Ripping your OWN cd's is so much more fulfilling. It really makes you feel like your library is yours when your looking through your player
I thoroughly enjoy ripping albums on a separate disc drive (so I don't burn up the laptop one) it's quite the process but it's so worth it in the end!
Fulfilling is kind of an individual thing. I don't find that fulfilling, but you might. I do find playing vinyl fulfilling from time to time. Having a streaming subscriptions saves me enough money that I can buy my favorite albums on vinyl, and go decidedly lo-fi from time to time. Not because it sounds better (it most certainly does not) but because I enjoy it.
Out of all the format CD's have the shortest life span, i like to buy individual Flac files as are fairly priced or i steal from a friend. Streaming will add up and it will never be your 3yr=$360 that could be 60GB of music that is your to own. Google, Spotify and Tidal all offer special deal on streaming.
I save so much money paying $8/month for Google Play Music All Access compared to what I used to spend, they could shut down tomorrow and I will have saved money.
+1 And with subscription music services you have no control over the mastering quality its get what your given.
This is not true, at least no more so than with physical media. Plenty of music available at HDtracks and their ilk are just the same master packaged differently. In instances where there are multiple masters, I know that Google Play Music often has all of them as options. If there's a remaster that you like, you just choose that copy of it. You should do some research before you make categorically incorrect statements.
Well said, my only concern is does the artist get paid well enough to keep the model alive? I certainly hope so. Alos online allows so many more artist get exposure so all types are a win.
Depends on the service. But the artist doesn't get paid a ton with streaming. Nor does the artist get paid a ton from record sales. Just like always, the record company gets most of it. This is how the industry has long worked. The artist gets paid up front when they sign their contract, the record company pays to get their album out the door and markets it. Album company then gets most of the album sale proceeds, and bankrolls tours, for which the artist gets paid.
Google Play Music All Access pays out the most
per stream of the streaming services, followed closely by Tidal. Spotify is near the bottom
per stream but has a larger user base, so probably pays more to most artists in terms of actual dollars. But as it has always been, if you want to support the artist, you have to go to their concerts.
It's a good thing that we all have different ways of enjoying music and that so many options are available. It all depends what your concerns and priorities are. For me streaming allows me to be a listener rather than a collector. Which suits me fine. Each to their own.
This. Everyone has their own set of preferences.
I appreciate that. I don't want to go back, and we can't go back. I don't think walkmen could do more than a smartphone.
I'm trying to crack through the ignorance that claims "modern 320k mp3 is all we need". "Good enough". "Close enough". "No one can tell".
If that 30 year old $50 tech is pushing out more musical enjoyment than a modern 320k mp3 (it is) and if it's getting closer to what the musicians heard in the studio (it is) then I hope you modern people realize that's not progress.
Your new digital TV will not come with less pixels than your previous one. Your new digital camera won't come with a less sensitive sensor than your previous one. Your new smartphone won't come with a worse screen or less ram than your old one.
But when it comes to consumer music -- this sad belief that you deserve less than the original because ________ (fill in the blank) has been like a poisonous rot for 15+ years now. I know we all don't have it but even here on a place called head-fi, some believe that. It's like they need to believe it. They need to diminish their own hearing abilities to enjoy crappy tech.
Since enjoyment is subjective, you can't say what will push out more enjoyment (nor can I). If you like that 30 year old tech, go ahead and use it, that's fine. Don't try to push it on others.
And certainly, MP3 is the least good lossy format, though I suspect you haven't tried a properly encoded LAME 320k MP3 against (whatever you want) because you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Sorry, I can just promise you that. Most people that make the argument that you're making haven't ever listened to anything other than pre-LAME 128k MP3. And if you want truly good lossy encodes, check out AAC, Apple's encoder is crazy good, or OPUS. They're crazy good and can save you a ton of space.
You need to focus your energies on mastering, that's what's been bad the last few years, not formats.
There has been a steady push to improve the formats. Just like with those TV's that you're such a fan of. You should look in to what the priority was when H.265 was developed to replace H.264. Video has been moving in the direction of lower bit-rates for some time, and finding ways to improve compression, because streaming is where video is headed. You don't have to worry as much about compressing audio, because it consumes so much less bandwidth than video, but you still need to find better ways to compress it.
And so we have had major progress just in that. MP3 was great in that it paved a path that others have followed, then improved upon. Which is why we have AAC and Opus, and Ogg Vorbis, and all of these better containers and encoders.
> Hippo Cricri+ > ATH IM02
