If streaming is the FUTURE of Music

I started with vinyl in the mid seventies.
I only have CD now.
I won’t go back to vinyl as I can’t stand the pops and crackles - destroys the listening experience for me.
However, a friend recently died and there is a collection of his and his mother’s records to be sorted. There is nothing like a great designed record cover in the hands, even if it is music I would never listen to.

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With clean records and a decent deck there are very few pops and crackles, if any at all. Sure if there is record damage then you will get extraneous noise but scratched CDs will reduce the SQ too.

I can play album after album with perfectly silent backgrounds so quiet that I sometimes think I’ve caught the mute button accidentally. :grinning:

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Care is the key with all the physical media, even Cassette. Tapes left in cars got hot and sticky causing jams and stretches that affected musicality badly.
Another medium trying to make a come back!:man_shrugging:t2:
What’s next, 8 Track😂

8 Track is already back with some new releases!

Funnily enough I was thinking almost the same about CD after finding my old Naim CD palyer a few weeks ago.

I had always tended to prefer vinyl but am frustrated with so many new pressings which aren’t flat and have excessive surface noise/pops/crackles.

I mainly stream for convenience, but the big downside of streaming is that it’s so easy to not only skip tracks (as with CD) but to change to another album without getting up from your seat - a bit more like having a personal jukebox than actually listening to an album through at times.

So having always enjoyed the tactile vinyl experience, big cover art and detailed inners/lyric sheets I suddenly found the process of choosing and playing a CD quite involving too - perhaps I’m a late starter! I still dislike the jewel cases and small booklets but as I age I sometimes struggle to read LP notes/lyrics not only the tiny print in CD booklets. Some downloads come with PDFs of course and the Naim app can provide details about what’s playing.

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OH. MY. GOD!
Audio technology in full regression…:joy:
Are there new players with 21st century electronics too?:thinking:

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Perspective is key. Last year about 40 million vinyl records were pressed. In the mid-1980s, the number was about 1 billion per year. I am no vinyl hater (although I generally prefer streaming for all the reasons given). I just bought a nice set of Mahler symphonies on vinyl last week. But let’s not kid ourselves. Just because some people still enjoy driving a car with a manual transmission, and a few manufacturers still make niche models with a manual option, doesn’t mean that manual transmissions are coming back. Vinyl may hang on as a fun alternative to digital, but if we’re all being honest, we know that’s the best-case scenario.

EDIT: I just realized that the 40 million figure was U.S. sales only. But even worldwide, it’s surprisingly hard to find figures but based on some pieced together info the number appears to be not a lot more than that.

I agree with good care.
I used to keep my records in top condition with new and better inner sleeves and outer plastic ones with the openings never in the same direction (I visited friends and records would fall out of the sleeves when you pulled them off the shelf!!).
But it was never a sound I could hear past - partly as an innate drummer I found I could not ignore the extra rhythm (and maybe some autistic tendencies)…
I don’t play scratched CDs either if they affect the sound and take the time to brush dust off them before putting them in my player.
I’ve recently inherited a number of CDs and clean them prior to playing for the first time as well.
I’m not decrying any medium of music listening - just reflecting on my own fallibilities and preferences.

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Streaming - a vast amount of music available in an instant - sounds like the Holy Grail to any music lover.

Peter

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The negative of streaming is that some years ago, at least I got from the sofa to change the CD, streaming make my audio listening sedentary, I Am kidding a little, but I really notice that now, to change the album, a simple search, two or tree touches one or another swipe on the iPad screen and a new album is playing. Reading a review that mentions some album, and a simple search connects to the same album, giving a better view on the review.

The worst thing about streaming, the web is down………. No web streaming, but still have local streaming and my cd’s.

Five years ago the fiber service my street was out for five days, no Apple Music, tidal, Qobuz not even tv. Rarely happened but sometimes it happens. Also last year Vodafone in my country was hacked, mobile phones and web services were bad for some days.

Does the fashion thing still hold water or even matter I get streaming on convenience level and SQ wise I’ve heard even Tidal streams better modern pressings but I’ve yet to hear a stream better a Tone Poet, Acoustic Sounds or even Classic series.

I’ve bought many records directly from the artist even on Discogs where I’ve spoken to the artist via email and even been given a free record to try streaming will never give me that.

I think it all comes down to preferences. I play a combo of ripped cds, cds and Qobuz streams and enjoy them all. I understand the romance of vinyl but I don’t always agree with the rhetoric that some folk carry on with. I’ve watched people buy LPs from dubious suppliers and play them on less than great players only to bang on about how great it sounds and much closer it is to the “truth”. I doubt many of them would have a clue.

More importantly is regardless of whatever we listen to and how we listen to it we support the artists, make sure they are paid properly for their work and do not steal music.

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