Thread: Technology keeps changing our lives. How do you get your music these days?

During the late 90s and early this century, I kept buying more and more CDs. (Must have spent between 10 to 15 grand in all.) In addition to that, I downloaded a lot of CDs from friends and libraries. I used to pride myself for having a huge music collection on my computer (exclusively classical).

Just around 2005-2006, I found myself listening to Youtube videos more often than my own collection. Even if it was a piece that I had on my PC, I still founded it easier to just type the name in YouTube and get it right there, often with the option to hear different versions.

I think we have arrived a time in history, that instead of each person having their own collection, we have one huge collection for all.

I, for one, celebrate this. Any ideas?

Ken

I have thought this too. The same for books, movies, video games, etc. I don't listen to music on You Tube, preferring the idea of random play available on an iPod, but I subscribe to a streaming service. Much of my listening is done there. I think ultimately this is a good thing for music. It allows for artists to promote themselves.

As there is the possibility of exposure to so many recordings through the internet, I would feel out of touch if I didn't constantly listen to music I don't own on services like Spotify and the Naxos Music Library. Inevitably, given the sheer size of their catalogues, I end up listening to them more than I do my own collection, and, though I treasure my own collection, so long as I have an internet connection, I suppose I don't need to stockpile CDs.

With regards to books, I've started more and more reading eBooks, but I feel so dirty and guilty for doing it!

I'm still a cd guy. I'm to set in my ways to yet again (after vinyl and cd's) change formats. Youtube for me is for checking out stuff. I watch operas on Met player and concerts on MediciTV though.

This is an interesting time. I was at a party with some younger guys and ended up talking to them about Beethoven, so they whipped out their cell phones and listened to YouTube clips. They were able to follow up what I was saying with real-time examples. That's very positive.

Personally, as far as classical and jazz, I still like going to the CD stack and holding the liner notes waiting for the CD to load. It keeps my attention focused. R&B, reggae, et cetera, I put on my memory stick or mp3 player, because it's background to doing something else.

CD's for me too. Even the albums I download I burn on CD. I never listen to classical music on the laptop.

Well, shucks. I didn't spend big money for speakers (>$2G) so I could listen to streams. CDs, SACDs, DVDs, I have them and listen to them.

!

I am also a CD/SACD person. A good CD player still reproduces CDs and SACDs better than streaming hardware and a computer-based set up can't really compare.

The data on a CD are in computerterms WAV-files. These WAV-files can be processed to become MP3-files, but at the price of quality-loss. The quality-loss can be heard when you have speakers that are able to render low dark notes. Most of the speakers on the market are not and that's why most people are happy with MP3. They never heard the pedals of an organ. Now apart from MP3 there is also FLAC, which is claimed to be lossless. Does anyone have experience with FLAC how it handles pedal notes from a big church organ? My limited experience with FLAC leads me to suspect that the basses sound thinner....

I think that people still want to own music. Even though streaming is neat, and taking off there will always be a market for buying music whether it's on a physical disc or a digital download.

I rip all of my music, but I still play cds on my main system out of convenience and in my car since it's older.

TxllxT: flacs sound precisely the same as a cd because it's for lossless... except for one thing: if you rip a cd there can be error if you don't do it securely and it won't sound as good. For some reasons cd players never have trouble correcting for error on playback but pure data extraction on a pc can't compensate.

Originally Posted by TxllxT

The data on a CD are in computerterms WAV-files. These WAV-files can be processed to become MP3-files, but at the price of quality-loss. The quality-loss can be heard when you have speakers that are able to render low dark notes. Most of the speakers on the market are not and that's why most people are happy with MP3. They never heard the pedals of an organ. Now apart from MP3 there is also FLAC, which is claimed to be lossless. Does anyone have experience with FLAC how it handles pedal notes from a big church organ? My limited experience with FLAC leads me to suspect that the basses sound thinner....

It is easy to see that FLAC is loseless - you just need a few piece of free software and a few minutes of time. You rip data from audio CD to WAV files, then convert one of them (let's call it "original WAV") to FLAC, then convert that FLAC back to WAV (let's call that "latter WAV"). You can use foobar2000 for that (I use it), and there are many other alternatives available (EAC, CDex...), and you can get FLAC encoder from this link (although it's trivial to google it out).

When you compare "original WAV" and "latter WAV", you will see they are completely identical files. Notice, I'm not talking about comparing by listening, but comparing actual files (you can use Total Commander for that) - and they will be identical bit by bit. Turning WAV file to FLAC and back to WAV is like ZIP-ing certain file, and then unZIP-ing it - you get what you've begun with. FLACs are about half the size of WAV, so they're good for archiving without loss of sound.

Unfortunately (or not), internet is full of pirated music in FLAC format, which is not made from original WAV files (i.e. original audio CD), but from other (also pirated) MP3 files - those are known as "fake FLAC", since nothing can bring back the loss of audio data - it is equivalent or turning MP3s to WAV, and then "posing" as original. But that is another story...

People who still want to "own" their music are under an illusion, given the rate of technological advances and the already enormous online databases. The scale is not about to be cut down in size. Its growth is way to fast for us to catch up.

I think copyright laws too will soon break down. Societies might have to develop other ways of rewarding creative people.

Originally Posted by KJohnson

People who still want to "own" their music are under an illusion, given the rate of technological advances and the already enormous online databases.

Can you please clarify - do you mean the people who made the music (referring to copyright), or the people who buy CDs (referring to streaming)?

I was responding to post #10. I thought it would be obvious.

But copyright also is not off the hook... I can very well image a time when no one will buy music anymore. Composers and musicians are more and more willing to share their music for free, because the modest sales aren't keeping them warm.

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I think that people still want to own music.

I think so, yes. I do anyway. It's not because you can brag about your collection to other people. I suppose it's more a sentimental thing. You (well, I) relate differently to something physical - something you can hold in your hands. Downloading almost feels like requesting a song on the radio in comparison. Maybe it's a bit age related and for young(er) people who haven't grown up collecting cd's (or vinyl) it's not a big deal as long as they can listen to the music.