How do you consume music these days?

AndySlash · Post by **AndySlash** » Sun May 04, 2014 9:33 pm

primarily vinyl, and an occasional cd/cassette. i rarely purchase anything digital and when i do, it's usually flacs for a live show i saw or want to hear. i use winamp at work, and listen to the radio or a tape in my daily commute. i don't have a portable digital player at all, but i did order a pono, so we'll see.

Dev · Post by **Dev** » Sun May 04, 2014 9:34 pm

yeah all of those youtube rip things have been terrible for me. will look into some of the suggestions here.

William Bloke · Post by **William Bloke** » Sun May 04, 2014 11:12 pm

I have a Sonos setup at home that allows me to stream my digital music collection wherever I want (which is usually to the 2 Play 3s on the back deck). It also handles all manner of digital radio and Spotify, so my options are pretty good there.

I have all my source cds but these days prefer digital downloads, so long as I can grab them in flac or 320 mp3s.

My car stereo has a usb port, so I tend to throw anything 'new' on there as well. I live in a small town though, so my drives tend to be 5 minutes max. these days.

I had a ton of tunes at 128kbps but have gone back and re-ripped the bulk of those.

I'm not into vinyl at all though - I love the idea but it just doesn't work for me.

In a perfect world I'd be able to subscribe for $50 or even $100 per month and have legal access to a catalogue of music such as What.cd. That would be excellent (but will undoubtedly never happen).

Oh - and I fucking hate iTunes.

Norah · Post by **Norah** » Sun May 04, 2014 11:16 pm

zeb wrote:I've probably bought more pieces of vinyl than I have CDs over the last five years.

I easily have.

Norah · Post by **Norah** » Sun May 04, 2014 11:16 pm

zeb wrote:I ask because I ripped mine too early, before hard drive space became an issue, and now I'm stuck with a very large collection ripped at predominantly 192.

gross

zeb · Post by **zeb** » Mon May 05, 2014 12:47 am

Tell me about it. If I had any sort of free time I'd probably sink some of it into discarding the lot and ripping at 320.

Kevin Davis · Post by **Kevin Davis** » Mon May 05, 2014 1:30 am

theplatypus wrote:I guess the Youtube ripping tools I've used are of lesser quality. The videos I've ripped usually result in really really shitty files-- I mean noticeably shitty, beyond audiophile bitrate griping..

Same. I tried it a few times (it was the only place I could find a few rarities from certain artists) and I couldn't listen to the files. Just terrible.

Fuzzcharger · Post by **Fuzzcharger** » Mon May 05, 2014 2:22 am

I use Spotify mostly now days for the convenience. I still buy records and cds but generally because I spend most of my time in front of a computer spotify is much more practical. And I generally listen to those same cds I already own and not much new music which is a bit weird now I think about it.

psychobain · Post by **psychobain** » Mon May 05, 2014 2:29 am

What.cd

Dev · Post by **Dev** » Mon May 05, 2014 5:24 am

psychobain wrote:What.cd

does "what" actually have any better selection than what you can find on open torrent sites?

Heathen · Post by **Heathen** » Mon May 05, 2014 7:52 am

Dev wrote:
psychobain wrote:What.cd
does "what" actually have any better selection than what you can find on open torrent sites?

Easily. And there is a focus on quality so you wont find shitty rips (like 128k mp3s ripped from audio streams etc.). Well, you might find some but they will be reported and deleted.

My current routine is:

1) download everything that looks remotely interesting from what.cd or specialized blogs. It all goes onto a 1 tb external hard drive that every computer or tablet in the house can wirelessly stream music from.
2) listen to half of it or so. I listen to full albums 99% of the time, shuffle feels just as gross as youtube rips. Headphones or stereo speakers. I dont have an ipod or anything like that because i mostly listen at home anyway. If i wanted to do that i would use something like subsonic that lets you access your entire library from anywhere.
3) buy what I really like, still physical media as far as I'm concerned. Digital doesnt feel the same. If vinyl is decently priced I'll buy that, otherwise CD (so it's mostly cd these days because with international shipping prices are just insane)

Spotify is great for users but shitty for artists, i figure if I'm gonna spend money I'd rather see it go to the artist rather than the spotify guys. I guess it's like illegal downloading except you pay for it and bands still get fucked. I used the free version for a while but now I'm done, there's more choice on what.cd anyway.

Birds in Hell · Post by **Birds in Hell** » Mon May 05, 2014 8:19 am

I've been booted from What...twice now? I think. I can only keep a barely-respectable ratio if I continually upload things and that's both time-consuming and subject to whether I have anything that isn't already on the site (which doesn't happen very often). I've been on ratio watch for months now and I can't see that changing soon.

Heathen · Post by **Heathen** » Mon May 05, 2014 12:13 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:I've been booted from What...twice now? I think. I can only keep a barely-respectable ratio if I continually upload things and that's both time-consuming and subject to whether I have anything that isn't already on the site (which doesn't happen very often). I've been on ratio watch for months now and I can't see that changing soon.

Yeah a lot of people seem to struggle. I don't know, I guess I was lucky enough to register in the early days when it was easier to upload well-known stuff and you didn't have to compete with seedboxes. I agree that it takes a bit of work to maintain a decent ratio now, however there is a lot of free stuff to be found on bandcamp, and FLAC uploads will help you a lot. Also, if you seed everything you download your required ratio will never go above 0.60, which doesn't seem unattainable.

William Bloke · Post by **William Bloke** » Mon May 05, 2014 2:17 pm

Heathen wrote:
Birds in Hell wrote:I've been booted from What...twice now? I think. I can only keep a barely-respectable ratio if I continually upload things and that's both time-consuming and subject to whether I have anything that isn't already on the site (which doesn't happen very often). I've been on ratio watch for months now and I can't see that changing soon.
Yeah a lot of people seem to struggle. I don't know, I guess I was lucky enough to register in the early days when it was easier to upload well-known stuff and you didn't have to compete with seedboxes. I agree that it takes a bit of work to maintain a decent ratio now, however there is a lot of free stuff to be found on bandcamp, and FLAC uploads will help you a lot. Also, if you seed everything you download your required ratio will never go above 0.60, which doesn't seem unattainable.

This is me. I use my work computer which is on pretty much 24/7 and seed everything that I have ever downloaded. If you do that you can maintain a decent ratio without every really uploading your own stuff if you don't want to. I've managed to creep up to 0.95 now after a number of years.

Simple Torture · Post by **Simple Torture** » Mon May 05, 2014 3:02 pm

I probably do like 60/40 listening to digital music and records, respectively. If I'm at home, it's always records unless I'm trying to get deep into a reading hole and can't spare getting up every 15-20 minutes to flip. Working out or at work, it's my iPod (160gb classic). I don't listen to music in the car at all.

I sold off all of my CDs at the end of last summer except for my Pearl Jam CDs (which I have to admit is all for sentimental reasons; I haven't even opened the cardboard box they are in for a year). The only CDs I've purchased since 2007 or so have been for charity or benefits, and they just sit on a shelf.

Post by **Alex** » Mon May 05, 2014 5:28 pm

super nintendo chalmers wrote:I'm probably good for one or two CDs a year, probably even less now that I don't have a player in my car anymore. I swapped it for a new tape deck, so I've been buying a lot of tapes cheap on discogs to jam in the car. It's been pretty fun. That being said, its pretty much just records and downloads (sometimes nefarious when I don't want to spend the bread).

Norah · Post by **Norah** » Mon May 05, 2014 8:28 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:I've been booted from What...twice now? I think. I can only keep a barely-respectable ratio if I continually upload things and that's both time-consuming and subject to whether I have anything that isn't already on the site (which doesn't happen very often). I've been on ratio watch for months now and I can't see that changing soon.

I'm on ratio watch on what but have no problem maintaining a ratio over 1 at waffles.

psychobain · Post by **psychobain** » Mon May 05, 2014 10:12 pm

Dev wrote:
psychobain wrote:What.cd
does "what" actually have any better selection than what you can find on open torrent sites?

its not even the same league

way better

the biggest/greatest/richest music library of the planet

BurtReynolds · Post by **BurtReynolds** » Mon May 05, 2014 10:30 pm

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/r ... 000-songs/

Sony unveils cassette tape that can hold 64,750,000 songs

oasisfan35 · Post by **oasisfan35** » Mon May 05, 2014 10:50 pm

Varis wrote:
Heathen wrote:
Birds in Hell wrote:I've been booted from What...twice now? I think. I can only keep a barely-respectable ratio if I continually upload things and that's both time-consuming and subject to whether I have anything that isn't already on the site (which doesn't happen very often). I've been on ratio watch for months now and I can't see that changing soon.
Yeah a lot of people seem to struggle. I don't know, I guess I was lucky enough to register in the early days when it was easier to upload well-known stuff and you didn't have to compete with seedboxes. I agree that it takes a bit of work to maintain a decent ratio now, however there is a lot of free stuff to be found on bandcamp, and FLAC uploads will help you a lot. Also, if you seed everything you download your required ratio will never go above 0.60, which doesn't seem unattainable.
This is me. I use my work computer which is on pretty much 24/7 and seed everything that I have ever downloaded. If you do that you can maintain a decent ratio without every really uploading your own stuff if you don't want to. I've managed to creep up to 0.95 now after a number of years.

Getting on torrents quick, seeding for a bit when you do and making hay when true freeleech starts is where what.cd survival resides. If you're dipping in to the archives and dropping your ratio you'll find it much harder to attain unless you upload (which is damn difficult without new release access) otherwise, the casual downloader should be able to get what they want while keeping a fair ratio. 5 years two months here with a 2.09

Red Mosquito

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