CD vs HDTracks vs Streaming - how to manage music purchases in the digital age.

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by Changeling, Apr 10, 2017.

  1. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Update: Over the last year, I've tended to prefer Bandcamp.com > ProStudioMasters.com > prestocassical.co.ok > eClassical.com > HDtracks.com > HighResAudio.com. My genres are jazz, classical, world. Be careful that many independent releases (eg. Intakt, Sunnyside, Edition) appear on ProStudioMasters and HDtracks but also on Bandcamp, sometimes a few days later. I much prefer Bandcamp's lower prices and more money to artist, so I always check there for a few days before going to the others.
     
  2. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I had about 500 CDs in my collection pre digital and ripped them via EAC over the course of a year or so. It's not as labor intensive as you think - pop one in, do something else for 5-10 minutes, then pop another one in. Album art can be a pain though for more obscure albums.

    In the last few years I've bought digital except when there was no other option (probably <5%).

    I don't subscribe to a streaming service. I already miss the thing-ness of having CDs, and the idea of not even having a digital thing is a bridge too far so far. Also having the album on my computer makes me more invested in it whereas on spotify I would just be constantly finding new music and spend less time on repeat listens. There's enough ADHD wormholes these days as it is. Finally, I'm on the road (or in the air) a lot without internet.

    To hear new music pre purchase I use youtube mostly, or samples from download sites.
     
  3. DigMe

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    I always forget about prostudiomasters
     
  4. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    @Stuff Jones CD's were definitely my main source of music in the US. Here in Asia I've probably done downloads more but I've bought some CD's too.
     
  5. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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    Today I’m Bandcamp -> Discogs -> Amazon . About 50/50 CD/Downloads. I suspect I’ll be moving towards maybe a 20/80 split but some releases and labels still release physical format only and I like to get stuff in the mail.
    No streaming except Bandcamp.
     
  6. IndySpeed

    IndySpeed Friend

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    I'm still old school in regards to the digital age for music. I'm certainly not consistent when it comes to technology adoption. For instance, I was an early adopter when it came to Movies & TV with Netflix streaming. I have been doing that forever. Nonetheless, I'm still skeptical of places selling flac files or streaming in that they haven't been up or down sampled correctly. Some of the companies selling flac files have even gotten in trouble for just up sampling an existing title they already have. I'm also very sensitive to bad audio. For instance, I can't stand HD Radio. Too me it doesn't sound right. The compression algorithm makes the music sound like it has an incompatibility. For instance, to me it sounds like when Netflix started using Dolby Digital Plus and many receivers sounded weird until they received updates. I'm also not a fan of Satellite music either because of how it sounds, but it is better than HD Radio. In short, I don't like overly compressed music. Although, I can tolerate MP3s at 320Kbps (CBR) for mobile listening (phone/car). Nonetheless, all of my music is CDs ripped on my Linux box with software that I've written to optimize the import process so my entire music library is 44.1Khz, 16-bit, stereo which is my quality floor that I'm willing to listen to. Although, I still listen to regular radio in my vehicles. Now, I have listened to a couple of streaming services, and I just wasn't all that impressed. Nonetheless, there has been several audio delivery formats and services that I have seen over the years, but I only find CDs to be the most consistent in quality and availability. I think music streaming is still mostly a convenience thing (sort of like how iPods use to be), and companies' focus have historically not really been about quality. Keep in mind that I think most services are targeted to regular consumers which we are obviously not. In short, I think their probably is room for two extreme camps. You'll probably have some wanting to stay analog, and they still use Records but I find them too inconvenient. Too big, lacking in music availability for the music I want to listen to, and requires a good turntable and needle (extra expense), and you still can experience pops and etc from scratches, dust, and what not. The other would be CDs. In fact, there have been plenty of other digital disc formats (DVD-Audio, HDCD, CDs w/DTS, SACD, and etc.) Most of which really haven't reached any critical mass, faded away, or did not offer any compelling reason for the masses to purchasing even more equipment which is probably were 4K Video discs are headed. As an enthusiast, we are often let down because most companies strive to provide products and services designed to reach the most consumers as possible. Even those pitching to us enthusiasts, typically will only provide a half ass attempt (obviously there are exceptions but some of them even pull out or fail like Oppo, Essential, and etc because we just don't represent a large enough group typically for most companies). Nonetheless, one could make the argument that Records and CDs are a relic from the past. This might very well be true, but still in the digital age CDs probably represent the only way to get good consistent quality music today with the widest range of music availability crossing multiple genres. Even though I do acknowledge there can be significant quality differences on CDs too depending on how they were mastered. Nonetheless, there might be some high-end streaming services in the future worth consideration (but I don't need or want another utility bill). I stay with CDs for the balance of convenience, availability, and quality. Nothing is perfect, and there are no right answers here. You have to decide for yourself what balance of convenience, availability, and quality you are willing to tolerate...
     
  7. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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    Agreed. I’ve scanned most of my albums booklets but that was a major pita.
    But it was worth it in the end, especially since Roon now has the ability to flip through album art. I use an iPad and finally digital music management is what I always wanted.
     
  8. Kernel Kurtz

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    My music collection is still pretty much exclusively CDs. I've already re-purchased a lot of the music I used to own on vinyl growing up - I'll not be doing that yet again. I too like the physical quality of ownership as well. Also, with the popularity of streaming, CDs have gotten cheap. There are several shops here that specialize in used CDs, and new ones can be found on Amazon often under $10 CDN.

    The biggest concern with physical copies is of course theft/fire. For that reason more than anything I do plan to rip my CDs to files. It is on my to-do list now that I am retired and have more time. Just need to set myself up a RAID box - I've had enough HDDs fail over the years that I sure would not invest all that time into ripping onto a single one. I don't think I will bother with album art for now. That could change if I have more spare time in the future.....
     
  9. Brad Tombaugh

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    Last year, I found that I was buying 2-3 albums per month from HDTracks.com when they were on sale, so I averaged $40-50 a month. I was sometimes buying the high-res version of something that I already had in MP3 or AAC that wasn’t very high quality.

    After I started using Roon to manage my music library, I decided to do a trial of Tidal, since it sounded like it was integrated nicely with Roon. After seeing how nicely Roon and Tidal work together, I realized that the $20/month to subscribe to Tidal with high-resolution streaming was half what I had been spending to buy music, but with Tidal I had a much larger selection, and I could find music that I liked, but not well enough to justify buying the whole album.

    I already have a large enough collection of music to load onto my iPhone or iPad to listen on the airplane when traveling, where I wouldn’t have the ability to use streaming. I can use Tidal at home or at work, and not have to worry about storage space, etc.

    By the way, I also invested in a NAS with RAID for redundancy for backups and storing music and movies, where I can easily recover for a single hard drive failure. My hosting plan also provides me unlimited storage, so I have uploaded my music library to the server where I host my website, so that I have an offline copy as well.
     
  10. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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    Just remember that RAID is not backup. It doesn’t protect you from theft/fire/malware. Redundancy will secure uptime and help in case of a drive failure or the opportunity to “go back in time”, but that’s about it.
    I’ve been using a cloud service for backup and an old external drive which I’m just backing up once a month or so, and storing off site.

    Next up will be NAS (RAID) for redundancy and probably a new external drive for backup, and potentially also a cloud service for a portion of the collection...

    It’s complicated but I see no way around it.
    Streaming is over for me.
     
  11. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    Oh I'm well aware of that. I'm not planning to actually play the music from a NAS, I'll still be listening to the CDs, so in my case it is just a backup for the time investment I'm going to spend ripping. I already have portable drives I keep offsite for important documents and such. Probably I will just set up two drives in a straight RAID 1 mirror and keep one of the drives offsite except to sync now and then. That limits my potential loss only to changes between syncs. I don't need the additional space efficiency of levels with parity and I can tolerate the failure risk of two drives. It's not like it's mission critical stuff.
     

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