90% via Roon/Tidal. For me, the benefit is being able to “go down the rabbit hole” and explore an artist’s discography, whole genres, offshoots etc, and be able to queue up albums on the fly for listening. Went through 6 or 7 Dinah Washington albums the other day, just out of curiously. How amazing is that?
FLAC via Tidal seems fine to me for day-to-day. I remember thinking (years ago) that I would just never get used to the idea of not owning the physical medium, but here I am (CD-quality streaming made it inevitable for me)
I have about 100 albums, and listen to vinyl where I think there is a reason to: love the music, quality & nature of recording, could have been performed in my living room, live, instrumentation etc. - e.g. Neil Young at the Cellar Door, Muddy Waters Hard Again, Joan Baez’ first album, etc. Some exceptions just because they sound awesome (Basie at The Sands, Metallica Black). Also driven by nostalgia, as my father listened to vinyl
I still have my CD’s, but have not bought a new one in ?10? years
Though my majority of listening is through the CD format I do stream to find new music. I too like the reality of holding the disc in my hand and actually owning a physical copy with artwork and lyrics physically there. There’s something more to actually owning a physical copy for me. Also for the collection aspect. Most of my cd collection and all of my vinyl collection was stolen years ago. I thought I’d never be able to replace my cds as the rumors of cds no longer being pressed were rampant at the time. Suffice to say where there’s a demand there’s a supply and I don’t see cds or vinyl going extinct, at least not in my lifetime. Never know though. There’s just to many CD players and turntables which is a large market for first time users and upgraders too.
There’s a decent market for remastered cds too as the technology and art of remastering old analog releases to compact disc has evolved to very good sound quality. Certainly much better than originally when cds first came out and better than 20 years ago. I still like original analog when it comes to older releases done on vinyl originally yet again the remastering process has evolved to quite good standards. I too went the compact disc route a long time ago. I have about 2000 or so more cds to replace. Many box sets and other releases are out of print yet I’m still able to locate many releases that went missing from my collection. I’m also constantly updating my collection with new releases and remastered releases if the remastering is worth it. Just recently I bought Jethro Tulls Benefit, Aqualung and Thick as a Brick releases. I had the whole Tull catalog up to Jtull.com and these three are part of the releases that went missing and I’m replacing. They have the added benefit of being remastered by a Steven Wilson who does an excellent job. Sounds so much better than the remasters I had that went missing. Literally night and day. I’ll be replacing the last set of remasters by Tull that I still have too, the sound quality is that much better.
Yes, I’m still buying LPs and CDs. Lots of folks are selling them for pennies on the dollar. It’s a matter of hedging my bets. I subscribe to streaming services and love that I can dial up nearly anything I want to hear but, any or all of these services could shut down tomorrow and there goes your music library.
I have a large collection of CDs about 70% has been RIP'd and placed my dedicated music server
I have about 120 SACDs all of these have been RIP'd to SACD.iso and then turned into DSF files for the music server
Fair amount of vinyl and most new purchases are vinyl these days. This can be a mixed bag depending on the release and where it was pressed.
No steaming of any kind for music - except the music server
Some but not many hi-res downloads.
I have also experimented with vinyl ripping with my Linn exact system. Works very well and I end up with 24/192 files that I store as WAVs. Storage is cheap so I do not care about compression formats.
I have to say I am generally very happy with my vinyl playback setup and it keeps me purchasing more titles.
Recently have been curating my CD catalog with a goal to thin out titles I have only listened to a few times.
I stream. I have CD's. I have LP's. I have no 8-tracks. It's all good. Also agree with @femoore12- that's a main reason I stream as well; I do like having physical artifacts.
Also, I find Qobuz has 99% of my albums… and many hundreds of thousands more (well, seventy million tunes). So, if I read a review of a new album in Stereophile.. I’ll start listening to it while I read the review. Soon after you get your feet on the ground with streaming as good or better than CD quality you realize how absurdly restrictive owning physical disks is. You can start exploring bands like the ones you know of, which lead to discovery of music you never heard of… which leads to more discovery. Etc.
My Audio Research Ref CD9se is also the best DAC I have ever heard, so it gets used in that capacity for streaming.
Also, I find Qobuz has 99% of my albums… and many hundreds of thousands more (well, seventy million tunes). So, if I read a review of a new album in Stereophile.. I’ll start listening to it while I read the review. Soon after you get your feet on the ground with streaming as good or better than CD quality you realize how absurdly restrictive owning physical disks is. You can start exploring bands like the ones you know of, which lead to discovery of music you never heard of… which leads to more discovery. Etc.
If I hear some music (album) that I like, I certainly want to have it on cd.Streaming is like listening music from fm radio. If you are passionate about music (or about your collection of the music) than owning a physical media is a must, imho.
Streaming definitely has its place, but my CD collection is large, and in my system still sounds better than the quality of streaming. It also has greatly slowed purchases of CD's (from about 50 per year down to about 5).
I regularly go to my happily tall, well-stuffed rack of CDs and ponder what I might listen to next. I have no idea how much of what I have is also available via streaming. I have entire symphony sets, compendiums of Old Time Folk artists, operas, and off-the-beaten-track ethnic music. Many of the CDs have surprisingly good sound.
Vinyl yes. Still most preferred. CD’s not so much. Still stream though. I did just pick up a Sony SACD etc player, so I may play with some titles in those formats.
I learned years ago not to depend on computers for stuff you want to save long term, I still buy and use CDs. Nothing better than the source file. Back in the day guys saved 78s. I'm thinking they were right.
Definitely streaming… the age of CDs is over. I have 2,000 vinyl albums and 2,000 CDs. I don’t listen to CDs any more because the streaming service is the same SQ or better. (See my system, click on my user ID) Vinyl can be better… and is fun, sometimes higher resolution, but not by much. But streaming is so much easier.
What changed all this was me investing in a good streamer… and stop fooling around with PCs. First a Auralic Aries G2, then Aurender… N100… to now W20SE… a whole new world, basically all music available at full audiophile quality. A whole new world to explore instead of replaying only the stuff you own.
No more cds, still pick up lp's. I've been gifted hundreds upon hundreds of lp's over the years, just received another hundred or so last week. Periodically purchase as well. I still like large format of vinyl, and I get sense of inherent value, cd's cold, sterile, no feeling. Besides, my streams sound as good as the cd rips, far more music available with streams, whats the point. Still, I have at least 2500 cd's in storage and no way to listen in main system, must be keeping for some reason, hoarding syndrome?
If there were a decent record store less than a plane flight away I'd probably still buy 'em. Of course I'd probably have to spring for a replacement for my long-gone LP cleaning machine. I got to say, though, that I truly love/embrace the new world of streaming/You Tube/etc. Yeah, I suffer through a few glitches but I guess that's par for the course. On the whole I just love the fidelity I can glean via the ether.
No, I was an early adopter of computer audio and have watched in amazement how it has turned into a viable music delivery system. I got away from vinyl as soon as CDs came out in the mid-80s and I have hundreds in boxes that I never play
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
