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[Poll] Music: Rent or Buy? (2018)

As a basic approach - Rent or Buy your music?

  • I primarily use subscription services - Rent

    Votes: 61 27.4%

  • I still mostly purchase CDs, LPs etc. - Buy

    Votes: 162 72.6%
  • Total voters
    223
  • Poll closed .
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Rent. Tidal HiFi. I can't remember The last time I have accessed hard drive stored music or listened to a cd! (I gave vinyl up some three years ago as it wasn't practical anymore for my circumstances).

There is so much music to discover why waste time listening to the same stuff all over? (And if I happen to want to listen to a favouite recording its now usually done through Tidal too.) Too much faff now to mess around with anything else.

However, I will keep a CD player and won' rule vinyl out for ever and for those 'very special' recordings. Can' see it happen for the foreeeable future though.
 
drummerman said:
There is so much music to discover why waste time listening to the same stuff all over?
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Why is discovering new music limited to streaming? How did anyone discover new music before Tidal?

I don't stream and listen to mainly new music, with the occasional dip into the back catalogue when I feel like it.
 
Firmly in the buy camp - get quite a lot of stuff from music magpie which I then rip to my nas & stream. Still buying the occasional vinyl but tend to rip that as well
 
I believe that it's illegal to keep ripped tracks if you sell the CD.
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I believe that it’s illegal to rip CDs so your point is a bit academic. I keep begging for the nock so we can have test case but no luck. There won’t be, either.
 
deserter said:
I’ve recently signed up to Tidal, having got fed up with poor Spotify quality. Tidal is certainly better but by some distance still not as good as my Densen B400xs, which is also still better than ripping and playback via Squeezebox. So, I will continue to buy. I can’t see that the subscription services will ever be any better than convenience formats.
Click to expand...

Tidal HiFi is lossless. Any preference is down to your hardware used.
 
drummerman said:
Tidal HiFi is lossless. Any preference is down to your hardware used.
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So I’m led to believe. As a novice on streaming and ripping I do not know the reason, but if I rip a CD the ripped version played via Squeezebox sounds less good than playing the CD through the Densesn 400sx. There is no doubt about this. Likewise, the same album via HiFi Tidal sounds less good. So logically the root cause is the Squeezebox. I’m going to experiment soon with an external DAC to bypass the DAC inside the Squeezebox, to see if that makes a difference . I already have a Teddy Pardo power supply on the Squeezebox which improved it quite a lot .
 
drummerman said:
Tidal HiFi is lossless. Any preference is down to your hardware used.
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Not really, because there are audibly watermarked files, some suspect rips, and volume normalisation that can all contribute to differences.

However, for me, I'll take a slight hit for access to so much music.
 
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Yomanze said:
Not really, because there are audibly watermarked files, some suspect rips, and volume normalisation that can all contribute to differences.

However, for me, I'll take a slight hit for access to so much music.
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I use mostly but not exclusively iTunes, either streaming, saving locally or ripped from my CD collection. The amount of music means I could spend the rest of my life exploring music from even obscure classical composers, let alone, jazz, fusion dance etc, etc.
I had a free 3 month subscription to Tidal that I was expecting to out-perform iTunes. To my utter shock, it often sounded worse! Not only that, if you wanted to stray beyond the likes of Dire Straits, The Eagles etc, the repertoire 15 months ago was quite laughable - presumably much improved since then.
 
I’ve Read that iTunes will most likely be turned into a streaming only service within 18 months. Apparently it’s not as profitable as it once was.
 
drummerman said:
There is so much music to discover why waste time listening to the same stuff all over?
Click to expand...

My problem is finding enough time to listen to the same stuff all over again - & I am retired so have more time than most to listen to music. Discovering new music does not automatically result in you enjoying it more than things you have heard many times before. My music collection is relatively small at about 350 hours but I probably never listen to half of it because when I consider putting some of it on I often decide to play something else which I have probably played more recently but which I really enjoy. It does not have to be new music to enjoy it.

As matt j has commented, listening to new music is not a result of streaming - but streaming can make it easier - or harder depending on your point of view. To me there is something of "the king's new clothes" with streaming but I regard it as just another way of listening to music which some people find convenient but others, like me, do not see any particular advantage. I do not think people who listen mainly or wholly (me) to classical music use streaming as much as people who listen to other formats, primarily because because the average length is greater. Radio 3 & Classic FM are old-style sources of music which you do not necessarily own - although probably 90% of their output is the more popular classical with which greater numbers are familiar & consequently like to listen to it.

I have used my recent return to vinyl to explore different type of music but I still spend the greater part of my listening time "wasting it listening to the same stuff all over". I also stream Radio 3 HD occasionally & when I am feeling a bit lazy, play my CDs from the ripped version on my laptop or i-pod. None of these methods is "king" but these days people expect everything to be at their fingertips at the touch of a button. We elderly folk tend to plan ahead & be more organised.

P.S. I have yet to find any need for a "smart" phone.
 
I like to cover all options.
Vinyl, CD, sacd, mini disc, flac on NAS and AK portable.
Amazon music streaming servicesfor checking music i might wish to buy in one of the above formats.

There is something about tangible products, especially vinyl and minidisc.

Regarding the same old music comment .. Some songs/albums I invariably go back to, especially if they fit the mood.

Just my two pennies :)
 
I buy cd's, I've stopped buying vinyl and don't stream however I have just signed up for a 3 month trial of Tidal and can stream into via laptop and cd player, I've just changed phone contracts and this will come with 12 months Spotify so i may try but more than likely won't.

I'm buying so many cd's now and buying stuff that could be up to 40 years old or out in the last 6 months, unfortunately I do not tend to like much new stuff and lets's be honest there is tons of good music to buy from places like music magpie for next to bugger all so that's what I do.

I'm young enough still to not be bothered about getting up and changing cd's or records or tapes or minidiscs etc etc!

Personally I can't see what all the fuss is about with streaming maybe another fad and just another way of buying music, if you don't have any music media or very little then it's a no brainer but for me I still like the sound of vinyl and cd especially.

No doubt I'll be wrong in my train of thought.;)
 
Almost exclusively CD, and almost exclusively classical music, so the 'old vs new' argument isn't particularly relevant. I've just started investigating properly the massive Mozart box set I bought several years ago, much of which, in terms of both material and artists, is new to me.
 
I buy, and buy only from small independent sources, in -person when I can. I'm on a Quixotic mission to avoid the big tech companies. This is partly because I don't like their bullying, no-tax business models, but also because I am increasingly uncomfortable with every aspect of my daily behaviour being turned into data, analyzed, and monetized.
 
I’m still signed up to Qobuz - in fact l renewed my Sublime subscription a couple of days ago. I was listening to Kempff’s Bach earlier today, wonderful.

I ripped all my CDs years ago and listen to those as well as Qobuz. Most of the stuff I buy these days is downloaded.

Add some LPs to the mix too
 
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