In many ways buying physical media makes limited sense. But i still enjoy getting a record of of the sleeve and then reading the sleeve notes ( never enjoyed that with a cd).
And then you get a surprise like this.
1 Like
Iāve not had that with Amazon yet. If it happens the cost of sourcing the physical media will be small.
Sorry you not have what happen?
SorrySimon. Didnāt make myself clear.
Oh I see, it will. The distributor has an agreement for how long a title shall be available on a streaming service. At the end of a term, they can renew, or cease.
I have been impacted by this when I have noticed in my favourites and play lists that tracks and albums have become non playable over timeā¦ and the referenced track or master is no longer available. You can sometimes find an alternative master in its place, but sometimes it doesnāt sound as good, or is slightly modified. For casual listening itās fineā¦ albeit slightly annoyingā¦ but for favourite release masters of recordings I definitely buy, so I own the replay rights for my own use.
Also there are many releases, usually from grass root musicians, that are only available on CD and not accessible on streaming in any formā¦ though the opposite is some rimes also the case.
For my own music I reset with the streamer services via my distributor / publisher annually.
Yes, that is true but as I said not so far, just 30 months with Amazon. Qobuz seems to āloseā content more frequently. For me the mix of predominantly streaming plus specialist buys seems to suit.
Quality is a whole other can of worms of course. So many variables.
Sure, for myself, I treat all the streaming services equally ā¦ Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal etcā¦ if one of my tracks is on one, itās on them all.
1 Like
No. He ventured into the land of the Pharaoh and Sun Ra and was chased away by a thousand and six Coltrane disciples banging away endlessly and muttering āA Love Supremeā to each other.
I think it wonderful that others can enjoy what I canāt. My loss.
1 Like
I decided to rip my CDs and give the physical remains to charity saving loads of space. I kept my records but no longer buy any apart from the odd must have. The money saved pays for a music subscription. The mixture of vinyl albums and Qobuz works for me. The hardest part was moving my CDS3 onā¦
I never got on with LPs. The main downside for me was surface noise. My listening was 95% classical at the time and so many very quiet passages were ruined by hisses and clicks. There were usability issues, too, eg. long pieces stopping in the middle to turn the record over.
So I embraced CDs enthusiastically at the first opportunity. But CDs also have usability issues, not least their tiny booklets and the clutter round the house once the collection gets over 1000. So I eventually moved to streaming but this was more gradual and for a while I used my CD player alongside āstreamingā from a MacMini to nDAC. Now Iāve got a pukka streamer in the main system and I havenāt used my CD5XS for months. I really only keep it for nostalgic reasons.
So now I stream from Qobuz, buy downloads and CDs. I rarely browse record shops ā there are few near here catering to my tastes and I often end up making purchases I regret later. So CDs are mostly bought online, then ripped to my NAS.
Thatās my story and on both convenience and SQ grounds Iām getting more enjoyment from my current systems than at any time over the past years (more than Iām going to admit to!)
Roger
1 Like
Are the format wars over? This is a rhetorical question, because in my heart I adhere to an analogue philosophy of sound. However, physically I cannot hear the difference between an analogue and digital recording - if I ever could. I reluctantly embraced CDs, out of convenience really as my work meant I moved home every few years. I missed out on the infancy of streaming whilst I was abroad but the move from CDs to streaming was more natural than moving from vinyl to CDs.
I still buy and download albums I like, but Iām not sure how long I will continue to do so.
Orā¦ You could go totally retro. I read recently that cassettes are enjoying a āresurgenceā. Enthusiasts are ransacking the shelves at the second hand stores for what ever they can find. Old Nakamitchi decks are being resuscitated and even Sony Walkmans put into play. In extreme cases, some people have bought old vehicles for no other reason than they had a working cassette player! I donāt think sound quality can be the issue!
1 Like
Do not remind me of Seventies and Eighties cassette decks. I had an Akai, to record Vinyl records, my friends lent me. Why anybody would want anything to do with cassettes in the tear2024, is beyond me.
But talking about old tech, is best avoided.
Go and visit the Bandcamp-site. Lots of new music on music cassettes.
2 Likes
I canāt understand why, as they were awful things with nothing in their favour other than being usable as a portable medium such as in a car ā¦until eaten by the mechanism!
1 Like
Kind of disagree, a top cassette deck with quality tape when calibrated right could sound incredibleā¦ but to record at that level it wasnāt plug and play.
However cheap cassette mechanisms and players were truly horrid.
1 Like
Always wanted a Nakamachi Dragon ā¦
1 Like
I donāt doubt that good performance was possible, but that doesnāt alter my opinion that it was an awful medium in general - and my impression was that for the cost and effort of achieving the best from it, better sound quality could be had from reel to reel for recording purposes, and vinyl for mass production/replay.
Neither of which suited me for the car or for making mix tapes from top of the pops, john peel and Annie nightingale, or from borrowed LPās. Taping enhanced my teenage collecting of music. I also had a reel to reel but that was more for taping and playing all night at parties. I was glad when cdās came along, relatively cheap high quality and could be played in the car. Pioneer multi stack in the boot for me. 
1 Like
Absolutely, me too. When I later got a CDP, I borrowed CDs from friends and copied digitally onto DATā¦ I still have my Tascam DAT player, though my portable Sony DAT player has since bitten the dust.
The only format I played with that turned out to be a complete lemon and short lived was DCCā¦ remember those? That was digitally, albeit lossy compression, encoded cassette type tape. Though looking on your favourite search engine, I see it has a bit of a cult following now.
2 Likes