How do we buy music these days?....

[Grant Fondo]

Just had a look on iTunes and it is available to download, I have a subscription, so yes why would you buy it?

I must admit i've got a half decent streamer that does 24bit and the hi res music sounds slightly better, but I still can't fathom why you would buy albums at that price. Surely they disappear if you stop subscribing or maybe not?

 

[raleighnut]

I must admit i've got a half decent streamer that does 24bit and the hi res music sounds slightly better, but I still can't fathom why you would buy albums at that price. Surely they disappear if you stop subscribing or maybe not?

Digital recordings sound inferior to me as they famously do to Keith Richards too* but once you 'compress' the sound further to an MP3 file even more fine detail is lost. Now to 'Joe average' who has a basic system and just wants to listen to their 'sounds' they'll never hear the difference

* Keefs preferred recording medium is 8 track tape running at 15ips

 

[gbb]

Perhaps my approach is wrong, certainly not morally wrong but I get everything I want musically off YouTube...free.
Then, I never was a big music consumer.

In the car...it's Planet Rock, more than enough variety within rock not to get bored.
At home...YouTube for anything I might occasionally want to listen to.

Coincidentally, I was in Weymouth last week and spotted a record store, proper old one with vinyl. Had to go in , love those kind of places...blimey, there's a fortune in old vinyl.

 

[DRM]

I must admit i've got a half decent streamer that does 24bit and the hi res music sounds slightly better, but I still can't fathom why you would buy albums at that price. Surely they disappear if you stop subscribing or maybe not?

I would imagine the do, we have a family subscription, between me, Mrs DRM & our son, works out £5 each per month, we do hammer it, just my self will hit the playlists for something to have on in the van, so well worth it, but I wouldn't buy something now, the other thing is it's great for discovering new stuff too.

 

[Grant Fondo]

I was in Weymouth last week

There were a few great little record shops dotted around that area when i were a lad. A favourite was Bus Stop records in Boscombe.
Yes vinyls got really pricey which is a shame. I was buying a couple a week 5 years ago, not anymore.

 

[Venod]

the other thing is it's great for discovering new stuff too.

Spotify has transformed my music listening, I have been alive a long time so have consumed a lot of different music and genree , over the years you get to know what works for you, Spotify has expanded my list considerably, current favourite new discovery William Prince, check out his you tube video with Serena Ryder.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Spotify has transformed my music listening, I have been alive a long time so have consumed a lot of different music and genree...

Ditto. And very cheap for what you get.

We are avid consumers of fresh material here, we don't watch films we have already seen, read books (with 3 exceptions in two lifetimes) again, watch old comedy tv shows from back in the day for the umpteenth time, or go to see Cats etc 30 times.

We like new and fresh (with occasional past-times revisits) and Spotify allows us to savour tons of new music.

We also applaud Spotify for opening up its ecosystem to third parties - some interesting spin-off Apps have resulted, although many are beyond our older-persons understanding.

Brilliant platform.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Digital recordings sound inferior to me as they famously do to Keith Richards too* but once you 'compress' the sound further to an MP3 file even more fine detail is lost. Now to 'Joe average' who has a basic system and just wants to listen to their 'sounds' they'll never hear the difference

* Keefs preferred recording medium is 8 track tape running at 15ips

I do agree that MP3 compression sounds poor and whilst I'm not going to disagree with anyone's opinion re digital vs analogue, recording studios are pretty much 100% digital these days and have been for some time.

We listen, high 90 percent, to modern music so what we hear is how it is recorded.

And tbh it sounds fantastic.

 

[raleighnut]

I do agree that MP3 compression sounds poor and whilst I'm not going to disagree with anyone's opinion re digital vs analogue, recording studios are pretty much 100% digital these days and have been for some time.

We listen, high 90 percent, to modern music so what we hear is how it is recorded.

And tbh it sounds fantastic.

Yeah, that's why Vinyl is making a big comeback and older 2nd hand records are now at a premium. Admittedly you need to spend quite a lot of wonga on a quality turntable but around a grand will buy something reasonable.

 

[CharlieB]

I’m fortunate in that I’ve owned a Sondek LP12 for over 40 years, and it’s regularly been upgraded to latest spec. and to quite a high end level. So although it’s now quite a valuable item, it’s not been too financially painful over the years.
This year I bit the bullet and purchased a streamer, new speakers and upgraded the LP12. The streamer again is quite a high end item and I’m enjoying the huge range of music on chosen service Qobuz.
The downside is that if the stream is 44.1k (i.e. CD quality) vinyl does sound a lot better (to me at any rate), but at higher rates, 128k or 192k, then the stream option does win in sound quality.
What this has effectively meant is that I’m spending a small fortune on vinyl as I’m looking for all the new discoveries I’ve made.
C

 

[lazybloke]

I do agree that MP3 compression sounds poor and whilst I'm not going to disagree with anyone's opinion re digital vs analogue, recording studios are pretty much 100% digital these days and have been for some time.

The three letter spar code on CDs showed whether they were based on analogue production methods. Most where, in the early 80s.

By the end of the decade, it seemed most CDs were 'DDD', denoting digital.

The first DDD i had was either Jean-Michel Jarre or Dire Straits, probably 40 years ago.


I actually preferred the tone of vinyl, but not the crackles or its inconvenience and lack of portability. Being able to jump between CD tracks (and occasionally indices) was a big step forward too.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

The three letter spar code on CDs showed whether they were based on analogue production methods. Most where, in the early 80s.

By the end of the decade, it seemed most CDs were 'DDD', denoting digital.

The first DDD i had was either Jean-Michel Jarre or Dire Straits, probably 40 years ago.


I actually preferred the tone of vinyl, but not the crackles or its inconvenience and lack of portability. Being able to jump between CD tracks (and occasionally indices) was a big step forward too.

Had enough of vinyl way back, was ok when that was all there was and it was all we knew.

Convenience shifted forward with the humble cassette and didn't sound bad on my Nakamichi Dragon although not brilliant - certainly didn't miss the scratches and 'wow' noises of warped vinyl.

CD's big game changer with track access from the armchair and crystal clear quality.

Streaming, the future arrived. Huge flexibility in terms of playlist construction - mood, genre, artist, thematic, year, life moments etc.

Huge opportunity to search for new music with clever algorithm driven selections.

Also, no need to listen to bum tracks on albums by even the best artists - not that we ever bother to listen to albums anymore.

Each to their own of course but we have fully embraced streaming and it works 100% brilliantly for us.

 

[raleighnut]

track access from the armchair

If you can't be bothered to get up to change records over then it is a poor do. My CD, Minidisc and Cassette players all have remote controls which currently sit in a bowl on a shelf gathering dust.
A lot of people sit equipment in between their speakers (Even people with quite high end kit) but this is totally wrong, for me my set up is in a 'L' configuration with the sources quite close to my seat so it's only a few feet to walk to reach them with some components on a tall multishelf unit and the turntable on a dedicated TT stand next to them. I also don't believe in speaker 'toe-in' my B&W's sit pointing straight out on about 8-9 foot centres quite a way out into the room so as to give as wide a listening area as posslble (no this is my chair in the 'sweet spot' selfishness for me)

 

[SpokeyDokey]

If you can't be bothered to get up to change records over then it is a poor do.

Not really, our lounge (which has two seperate seating areas) & dining area is fairly large, 20' x 35' max' and if eg we are eating or entertaining etc we really don’t want to be getting up and breaking conversation every 15-20 minutes or so to flip a disc or rummage through albums. It is not really a case of 'can't be bothered' and is not remotely a 'poor do' but simply a practical way of managing our music playback that works very well for us.

On another note one of the things we do is ask guests (if we don't already know) what their musical preferences are in advance. We then stitch a mash of their music and our music together as part of an evening long playlist. Goes down really well with guests and is very easy to do via eg Spotify with minimal impact on the evening.

Both our streamer (Arcam) and amp' (Cyrus) are App controlled and we have a dedicated tablet, all of which are wirelessly networked, that we use wherever we are located in the main living area of the house so no pile of dust collecting remotes in this house.

Horses for courses I guess.

 

[winjim]

If you can't be bothered to get up to change records over then it is a poor do. My CD, Minidisc and Cassette players all have remote controls which currently sit in a bowl on a shelf gathering dust.
A lot of people sit equipment in between their speakers (Even people with quite high end kit) but this is totally wrong, for me my set up is in a 'L' configuration with the sources quite close to my seat so it's only a few feet to walk to reach them with some components on a tall multishelf unit and the turntable on a dedicated TT stand next to them. I also don't believe in speaker 'toe-in' my B&W's sit pointing straight out on about 8-9 foot centres quite a way out into the room so as to give as wide a listening area as posslble (no this is my chair in the 'sweet spot' selfishness for me)

Went round my friends' new house for the afternoon. He was away but when I was looking round she asked if I wanted to see his 'listening room'. He's a DJ so has a big collection and a good setup. I was expecting it to be a nice room maybe with a sofa, table for your cuppa or beer, a place you want to spend time and chill in. None of that, it was a bare room in the cellar, absolutely stark with his rig at one end and a single wooden chair placed dead centre facing it. She said he spends hours down there.