I am so sorry to hear about your hearing loss and am glad that you haven’t allowed it to spoil your enjoyment of life.
It’s really interesting to read the replies here and in particular from those of you who have in fact sold off all your physical media - that’s a bold step, but it sounds like few have actually looked back. I am not sure I can ever see a day when I won’t own my GyroDec and enjoy using it as the deck was an engagement present from my wife and the tonearm was a gift from my Mum to remember her by. So there’s a lot more involved than mere sound reproduction. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t upgraded to an Orbe or SME but have maxed out its configuration. In addition many of the records hold a great degree of sentimentality too - I know Roxy Music’s greatest hits and Gabriel’s So were bought by a very great friend for my 18th birthday, my favourite recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (The Academy of Ancient Music/Hogwood on L’Oiseau-Lyre) was purchased by a very special ex, my Sinatra boxed sets and Enya vinyls were purchased by my parents for Christmas back in my late teens. I’m not sure I will ever want to move that stuff on, it’s just too precious! I could be tempted to burn all the CD’s to put them in storage, but then a lot of my CD buying was associated with my wife and in our earliest days we used to go to record shops weekly and then come back on Saturday afternoons to our rented terraced house which barely had any furniture and we would lay in each others arms on a huge beanbag playing them. We didn’t have much but we had each other and our shared love of music…
Actually perhaps the saddest thing of all has been the way that we simply don’t do that anymore. Sure I play music most evenings if I’m not working and try to share it with her, but it feels to me that she doesn’t engage with it in the same way anymore. She will sit there while I play stuff and never complains but she’s mostly got her head in her family whatsapp - she’s from a huge Irish family and that seems to engross her more than our music sessions do nowadays.
So music appreciation for me nowadays feels like much more of a solitary pursuit than it once did. Fortunately I have a very small circle of incredible mates from my school/college days who love music listening and when we get together to hit the record stores or play music it’s always fantastic. The thing is that we’re all spread around from Bristol to Ipswich to Corby, Geneva and Cairo and I’m in West Sussex so our get together’s are infrequent - but wonderful.
I do love Tidal and its ability to explore new music and I would say until recently most of my listening was on the platform. What’s changed recently is the addition of my new Ikea hack record cabinet making fave records more accessible coupled with a bit of a vinyl (jazz) buying spree. I’m playing more vinyl at present than any other source! I’ve also been enjoying a run of amazing review turntables in the house, although the Gyro is rarely idle for long!
This just arrived and it’s an amazing feeling to have the two turntables I lusted after most in the late 1980’s side by side in the room…
It’s handy actually just now as the Gyro’s belt is worn/stretched and it’s running slow, so I’m waiting on replacement from Michell and not suffering too much in the meantime!
I feel the same way about my LP12. Whilst it wasn’t a gift it does have many good memories associated with it. It might not get played every day but I do often have days when I play several LPs and it gets a good few hours of use, playing mostly recently bought LPs but I do delve back into the collection to listen to albums bought in 1970 and onwards. Some albums have some special memories attached to them and I think playing them takes you back to the memory in a different way than streaming it does. A few were gifts, a few were albums I was introduced to by friends or my then-partner, and some were albums by bands I saw before they had signed a deal.
Hi. Nice post. I have a similar dilemma having purchased a Naim streamer. I’m in the process of ripping 2000 CDs to a hard drive (I simply ran out of space to house my cd and vinyl collection) The streamer will allow me to access my CD collection and I’ll still have a modest vinyl collection of approx 1200 albums. But I am drawn to a high quality streaming service to access music I don’t have and to find new artists. But I’m worried that if I subscribe to a streaming service and pay say £10 per month, it will make my whole music collection l own redundant. I’ll feel obliged to always use the streaming service for everything, including music I physically own. It wouldn’t be cost effective for me to buy albums AND pay for a streaming service. There’s obviously the option to get rid of ALL my owned music, sell my record deck and just use a streaming service but I’ll then never be able to browse my own home collection which I get a lot of fun out of when looking for something to play. Predominantly, my vinyl collection is mostly jazz and I either buy mint second hand earlier pressings or new audiophile issues (not cheap) where original analogue tapes are used. I worry that the quality of a streaming service might be inferior to vinyl or my lossless ripped CDs? I’ve dabbled with Tidal and I do find that the sound quality can be very variable. I think if I was younger and had no actual physical albums either on CD or vinyl, I’d think that Tidal was brilliant. But ‘owning’ a music collection is still something I really treasure. With streaming services, it’s never yours!
Do bear in mind that online streaming services don’t have every album ever released, and some people find they have to subscribe to more than one service even to get the majority of their favourite music. And then licensing can change and albums disappear, or services go out of business, and there can be internet dropouts or breakdowns preventing you accessing music until restored. Personally I cannot stomach the idea of being unable to access any piece of music I love when I want to play it.
When I ripped all my LPs and CDs, something I didn’t think to do, apart from opera libretto booklets, was keep the most interesting album sleeves on shelves in the music room, to be able to hold and enjoy, when playing the music file, which is the one thing I miss from LPs (not so much the miniaturised CD inserts), so if I were doing now that is what I’d do.
Hi. Nice post. Sorry to appear ignorant, but can I ask, so are you subscribing to a streaming service but because of the software you mention you are able to in old terminology ‘record’ all the music you like? Or are you paying to download it so you can keep it? As I say, sorry to appear stupid.
Hi. Yes, I forgot to mention that! Good point. I have some very obscure CDs and vinyl albums that I know for sure are not on any streaming service and some that are are very poor sounding. Another thing to consider is that I’ve now become aware due to following a guy called Wings of Pegasus on YouTube that so much vocal music is now ‘auto tuned’ and pitch corrected which completely takes away the emotion of songs along with sounding terrible once you get to spot it. I’m never sure if streaming services use files that are pitch corrected? The music industry is awash with what is now industry standard to do this to lots of artists. If streaming services use auto tuned and pitch corrected material I’m out!!!
I don’t think we are in an either or scenario for vinyl vs digital. For me digital sound quality surpasses vinyl and I haven’t yet found anything that I want to listen to unavailable on digital streams. On the other hand I don’t think that all versions, especially earlier ones are available, so many of my lp’s remain my go to for my nostalgia hit and just to enjoy them as they were originally (possibly badly) recorded. I also enjoy the theatre of vinyl, the sleeves, the having to sit down and concentrate on listening, etc.
I’m not concerned about the loss of streaming services as the price I am paying on subscription is peanuts compared to the cost of buying vinyl or even downloads. Anything special to me I pay for a download, the rest I leave to stream whenever I want.
Streaming has given me a new lease of life in listening to newer material. My Amazon summary for this year tells me I have listened predominantly to 2020’s music and My most listened to was Anette Askvik and Marina Allen, followed by Laufey. I’m happy with that.
Hi, I have ripped my CD’s to a hard drive and have my vinyl as my main musical source, I stream via Apple Music / Airplay to my preamp and pay £9.99 per month.
For me vinyl is what I reach for when I want to listen to music, if I’m doing something then I may play CD’s off the hard drive or listen to internet radio which I think is brilliant so much music to choose from.
Streaming is the last source that I go to, quite often it is used to research an artist that has interested me or as back ground music when we have friends round and are chatting.
I don’t view the £10 I spend on Apple each month as a major expense, I use it a lot in the car especially on long journeys, and it is invaluable for searching out music I have been told about and want to assess before committing to vinyl.
At the moment I have no real interest in expanding my streaming setup, I am enjoying going through the vinyl I have purchased and have enough to play without it getting repetitious, new vinyl is carefully chosen before purchase.
Hi Shpongle,
I used Qobuz premium (for HD recordings) and the SW I used to manage and play my music was Innuos Sense.
The Sense SW is a really elegant piece of code. It allows you to integrate all your streaming services, your own down-loaded files, your ripped files. It provides easy ways to manage/modify/edit Meta data and provides several
way to manage your music library, including Favorites, Play Lists, Artists, favorite tracks, full catalogue etc. When you look at an artists, the sw shows all tracks and albums, regardless of the original source, ie Rip, Download, Qobuz, etc. so as soon as you find an artist you like, you have full access to all digital sources of their material. I found that with Sense, my library simply exploded in size, with MANY new artists and many additional recordings from my existing favorites. Sense made finding and accessing new music that I loved incredibly easy.
Pitch correction is, AFAIA, applied either in the studio or in the early mixing stages. As such, it’ll be ‘baked in’ to the songs long before they become the files that go out to streaming services, pressing plants etc.
From what I hear from mates who sing professionally, it’s not unknown for classical tracks to be autotuned, even if it’s only by 0.01 of a semitone. Apparently, the producers get complaints otherwise, though from exactly what type of nutjobs, I don’t know.
Hi Mark. Yes, more and more I think this applies to new music. It’s becoming the industry standard. But I’m thinking more of re releases of albums that were pre pitch correction. Would the newer version be pitch corrected? I have seen that Queen have re released their debut album and it has been pitch corrected! Why would anyone pitch correct Freddie Mercury? I’m not a Queen fan myself but it’s an example. Freddie just sounds like a robot on this newer release. It sounds terrible! I’ve also seen examples of live gigs being subsequently pitch corrected before being released on official YouTube channels. Eric Clapton live performance at the Royal Albert Hall along with a Bryan Adams live performance. So if these live performances were released as albums, they would be pitch corrected. If you want to learn more about what’s happening these days I recommend Wings of Pegasus on YouTube. He has absolutely no agenda against any artist. People simply send him videos to analyse which he does with pitch monitoring software and he proves beyond doubt that either auto tune or pitch correction is being used. Why pitch correct Clapton? It takes away all the emotion of a song where singing slightly sharp or slightly flat in places is all part of the song. Who is actually responsible for subsequently applying pitch correction before it goes out on YouTube? Does Clapton’s engineer listen to a track and think to himself “Hmmm……Eric’s a bit flat there, I’ll pitch correct that note so it’s spot on”? It’s scandalous and I’m not even sure the artists themselves know that their live stuff is being pitch corrected before being released on their official YouTube channels. This is why I’m so sceptical of any ‘new’ music, be it new or a re release. Wings of Pegasus is the place to check all this stuff out. He’s also proved beyond doubt that certain artists are lip syncing when performing live. Celine Dion and Taylor Swift to name a few. His channel is really uncovering what’s going on with new music. Definitely worth a look. Like you say, what sort of nut jobs are complaining?
IIUC, these days a lot of pop uses autotune live, “correcting” pitch on the fly…
But I fully agree re adjusting existing recordings, with the sole exception of where there may have been a tape speed error with the entire recording sharp or flat, and so also running time incorrect, where iwould seem entirely appropriate to correct - but that is a quite different matter,
i particularly enjoy the wings of pegasus videos where he analyses older recordings that haven’t been pitch corrected and demonstrates that much of their greatness comes from the artist’s experience of when to deviate from ‘correct’ pitch to increase the emotional heft of the song. this really shows how much is lost with pitch correction/auto tuning.
Totally agree. He looked at an old live recording of Sarah Vaughan singing Misty. He loved it. Obviously Rock is his thing but he’s happy to look at all genres of music. I really enjoy his videos. Comes across as a genuinely nice guy.
Yep. Auto tune is done live when the artist is actually performing. But Wings of Pegasus proves that on occasions pitch correction has been applied to a live performance after. People who were at the gig send him in hand held footage of songs. He then isolates the vocal and compares it to the exact same live track that is officially issued on YouTube and he proves that it’s been altered. I’m so untrusting of anything new I hear. It’s a great reason to hang on to old vinyl and CDs. They can end up being the only unaltered copy. So for example. Eric Clapton could do a gig. That gig could be released as an album but it could well be pitch corrected before release. The only people that would have heard what it genuinely sounded like were those that were at the gig. This is where we’re at. People sitting in their bedrooms performing cover versions of great songs can now sound absolutely pitch perfect which, if you watch Wings of Pegasus is literally impossible to achieve. Vocal cords are simply not able to sing notes perfectly throughout a whole song. Even the great singers were ever so slightly flat or sharp at times.
If anyone is interested, Wings of Pegasus does an analysis video where he has footage of Michael Jackson rehearsing for the song We Are The World. Jackson practiced singing just those four words several times on his own in front of a mic. To the human ear, they all sounded exactly the same and perfect but when put through pitch monitoring software, they were ALL different. Seven different times. So that’s just four words. It proves that singers simply cannot sing a song and hit all the notes perfectly. It’s not possible. So when he puts a whole song through the software and the singers are constantly hitting the notes spot on, we know this has been pitch corrected. I’ve learnt so much since watching his videos.
Well, quite; or I suspect some people with too much time and not enough friends would go through it and make snarky YouTube videos jeering at someone not quite hitting a note at the end of a two-hour concert, as if they could!
I suppose they probably do. The problem is that once everyone becomes accustomed to hearing the album pitch-corrected, it’s only a matter of time before they complain the live version doesn’t sound the same, even if they don’t understand why!
Indeed - as was the case for decades with released of Kind of Blue.
Damn right - but given that I bang this particular drum a lot on the forum (usually in terms of avoiding over-compressed or brickwalled remasters), I’m glad someone else said it before me, for once!
every time questions like this arise, the line from the movie Fight Club: “The things you own end up owning you” comes to my mind, as I think there’s more than a little truth to it. But blindly following other people’s opinions, even those from a great movie, isn’t necessarily the right thing, too.
You have some items with connections to certain persons and situations. I think there is value in having, keeping and perhaps even cherishing them. After reading your statements, I’d say you should absolutely keep the Mitchell, the tonearm, the records mentioned and those you are playing. If you’d rip the CD’s to a hard disk, would playing them back feel like playing the originals? For me it would, unlike streaming them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly this is similar to my own approach, although nobody ever gave me a tonearm
I am coming to a similar conclusion. I have not bit the Streaming bullet yet, but I am buying downloads from Bandcamp more and more. I still buy CD’s of artists on the major labels that are not on Bandcamp. But I rip the CD’s to a hard disk connected to my streamer. I too am of a generation that is used to “owning” an album.
It is just too convenient to control what music I am listening to with an iPad. I can sprawl on the sofa and have an afternoons music without getting up to change the CD every so often.
I am not sure about streaming. It is like an all you can eat buffet for €10 a month, and I fear I might slip into just listening superficially to lots of music. If I have paid €10-20 for an album, I want psychologically to get my value for money, and listen to it repeatedly and seriously, if you understand what I mean.
On the other hand most of the music I buy eventually gets pushed to the back of the CD cupboard and forgotten. So perhaps streaming is the logical answer. A good file system on my separate HD attached to the streamer might prevent the “forgotten album” syndrome a bit.
I have not got a problem with buying vinyl. Thanks to poor quality pressings and warped LP’s back in the eighties, I came to hate this format. I bought a CD player as soon as I could, and I have no intention of going back to vinyl. Old prejudices are hard to get over. The guy who runs the record shop where I buy a lot of music, said that vinyl sales are starting to fall due to the high prices the record companies are asking. Most classical and Jazz is bought on CD, I am told.
Probably streaming is the sensible answer, but we of a certain age are used to owning an LP or CD. Even just “owning” the files I download, feels strange. The €8-10 cost of a download is about right for an album I believe.
