Value for money - no denying streaming services offer the best value for money but cost increases with quality and you can only play while you subscribe - sadly this is probably fine for more than 99% of the population.
CDs - I mainly buy these when there’s no hi-res option for purchase or the CD is ridiculously cheap by comparison.
Vinyl - since getting my LP12 back up and running I keep buying vinyl from supermarkets/stores/online vendors, I generally prefer it - am I alone in buying ‘new’ copies of albums which may have seen better days from before I had a decent turntable and may have been ravaged by a Fidelity music centre or similar more than new music/releases? Trouble is the quality is so variable - I’m finding a lot of albums are warped or have lots of noise as new, and for upwards of £20 for many titles I’m starting to doubt. I got a copy of the Estrons LP yesterday (now disbanded so thought I ought to get a copy while I can), but it’s warped, has loads of scratches and surface noise from new - do I keep it or get it replaced for potentially a worse offering??? Looks very nice with a splashy broken orange egg yolk centre to the black vinyl but I have to question these coloured vinyl releases.
My reason for asking is that I’ve been a Qobuz Sublime subscriber for several years but on the CD quality streaming tier (which is no longer available) - this has the benefit of discounted hi-res purchases, plus I seem to be on a legacy discounted subscription I’d rather not lose, but I use Qobuz very differently primarily for hi-res downloads, but often albums I do not already have.
For example, yesterday I spent nearly £100 on hi-res downloads - maybe £25 on hi-res releases of titles I already have on CD/vinyl, but £75+ on a whole host of 60’s operas I really don’t know which were on offer until yesterday but I’ve always wanted to hear.
I keep buying loads of classical music which is on offer, usually after correlating with online reviews to ensure a respected version, unless they’re dirt cheap.
Question is when will I actually listen to them if ever?
However for the cost of maybe 3 vinyl re-issues I’ve bought recently (that I already have other copies of) for over £20 each with variable quality, I got about 8 highly respected operas in hi-res.
So these offer seem attractive and expand my music horizons with each costing less than a bottle of plonk.
Not sure this is making much sense, just that where a hi-res copy of a new release is available I’ll buy the download rather than CD/vinyl - if I like it I’ll probably get the vinyl too at greater cost. Older album I have on vinyl/CD, I’ll get the hi-res if available and reasonable price. Uncharted works - impulsive ‘bargain’ purchases in hi-res or trial them by streaming.
Perhaps it was ever thus, and we all discovered LPs in the bargain racks, some of which were great, some of which weren’t.
