What's your preferred medium for music listening?

  • What's your preferred medium 22

    1. vinyl (7) 32%
    2. CDs (17) 77%
    3. cassettes (2) 9%
    4. tape reels (1) 5%
    5. other physical medium (4) 18%
    6. streaming services (3) 14%
    7. free streaming (meaning those more or less illegal sites) (0) 0%
    8. youtube or other video site (5) 23%
    9. MP3 downloads (legal) (5) 23%
    10. MP3 downloads (illegal) (1) 5%
    11. lossless audio files (4) 18%
    12. other non-physical medium (2) 9%

    I enjoy my music from CDs, vinyl records, and yes cassettes too. I have a fine stereo with good components for these three media.
    I completely can't get into streaming or MP3 downloads, except for youtube or some free site if I'm not sure if a CD is worth purchasing. When I like what I hear I order a CD or maybe vinyl.

    A friend of mine recently gave me their entire CD collection (~300 items) because all they listen now is streaming. They even gave their stereo away, they prefer a bluetooth speaker to their phone.

  • I voted cd for main physical medium. I still like going in shops and buying them. I voted "other physical" to account for the 100s of minidiscs I have, and "other non-physical" for the inside of my head. I realise my head is physical but I'm going to classify my mind as not.

    Abandon all reason

  • Streaming services and vinyl. It used to be CDs but I moved too many times in too short a space of time, that most of my CDs are in my parents house in another country. Once I signed up to Google music (now YouTube music) it was also hard to turn back. It's too convenient. If I really love an album, or want a bootleg, I'll get the vinyl version and almost never listen to it!

    • Official Post

    Streaming services and vinyl. It used to be CDs but I moved too many times in too short a space of time, that most of my CDs are in my parents house in another country. Once I signed up to Google music (now YouTube music) it was also hard to turn back. It's too convenient. If I really love an album, or want a bootleg, I'll get the vinyl version and almost never listen to it!

    Me too!

  • CD, and other physical, in my case DVD/Blu-Ray 5.1 copies. I'll use youtube to hear something I might want to buy, but streaming is not my choice, for a number of reasons. I like to be able to hold the damn thing!

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • Went through a phase of buying too many CD's. For convenience of playing them I would transfer them to mp3 and place them on a separate hard drive. While I live in Canada and love progressive music, most bands I love originate from Europe or UK. Buying CD's made this very hard indeed with the cost of postage and shipping, these charges would always double the cost of the CD. Most CD stores in Ontario have closed down now, so buying cd's unless from Amazon cost a fortune to buy.


    Nowadays bands offer digital downloads costing between £5 - £10 depending on that album. It's instant and very easy. Now my music is contained on 2 separate 4TB hard drives as a back up.


    Most of the digital music can be transferred to various music platforms to listen to very easily.

  • Mostly CDs at home, with some vinyl. I have a large cassette collection, but worry they will disintegrate when I next play them as they are all at least 30 years old.


    For travelling, whenever that happens again, we bring along my very old 160G iPod which has pretty much our entire CD collection loaded on it.


    At work, it is mainly YouTube.


    In the car, it is mainly the radio although I actually have a CD player in the car which we use for shorter trips.

  • Shame they don't make iPods anymore.:(

  • But not the storage capacity unless you want to pay a fortune to pay for a bigger hard drive.

    But if it's digital music anyway why not stream it? $10 a month or something similar, almost every album you'd want. Unless you are going to the outer Hebrides in which case stick your 100GB of tunes on you phone.

    • Official Post

    I prefer to own music, so streaming is something I do not support. It is also not fair regarding payments for the artists.

    So it’s any physical medium, but I also buy a lot of digital music.

  • I have a lot of casettes too, and having just digitized them (Recommend the Behringer UFO202, or one of it's similar siblings, for the job) I found no issues with this, depends on storage conditions of course, barring EMI tapes which pretty much disintegrate within weeks of buying.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • I have a lot of casettes too, and having just digitized them (Recommend the Behringer UFO202, or one of it's similar siblings, for the job) I found no issues with this, depends on storage conditions of course, barring EMI tapes which pretty much disintegrate within weeks of buying.


    I also have a large cassette collection, though any albums I really value have since been repurchased in CD format.

    Nonetheless, if I browsed through the collection I could probably find at least a few dozen titles I don't have on CD that I wouldn't mind having digitized.


    Just did a quick check online. Seems like these devices are also quite reasonably priced. I will definitely be looking into getting one.

  • Yes, I was thinking of digitizing my tapes. I have a converter that I can plug my turntable or my tapedeck into. However, I also need to set aside the time to work on this.


    I also have mixed feelings about streaming in terms of compensation to the artist. So I try to own music I want to listen to. I will use YouTube to preview music that I might end up purchasing, trying to use the artist's own channel if it exists.


    I also still have an attachment to the physical item for music. I've gone completely digital in so many other ways: photos, videos, documents. But I like my CDs and albums. Plus, I'm not sure how I would get an artist to autograph my digital download.

  • I also have a large cassette collection, though any albums I really value have since been repurchased in CD format.

    Nonetheless, if I browsed through the collection I could probably find at least a few dozen titles I don't have on CD that I wouldn't mind having digitized.


    Just did a quick check online. Seems like these devices are also quite reasonably priced. I will definitely be looking into getting one.

    About 20 UK pounds. Also works with a turntable, with moving magnet cartridge.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!