Accessing BIG music collections - WD TV Live doesn't seem up to the job

Newby here, so please be gentle.

I bought the WDTV Live to play my digtal video and audio after a PC blew up.  It seemed excellent value at Au$79.

It is absolutely fine for playing all video formats from a 2TB WD HDD. Although the picture doesn’t seem quite as crisp as it was when I was playing from a PC. But so far, I’m pretty happy with its performance for playing video.

HOWEVER, I have found it is not so good for music. The sound quality is not great, and it won’t play audio through the optical/digital port. Is that right?

I have a WD 2TB HDD with about 6000 albums mostly in FLAC and it just can’t seem to handle accessing that many folders - so it persistently freezes. The furthest I’ve got through the alphabet accessing the folders is 23 Skidoo - i.e., not very far. So if you have a large music collection the interface does not seem up to it.

I’d like to be able to shuffle-play all 6000 albums. But when I try to get it to play the parent folder in which the albums are located it just freezes.

Also, if I have the music drive connected through one USB port when playing video via the other USB port, the video is choppy. So I’ve given up connecting the music drive. Without the music drive connected all is fine, but as soon as I connect it, the WD TV Live gets very slow and unstable.

So why does it have so many problems accessing 6000 albums in a 2TB HDD? Is there a solution to this?

I’m now looking at a SONOS for playing digital audio.

Your thoughts are welcome.

HOWEVER, I have found it is not so good for music. The sound quality is not great, and it won’t play audio through the optical/digital port. Is that right?   Yes it should be able to change the settings and select to output the out through the optical port.

What’s the firmware that you have in your media player?

I have the latest firmware - Version 1.06.34 (9/24/2012)

IMO the WDTV isn’t suited for huge audio libraries.