Browse by Genre...then by Artist....then by Album.

[MotleyG]

15 minutes ago, afsdasdf said:

but what's the point of a better audio engine?

Pretty much the biggest advantage of Poweramp over almost all other media players.

[andrewilley]

8 hours ago, afsdasdf said:

Excuse my ignorance, but what's the point of a better audio engine? 

Poweramp's main reason for existence is to provide higher quality audio reproduction (e.g. DVC, hi-res output, multi-band/parametric EQ, etc) compared to the standard Android audio processing methods. It's rather like asking why would someone use Denon/Naim/Marantz/etc home hi-fi separates kit costing many thousands of pounds when you can get a Bush wireless speaker on Amazon for £4.99. Yes they both produce noise, but with a vast difference in audiophile quality.

PA does offer a lot of convenience and music cataloguing features too - e.g. 15+ music Categories, many of which offer more than a dozen sorting options in several grouping layers. Admittedly it does not currently have the one specific sort laying feature that you are asking about - but you can't say it doesn't have a heck of a lot of choices available. Contrast that with, for example, the Sonos app which has four local music Categories, of which only one (Folders) has any sorting control at all (3 choices).

Andre

[afsdasdf]

Thanks, Andre, for the detailed explanation!!

I don't think your Denon example is a good one, though, because that involves DACs and power systems.  Obviously there's no limit to how good those can be.  But in my application here, I'm just streaming an MP3 onto Bluetooth, and I don't want to apply any processing.  I'd imagine that the digital decoding and re-encoding should follow standards, and give the identical result as any device following the MP3 and Bluetooth coding standards.

On a separate topic, in my car I've been using iOS app Equalizer by Audioforge in order to flatten the response of my speakers and boost the bass.  I'm blown away by how well it works.  And it also doesn't support browsing by Genre->Artist, a significant disadvantage!  I don't know about you, but I'm usually in the mood for a particular genre, so it makes total sense to browse artists within a desired genre.

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, afsdasdf said:

I don't think your Denon example is a good one, though, because that involves DACs and power systems. 

The same does apply to Android devices. Many are good, middle of the road players. Some are poor with barely acceptable minimum requirements. Others have premium high-end DACs built in and have enough power to drive some serious headphones. And beyond that, some digital audio players (I.e. not even a phone at all, just a dedicated music player using the Android OS) are truly next level. But it starts with an app that can achieve the results, before the hardware can do it’s thing.

You can be satisfied “just streaming MP3 to Bluetooth” if that is what you are looking for. Poweramp’s strength is in its premium sound, and the interface for browsing is pretty smooth.

[MotleyG]

Back to the point of the original post. I would like to ask - how often does one Album Artist typically have more than one Genre? I know that there are some but this isn’t really common in my opinion. But if the topic here is based on browsing by first Genre, then Artist, then Album to drill down to find something… wouldn’t it actually be faster to just start in the Artist list, then Album? Not that the choice can’t exist, It just seems to add a step I would think.

[Fitzian]

Depending on what source/store its acquired from, a fair bit of EDM could have specific genre tags baked in for different styles beyond just "Electronic", such as Dubstep, Drum & Bass, Glitch Hop, Electro House, Psy-trance, Trap, etc. Especially among the more prolific creators out there. Mainly was in the early and mid 2010s before genre-blending got out of control (in the best way possible). But some albums could have different genres from track to track...

 

[andrewilley]

My  7000+ track music collection on my phone is fairly eclectic, but not very modern. I have plenty of soundtrack recordings for example, and lots of electronic/new wave and general rock/pop, but absolutely no rap/hip-hop/J- or K-Pop/grunge/etc. Well, I do have a couple of Ed Sheeran albums, and the Blondie track "Rapture", but that's as close to rap as my ears will take. 

Over 1,000 of my songs are Singles that don't have their own album tags at all, and their Genre tag accuracy is pretty patchy too as I haven't gone through every one giving it its own Genre (mostly I just set them to Pop unless they stood out as being some particular genre). There are also collection albums for which different tracks may have different genres - and different artists come to that.

Anyway, the upshot is that I very rarely use Genre at all, and even when I do it would most often be to shuffle All Songs from that genre rather than trying to play one 'Artist' or 'Album' contents. Most of my listening is either by Folders or using a Playlist. But that's one of the benefits of Poweramp, there are so many options that it's possible to cater for most people's tastes and ways of listening to music.

However these sort of requests do pop up periodically, and Max has added lots of extra category sorting options over the years, so this one could indeed be actioned at some point too. As a longer-term to solution to every future thread like this one, I've had a long-standing request for a user-definable category system where you can choose exactly what tags you want to use, and how to drill-down and sort each level. But while that would solve every such request in one go, I'm sure it would be a major programming task and I wouldn't expect it to happen any time soon.

 Andre

[afsdasdf]

On 4/22/2022 at 11:36 PM, MotleyG said:

But it starts with an app that can achieve the results, before the hardware can do it’s thing.

Well I go back to, that's only if you're applying EQ or other special processing.  If you have quality hardware and want to hear what the sound masterer intended, it can be best to not do your own processing.

 

On 4/22/2022 at 11:47 PM, MotleyG said:

if the topic here is based on browsing by first Genre, then Artist, then Album to drill down to find something… wouldn’t it actually be faster to just start in the Artist list, then Album?

The point is, you don't know ahead of time what artist you want to select.  You just know you're in the mood to listen to a particular genre.  And within that genre, you discover the artist you want to go with.  If you just browse by artist in general, you're looking at too large of a list, and everything from Classical to Rap to Whatever is mixed all together, making for a crappy list to browse.

[andrewilley]

Technically, neither Artists nor Albums have Genres anyway, only songs do. In fact, every song in an album could be in a different genre (although that's pretty unlikely of course).

But I agree that the extra level of grouping/sorting would not be a bad idea.

Andre

[GeilerHeinz]

5 hours ago, afsdasdf said:

The point is, you don't know ahead of time what artist you want to select.  You just know you're in the mood to listen to a particular genre.  And within that genre, you discover the artist you want to go with.  If you just browse by artist in general, you're looking at too large of a list, and everything from Classical to Rap to Whatever is mixed all together, making for a crappy list to browse.

I also think that genre category is a pretty obvious starting point to browse for certain (album) artists because you have a much more condensed list.

Regards

[Dylan Glynn]

i registered just to add this discussion.

i occasionally check this forum in the hope that PA will finally implement genre > artist > album browsing. I have not only been looking for years for a good player that does this, recently at last one player stopped implementing it. For the life of me I cannot understand why this UI option, that cannot be difficult to implement, is not common on android players. In IOS it is basically default and has always been. I understand that if you have lots of fine grained genre distinctions in your tags, you will end up with songs with different tags in the same album etc. I also understand that for smaller music collections or collections that are not very varied in genre it makes no difference. But in large collections where genre can be used as an access point to browse music you want to listen to - it is fundamental. I don’t think im alone in finding it difficult to imagine wanting to listen hard rock, chamber music and JPop in the same « sitting », nor is it likely that any of Beethoven’s sonatas would get a tag “trip hop” any more than i would what to tag any Ramstein songs as electro swing. 

Even if the people who wish to browse music collections by « genre artist album » only represent a small minority - we surely represent an active often “audiophile” minority - why is it so hard to get this feature implemented. I use Poweramp as one of my main  two players when I am on the move, but am constantly looking for a player that offers this option.. I am sure I am not alone…

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, Dylan Glynn said:

i occasionally check this forum in the hope that PA will finally implement genre > artist > album browsing.

I don't think this is difficult to do. Select any genre in the library browser. Then with the 3-dot menu at the top of the display, go to "List Options" and select "By artist". You will then see a list of albums, sorted by artist. You can further drill into each album in the list from here. The scroll bar on the side can be used by letter to quickly jump through the list.