Sonata Music Server

CES 2012

By Michael Lavorgna • Posted: Jan 17, 2012

I also got to see a demo of the Sonata Music Server software ($99) which is geared toward the PC-owning classical music lover and anyone interested in expanded metadata. Sonata can capture and store up to 18 fields of metadata including genre, style, composer, work, conductor, orchestra, soloists, singers, period, instrument, record label, etc. Sonata also offers access to their SonataDB, a 50,000 and growing library of fully tagged classical music metadata so when you import or rip your classical music, it will come pre-loaded with all fields complete as long as it exists in their database.

Sonata Music Server uses an OEM and customized version of the J River Media Center software and will work on any Windows 7, XP or Vista PC or Tablet and play back up to 24-bit/192kHz files. Sonata supports automatic sample rate switching, memory play, and resampling up to 192kHz. For ripping, they've incorporated one of my favorites dBpoweramp which supports most formats including FLAC, WAV, MP3, ACC, AIFF, and more. There's also multi-room support so you can stream to up to 4 different zones, DLNA 1.5 compatibility, 9 languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish), and its touch screen enabled.

And for those classical music lovers with a large library to rip, Sonata supports dBpoweramp's batch ripper and they're going to offer a "CDRobot" solution that can rip 100 CDs at a clip. Projected price for the batch ripper is $800.

Comments

Sonata Music server... or JRiver Mediacenter ???

Submitted by audiofilodigital01 on January 17, 2012 - 1:03pm.

Mmmh, can you tell me exactly the main differences with the software JRiverMediacenter ($49,98) ? It seems this is only a modified (?) version.

As far as I can see this is a similar software (JRiver probably, even much better).

Or maybe even a modified version of the JRiver Jukebox (which is a free software) ?

Regards,

Victor S.

As I understand, it's an OEM

Submitted by ropanedual on January 17, 2012 - 2:17pm.

As I understand, it's an OEM version of the JRiver Media Center with additional customizations.

It also incorporates the best ripper in the market, dBPoweramp and, I believe, a software that allows you to control the Sonata from another PC or iPhone.

It also gives you acceso to a unique proprietary database with 50.000 CDs perfectly tagged with 18 fields (composer, instrument, style, soloist, conductor, etc.) which is fundamental if you are a music lover and want to have your collection perfectly catalogged. You are able to chose, for example, music from the Barroque period for piano, with Bedrnstein as the conductor and Brendel as the soloist. There is no other software capable of this.

Mmmh, you can download a free trial version

Submitted by Michael Lavorgna on January 17, 2012 - 6:26pm.

And see for yourself.

For anyone who's ever spend time tagging songs ...

Submitted by deckeda on January 18, 2012 - 2:50pm.

... especially Classical music, the $50 or $100 difference over JRiver to have a chunk of that done for you is freakin' bargain.

Sonata (dbPoweramp+JRiver)=

Submitted by Vincent Kars on January 19, 2012 - 2:58am.

Sonata (dbPoweramp+JRiver)= $99

JRiver+dbPoweramp= $50 + $38= $88

I use both JRiver and dbPoweramp

dbPoweramp is a better ripper (accurate rip) and has better tags than JRiver.

I do think the Sonata price is fair

Sonata Music Server

Submitted by notung on January 19, 2012 - 9:30am.

We have a document that thoroughly explains the differences between JR MC and Sonata in our web http://www.sonataserver.com/download/pdf/Sonata_vs_J_River_MC.pdf, You’d judge if the $11 difference is justified or not. It’s just impossible to do what Sonata does with the regular $50 JR MC, although we understand that users with small music libraries may not need Sonata.