Don't "upgrade" to Catalina if you have a large iTunes library

Finally got the new 27" 5k Retina iMac fully up and running and I I am happy to report that the music now sounds fantastic again! No way I will upgrade this machine to Catalina.

 

Despite the various well-documented headaches with Catalina, I have a 99%+ degree of skepticism than music playback sounds less “lively” than with Mojave.

 

Don't. I'm not until several complete updates and I read all is well with it. Not on my main iMac. I put Catalina on my laptop just to test it out and it's fine there but no way on my main machine!

 

I don't attribute the problem to Catalina but to the severe performance degradation of the 2015 iMac with Catalina. It would take nearly an hour to get it fully operational from a restart. Something was sucking up all the resources and I am pretty sure that is where the sound difference was coming from. I also installed 32gb of ram in the new machine and the thing is smokin' fast.

 

from what I understand, it takes a while for artwork and iTunes metadata to be restored. Could that be what’s stressing your Mac. Let us know if it resolves.

 

My wife (and you plus another member) shamed me into giving it another try. Funny story: turns out it simply didn't like the long USB cable I was using! (25' with some sort of signal booster built in.) My wife later asked if it could the cable, and I said no since it worked the night before and still works with my HP laptop. Well, wasn't I surprised! It's less convenient having the Mac across the room, but I can control JRiver MC with my phone, and it isn't the end of the world to get up and manually change tracks on Qobuz. Also, I don't think it actually came with Catalina--I noticed a software update and thought I had nothing to lose, so clicked on it--turns out it was Catalina!

So after reinstalling some software and recopying 346gb of FLAC/DSD files, I think I'm home free. One huge improvement is the Mac version of Qobuz's app. The Windows one was pure garbage. It would freeze, had constant dropouts...you name it.

 

hahaha I hate when that happens! Just a cable that is. Can't you just use the QB phone app. Def w/ blutooth you can. There has a been two small Catalina updates so that might be what updated

 

Latest frustration: Music is STILL churning through my library trying to process all of my artwork. It doesn't help that, every few hours, the app locks up, uses up all available memory, and then terminates. [grrrrrrr]

 

I am okay now as I bought a new iMac.

 

After all the hours I spent futzing around, I'm pretty angry yet relieved! Only one small problem remains: JRiver did not import all of the files--still working on that.

I don't think that would work with my amp's DAC--I have to plug a cable into the USB input on the back.

 

Thank you for mentioning the USB cable issue. Its something I have been wondering about—that is, if I go from a long (~20') coax cable to a USB of similar length ('tho on a W10 PC l/t), whether it'd be OK. Maybe not. Interesting that it's fine with the HP and not with the Mac.

 

What's even stranger is that it worked for a while with the Mac, but it suddenly quit, so that's why I was ready to get rid of it...I already had connection issues with my HP! It's definitely less convenient not having it at my side, but for far better functionality and sound, it's a small sacrifice.

 

Look on your desktop for a file called 'Relocated Items'. It totally removed lots of interesting stuff I had loaded onto this thing.

 

I just heard about this company. They may be the answer to long USB cables: USB 2.0 A-B BLUE 8M

 

I called Apple and complained and complained until i got a tech person on the line to talk to me about my album artwork and he told me that it will only look at their library of artwork and therefore every time it ever updates it will lose some or all of my artwork that isn't in their database. (its happened to me 2x before on updates)

That coupled with the new Apple Music function where you click on an album and it takes you to a full new screen instead of just opening a window i can click around with has moved me over to Swinsian for now. I am enjoying relearning a software that seems pretty straightforward. I have noticed, and read above, about a compilations issue myself but I'm confident that I can tinker with it and fix those files over time. I planned on combing the files again recently anyways because i found a slew of albums at lower than desired quality.

 

That sucks. I disabled the ability for Apple to update artwork automatically since all my artwork is from fanart.tv which looks nicer than the artwork Apple provides.

 

That's it then? No customized artwork anymore?

 

You can still use custom artwork. Just to be safe disable the option that allows Apple to update artwork automatically.

 

My customized artwork transferred over without a hitch, so I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

 

If you turn on iCloud Music Library (typically for Apple Music subscribers that want to download (not stream) tracks via the service), then Apple servers will indeed replace some of your own/local music artwork.

^^ This has nothing to do with Catalina, and has been a problem for years.

 

I'm in the same boat as you, and I have not run into any problem with my music. Only problem I've ever had was the artwork changes from my iTunes to my iPhone, and again in my Toyota Entune system. Artwork hasn't changed in my classic iPod though.. These problems were there before Catalina....

Fait to say, I'm still content with Apple/iTunes

 

If you turn off the auto artwork download it might not happen, at least it didn’t happen with me. The futzing iTunes did to the playlists on my Mac, on the other hand...

 

How do you do that?

 

In the Advanced tab in preferences, there is a checkbox that says Automatically Update Artwork, Uncheck it so Apple wont replaces your album art. Though I think having this disabled will not update the Artist Icons image though, But if you have unique artwork its probably best to leave it unchecked so Apple doesn't overwrite the artwork.

 

^^^^^
This

I don’t mind the auto generated update of the artist icon but YMMV