I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!

mahler123,

Your last post is the most relevant on this thread for me.  You may remember me as a violinist, classical music lover.  Take your experience with Richter and Bach Well Tempered Clavier.  Go further, try to find a particular recording of Richter of an obscure piano concerto with various conductors and orchestras, on various labels.  Suppose you want to compare his phrasing at a particular point such as 9 min 48 seconds on one vs 9 min 30 seconds on another.  Nothing but your physical media will let you do this.  Youtube is good for doing this, although many recordings aren't available on YT, and of course sound quality is poor.  But for old master violinists like Kreisler of 100 years ago, although sound quality is poor, for musical satisfaction Kreisler is better than any violinist of today.

I have only CD and LP in my collection.  I have never gotten into streaming, and many here may say that I am incorrect.  Outside of music listening, I don't like internet instructions.  It is all geared to people who think that human customer service is obsolete.  I do business mainly with companies where there is live customer service, and not in chat boxes whose AI is primitive.

So, thanks for your post, which will keep me away from getting involved in streaming.

I thought old Linda had run out of money...I could be mistaken. Oops. I should have asked her myself but I lost her number.

I still have 100% of my vinyl and about 95% of my CD collection. I sold off a few CDs years ago knowing I would never listen to them again (mostly CD singles). I stream about 95% of the time as well.

I still have a ton of DJ only/promo CDs that I will not part with and still listen to them on my vintage system. These promo CDs will not end up on any streaming services---they're too rare. They're still fun to listen to and they have a lot of good memories to me. And even if they did end up on Spotify, I'd still keep them. Glad you're enjoying your streamer.

Here’s a true example of how musician’s are used and abused by the music biz:

In the late-60’s Bill Graham held auditions at The Fillmore Auditorium on Monday nights. Numerous bands played a set, and those chosen were given an opening slot on a regular night. The Fillmore was a union house, so to perform there you had to be in the Musician’s Union.

I knew the guys in one San Jose band who joined the Union just to play the Fillmore audition. They were paid whatever the amount was that Graham was paying, and waited to hear if they would get a regular night gig. They instead heard from the Musician’s Union, who informed the band that all the members were being fined for paying below union scale.

So Graham let the band members know they had to be Union members to play The Fillmore, then paid them less than union scale for doing so, presumably knowing they would then be fined.

Another Bill Graham story:

When Graham was closing The Fillmore he booked all the San Francisco bands that had played there over the years for a grand finale. Dan Hicks inquired as to whether he would be included, and was told by Bill no, that Dan & His Hot Licks Band did not "assault the senses" of the audience.

Speaking of San Francisco bands: Jerry Miller of Moby Grape passed away a few weeks back. I went to a Portland club about a month earlier to see him live, glad I did.

I’ve been streaming for almost 20 years, using Apple iTunes, amarra, pure music, audirvana, lightning DS, Lumin, and now Roon. 5 years ago when I upgraded my dac that uses i2s and Ethernet, running dsd and MQA, I sold all my vinyl and all my analog gear that cost me $20k, and haven’t regretted it 1 bit. Running pure music and audirvana back in the middle 2000’s, I sold my $3500 Classe cd player. Still have my Sony few thousand $$$ sacd player but haven’t turned it on for over a decade if not longer