Do you use music streaming services or play files/CDs/vinyl/8tracks/etc?

Just curious. This poll is anonymous by the way. No one can see who voted for what.

 

That's a name I haven't seen in a long time. Welcome back.

I've still got a pretty large collection locally on hard drives of music and focus on harder to find stuff which isn't on streaming services (e.g. MFSL or AP).

I've also got running subs to Qobuz and Tidal which is hard to beat for music discovery. Tidal has lots of good stuff for music discovery where it creates mixes or just autoplays their recommended music based on what you're listening to. I haven't carefully done an A-B of them and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I think Tidal is inferior sounding to Qobuz and locally played flac at the same rate.

 

Roon radio has been doing a super great job at filing in between the known knowns and the unknown unknowns for me!

 

What this guy said.

 

CD's & ripped files for me. I can't bring myself to stream, though I do dive into YouTube for new music occasionally.
Once I read the Peter Frampton tweet : "For 55 million streams of, ‘Baby I Love Your Way’, I got $1,700. I went to Washington with ASCAP last year to talk to law makers about this. Their jaws dropped and they asked me to repeat that for them." I could never bring myself to stream seriously.

 

I’m kind of surprised by that. I thought at least big name artists made money off streaming services. Artists don’t make any money off CD sales either though. I used to be against it and cheer for artists getting a bigger percentage of the streaming profits.

But I read an article about what it takes to make money off streaming services. Only pop stars do. Shitty mainstream pop stars. So it doesn’t actually matter which streaming service you choose because the artists you care about don’t make money off any of them. If streaming services lead you to discover new artists and you then go see those artists in concert or live wherever it could be argued that ultimately streaming services help artists make money.

Compared to sitting at home with the same crusty old album collection and not seeing those emerging or small time bands live, which is their only source of income.

Best of both worlds - discover artists on streaming services, buy their albums on bandcamp where they receive 85% of the profit and then go see them live. But no one’s going to do that. Or very few.

 

Surprised not many more people stream. It's 100% streaming with spotify premium for me, for several reasons:

• I value the music discovery features, and the wide selection of songs (I listen to a lot of J-rock and some indie labels that are harder to find on other streaming services like Tidal).
  
• I also like the user experience of spotify the best. I've tried tidal and audirvana, but always went back to spotify. Something about the layout, navigation, etc. is just easier to use for me.
  
• I've tried lossless services like tidal and buying my own lossless. And while they definitely do sound better, I think _how much_ they sound better is exaggerated, and honestly spotify sounds _plenty_ good enough with my current chain of Pi2AES -> Gungnir A2 -> 3F -> Utopia

The politics/ethics of payment to musicians notwithstanding, I'm staying with streaming services. For songs/albums I love I'm down to buy the lossless/CDs to support the artists (but again, some of the songs, particularly those from Yorushika, are almost impossible to buy lossless outside of japan for me).

p.s. As an aside, I think that using streaming services/youtube to make money is not the main benefit. I feel the main benefit is greater exposure/discovery, so you can make the real money through concerts and such.

 

I've seen people here say they do exactly this. I still prefer physical media myself, but most of the downloads I've bought have been from Bandcamp.

 

I stream when it is convenient. If I don't own the music I stream it (Hard to own it all). If I am out and about and only have my phone I stream it. Maybe something new came out or someone recommended music and I have time I stream it on my way to work, on the train, laying down, just waiting. Maybe I want to pick something up to get a feel of it I pay the big bucks for it on vinyl I stream it (I have never bought music I didn't enjoy). Another reason I would stream is if Im in a show room and I want to check out how something would sound with my music. For example, I want to try out the Magniepan LRS, I have a few tracks I want to checkout on it, because I don't listen to good recordings. I can't just bring my data with me and plug my stuff in(yet).

Reasons I wouldn't stream, It is on me locally(aka already own the CD and its ripped and ready on my computer). My internet sucks ATM, near my data throttle cap. I'm spinning records on my 2 channel. I want to hear it with less of the noise, UI's computer fans, monitor glow. Sometimes I just want to take my hands off and listen to the music. I am looking to dig deep into a record, Listen to it on my few pairs of headphones maybe the same pair multiple times throughout the whole day/week

Both are options, and of course I have a preference(Vinyl from master tape but I can't stream that). If I own it I play it, If I don't I stream it. As of late I have been streaming Grateful dead. I am a little young to have listened to them live(maybe after all the dust has settled they will pop up again). Now I gotta pick up some albums from the master tapes because what I am hearing is freaking good.

 

Thanks

good to see you’re still around. Lots of people have drifted off. Probably caught and hung by the bloody brits

 

American Beauty
Reckoning
Dick’s Picks Volume 1

those are my favorites in no particular order

 

Unfortunately for my wallet, 16/44 streaming (Tidal and Qobuz for me) has me purchasing more music than I did from, say, 2000 through 2016. When I find myself streaming an album more than a few times, I purchase it so I can have it locally when I travel, on my non-internet-of-things gear (such as DAPs), and for those rare times the internet is down, etc. Streaming makes discovery soooo much easier than listening to legacy radio, browsing record stores, etc. (not that those things don't have their perks as well).

Anecdotally, I hear this story from many audiophools, which to me is evidence that the usual and simplistic narrative that streaming/digital/downloads (legal and illegal) is what killed the music biz starting in the late 1990's.

As far as artists, they are in a tough spot but at the end of the day it is them (and not myself or any other consumer) who have signed these onerous contracts with the record labels. Bandcamp is great, but the problem of publicity and discovery is not really solved by it. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next decade around all this.

 

I used to be on Spotify but moved to YouTube Music cuz it came part of another subscription I have and the recommendations just work a lot better for me, not to mention when it's just background listening on my phone or discovering new albums or artists decent lossy is good enough.

Not proud of the fact that the Philippines is a hotspot for piracy (cough), but I've been moving away from that as finances allow. Thankfully inherited taste in music from my grandparents and dad so had loads of old CDs to rip, but for everything new I have a list of stuff that I plan to buy for, as @crenca said above, those times when offline copies make more sense. I'd like to stick with CDs for the beauty of them, but space says to keep them at a minimum and buy stuff on Bandcamp etc )

I wish Amazon music worked on my end though, since the SQ is allegedly great.

 

I know that I am one of those from whom you have heard this, but that seems to be the minority opinion. Spotify is definitely the best ui and the best music discovery option, but Amazon's sq is just enough better to justify the extra $2.50/mo or so it costs over spotify. Many people just can't seem to bear the thought of putting any money in Bezos'pocket/make a no amazon political statement. Whether those feelings affect their perception of sq is an open question in my mind. Tidal is too expensive and qobuz' desktop app is wonky and has the highest number of artist not founds.

 

True, he does come across as a shiny turdberry but if there's a place to worry about incremental returns on audio quality it's here, hah. I'm perfectly happy with what I have at the moment save for its missing some selections that I now have to keep stored on my devices, eating up more HDD space, but the nervosa and fact that I eventually gained internet speeds faster than 3 Mbps means that on-demand CD-quality audio is tempting.

Same sentiment about Tidal and Qobuz, however your pronounce that, but if it works for people then it works. The way I see it though I plan to stick with CDs and rips for "serious" listening of audiophile faves and things near to my heart and passable lossy streaming for everything else; for people who don't want to trip over physical media I def see the appeal of Amazon

 

Tidal is becoming worse. The desktop software is really getting buggy.

Did they even hire good people for programming and maintenance? Jay Z and his partners have millions, does it kill them to even invest a little in good software/applications.

Either way I will to go back to F.L.A.C. and physical media. For the money and/or effort Tidal is more frustrating than buying physical copies. Too annoying on the long-term compared to the ease of Spotify or even old-school.

 

Lately I've been streaming via Spotify Premium or Qobuz 100% since I got a RPi3 and PI2AES set up. But that will change as soon as Schiit comes out with their transport. I have 3-4 hundred CDs, of which a fair portion arent available for streaming. So a decent transport would get a lot of use.

I started a project of consolidating a bunch of .wav and FLAC files strewn among many hard drives a couple of years ago. But I never finished and most of it is available on Qobuz now or I own the CD. I had considered spending the money on a NAS but I don't think I can justify the cost or the time right now. There just isn't enough content on those drives that I don't have available elsewhere.

I love the sound of vinyl but gave my records/record cleaner, etc to a buddy 20 years ago who has a nice collection and I go to his place frequently enough to listen. I thought about getting back into vinyl but wont because of the cost and new pressings are often inferior. I can't justify rebuilding a collection. I had gotten back into vinyl in the early 90's when everyone was ditching their vinyl for CD's. I could get pristine used stuff for $2-3 back then. Those days are gone.

 

That sounds like you’ve found a good group of people but it’s still in the extreme minority. Everyone on this site is.

 

Yeah this seems to be the new norm. despite my personal reservations, I'm not anti-streaming. A wise friend pointed out to me it's more a shift in how artists get paid...it used to be lucrative to make the album & tour to support it, now that has flipped on it's head. Streaming isn't (necessarily) the death of the artist, just the death of the paradigm I'm used to around how the artist gets compensated.

 

Ripped all my CDs to FLAC and sold them to a record store locally. I mostly stream because I don't like my external HD on my desk.
It would be nice if you could write a hit song and not have to provide anymore value with your life and still be rich. I don't make any more money off the Air Conditioners I fixed in the 90s that are still working either.