to my UQ2 and, again, no problems, and working well.
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That might be the case Pete but the fact of the matter is whether we like it or not CD’s are a declining market.
That interesting article someone posted on forum re declining sales of all physical music indicated if I read it right CD’s are declining at a faster rate (volume wise) than even the humble vinyl which is a bit weird
Lots of manufacturers gave up on CDP’s including Linn way way back. But it is pleasing to see some manufacturers hanging in there producing CDP’s.
How do you handle multi disc albums Pete…?
Or say an album like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories with its multiple track artists – do you lump that all under Daft Punk or the wonderful ‘Various Artists’ which then doesn’t appear under searches for Daft Punk….
Do you have much Classical music…? I don’t, but I’m sure you’ll get the point…
SC
For the first time in 18months or whatever, think this is the first time I’ve totally disagreed with you….! 
SC
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On this I agree, I too far prefer to source my own album artwork, especially so for things like box sets, special editions etc…
One thing I’ve never liked/understood re the Discogs lookups for artwork, is 9 times out of 10 they are fairly poor, like some guy with a $100 flatbed scanner and you can see all the crumbs of what he had for a snack whilst doing the scan…! I far prefer to typically go to artist’s websites and pull from there, typically good quality and original digital artwork….
Apple’s iTunes will always pull in a ‘digital’ original artwork as used by the artists, record companies, PR etc….It amazes me just what low quality copies of artwork is out there and why anybody would want to look at it…!
SC
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I bought Random Access as a hi res file and haven’t had issues, I do always check the data in an app I have first though.
And you’re allowed to disagree I love Mrs Pete to death but I disagree with her regularly.
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Anyway I’m a big fan of the Core as I am indeed of CDP’s.
Still buy CD’s , play them on one of my 2 Naim players ( until they depart this planet) and rip them into Core
I’ll leave it there
Yes, some of the scans can be a bit ropey, but it’s great for finding a very specific issue of whichever CD you have.
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Very occasionally my Zenith Mk III retrieves an unusual piece of artwork from whatever meta data database it’s using but nothing like what’s being reported here.
Given both Naim and Innuos appear to be using the same databases I find this really strange……?
ATB, J
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I use the Ben Dodson site which has many high resolution art work.
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Thanks, will have a look.
SC
If you bought the HD files, then the metadata would have been embedded in those files and therefore not a factor in the Core looking up and applying the metadata to the tag fields….
Where the Core, and in conjunction the App, falls short is….
Do you see this–
OR this–
Meanwhile, in another universe, you can have both…oh, you can even have the date as well – modern technology eh…! 
SC
I search through Google and Bing, and very rarely use Discogs for artwork, but if the images are poor or nonexistent, I photograph the CD.
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Me too!
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Yes, that’s a very cool function that I’ve used on a number of occasions.
I take your point.
It would seem the embedded metadata from wherever you purchased (I’m guessing Qobuz from the style) has applied the featured artist into the track title…one way of doing it and works with the Core as it’s a track title and one of the few tag fields that the Core honours, but IMO rather ugly….
And not consistent either – track #3, 4 etc would drive me nuts not having the track Artist.
It must be my OCD. 
SC
I really love the Core, the playback is excellent (better than Tidal Max in my opinion) and the build is solid. Of course as everyone has said the metadata lookup and editing is poor, especially for classical. But for me the positives outweigh the negatives. I’m thankful I can store my 1300 CDs in the loft.
If Naim invested more time into this product they’d be doing so at a loss, and they’d get no more sales for a product that’s basically supporting a dying format. Streaming is so dominant now and that’s only going to increase.
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If i were Naim i wouldn’t spend any time upgrading the Core. Just keep it running with any issues that come up by making minor software updates. It is beautifully built, sounds excellent when connected to a good Dac, and it really scales well. I have about 7tb of music on mine and have no trouble at all finding what i want in 5 seconds or less. The flexibility of the ‘Downloads’ folder lets you organize music that has not been ripped by the Core any way you want. I frequently load music from all kinds of sources (eg archive.org) and the Downloads folder is perfect for that. I think the downsides of the Core are overstated. Yes a few times i have had the similar cd’s overwrite issue. No problem, i just ripped the second on on my Mac and loaded it into ‘Downloads’. Yes classical music has terrible metadata and Naim certainly doesn’t improve it. So i either edit it a bit, or load it into Downloads. I have many thousands of pieces of music on the thing and for me at least it is near perfect. Looks great too!
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I just assume track 3,4 is Daft Punk.
But that mightn’t be the Cores fault, I bought that from HD Tracks their meta data is often a mess. I could probably fix that easily by using my app.