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I have a lot of CDs ripped to FLAC and I am finally going to put my CDs in the loft and just use a laptop and a USB DAC to connect to my hifi.
However, in the past, when I have tried to do this, using Media Monkey, the database gets messed up and doesn't seem to follow a simple folder type structure.
Am I doing it wrong or is there better software out there? Is a matter of checking the metadata, tags etc?
I don't really like Spotify and the like so don't want to go that route.
Windows Media Player?
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-play-flac-files-in-windows-media-player-12-2438876
I have tried a few different ones over the years, no I just use Windows Media Player. it simply does what I need.
Having tried a few, Musicbee is the best free one IMO.
iTunes works for me
Does Windows Media player still rip from CD? Mine seems to be kapput
Does Windows Media player still rip from CD?
Yes.
You could try looking at Plex to see how it works as a music player. I use it to watch tv and movies. It can also handle music, but I've never really used it for that. It seems to have a "Smart Playlist" feature, but no idea how that works in detail.
https://forums.plex.tv/t/howto-create-playlists-updated-for-new-ui/146040
First you need to make sure it all has the correct ID3 tags etc. Then that will let the the player find stuff by artist, album etc.
Mp3tag is very useful for this. Lets you check all of the tags, and do bulk edits, plus renaming and sorting into folders etc. https://www.mp3tag.de/en/
For playing music I use Winamp. Fairly simple, works fine for me.
I downloaded winamp last week to access music from my NAS but it never manages to add it all to a library (it seems to shutdown after an amount of time).
beaTunes if you want to ensure everything is tagged correctly and also want to auto generate playlists. It also will work with iTunes to put lyrics, and BPM values into the ID3 tags.