CDs, Vinyl, Downloads, iPods ?

[Brad to the Bone]

Anyway, not looking for advice...just curious about other's thoughts.

I still listen to and buy mostly physical media. My digital music collection is limited to the download codes that came with LPs and a few 'pay what you want' downloads of things which were never released on physical media. I do own and occasionally use a 6GB RCA MP3 player I bought for 20 bucks several years ago and a 2GB iPod Nano my mom won in a raffle and gave to me, but once I filled them up I never bothered rotating different stuff in and out.

Listening at home is about 90% CD and 10% LP.
Listening in the car is about 50% CD and 50% radio.
Listening at work is 100% CD. I have a Discman and grab 6 CDs at random off the shelf to bring to work everyday.
When I go for a walk I'll either grab the Discman (for short distances) or one of the two MP3 players (usually for trips > 2 hours).

Recently my Discman has started dying and I am worried that I may not be able to buy a replacement!

[Buddhabreath]

For the last several years, when I buy a CD I rip it to FLAC using EAC and access my music library via old streaming devices (squeezebox, bought-out and purchased and killed by Logitech). I can also use my ipad as a music streamer and listen - and I love random play. It's a great way to discover music. I can also search by genre, year, name of song etc. I'll create play lists by searching for songs that have the word "Sky" in it or whatever and it works great. If I want to listen to something in particular it takes about 10 seconds to find and start playing. I may never listen directly to a CD again, in fact I've started ripping vinyl as well - especially rarer albums that have not be re-issued on CD. I've ripped old records and cleaned them up (de-snap/crackle/pop) with the result that may very well sound better then the compressed CD available.

[JKL2000]

I can't see buying a CD when I only like one song on it and there is no hope for me warming up to the rest.

Wow, I can't think of many CDs (by one artist) where there's only one song I like. I would much more likely not like ANY songs on an album than like just one.

[simon moon]

Wow, I can't think of many CDs (by one artist) where there's only one song I like. I would much more likely not like ANY songs on an album than like just one.

I agree.

I can't think of any recordings I own, or might own in the future, where I would only like one song.

My entire collection, whether CD, LP, or hi-res download, is made up of various subgenres of prog, jazz and fusion, and 20th century and contemporary classical.

If I like something by an artist, I am definitely going to like much more from them. The chances of me liking everything on a CD except for one song, are much higher than liking only one song, and disliking the rest. I don't listen to any form of pop, where there might be one good song (the hit), and the rest bad.

[Score2112]

Purchases -- 100% vinyl

Home listening -- vinyl, streaming

Car/Work -- streaming

[zumacraig]

Wow, I can't think of many CDs (by one artist) where there's only one song I like. I would much more likely not like ANY songs on an album than like just one.

There's a ton of classic rock stuff that I don't need an entire album of. Head East. Their albums are awful, but they have that one great tune! I see where you're coming from though. If it's one of my favorite artists, I'll find something to love and will definitely get the CD. Except Neil Young. Love the man's work, but he has released some absolute shit over the years...including his recent two albums.

[Scott Bails]

As mentioned, I have my entire collection ripped to a hard drive, as well as some downloads. I use a combination of Google Music, PLEX, and Muzecast to listen to most if not all of my library, depending on the situation. So, whether I'm at the gym, outside on the patio, at my girlfriend's home, or anywhere else, I have all of my music with me at all times. This allows me to create playlists that can be shuffled for various occasions, or I can just listen to a full album, or can shuffle through an artist, etc.

[Gruno]

Those of you who use streaming -- any dropouts or connection problems while using those services?

[rcarlberg]

Depends on the throughput. At home I'm fine, but some coffee shops have crap connections.

[jkelman]

I used to listen to music a lot more on the commute, using Sennheiser Momentum headphones, but good as they are, they struggle against increasing noise from knackered train engines, and I would get so pissed off at not being able to hear stuff properly, so I've given up and do most of my daytime listening at the office desk. But there's nothing still like popping the cd into the tray and kicking off through the hi-fi at home.

For out of the house I have either a FiiO X5ii with 256Gb in two cards onboard; an iPhone and iPad each with 128Gb but I run them through an OPPO HA-2 portable DAC/headphone amp, into a pair of OPPO PM-3 Planar Magnetic headphones, which I like very, very much. They still aren't enough to totally isolate noise on a train or bus, but on the street they seem ok.

At home, as I've ranted about to great length, I've two rigs:

In Office:
Because I'm using a Mac, thus am stuck with the sound card onboard, I use the HA-2 as the DAC for my Mac, running into a set of powered 2.1 Paradigm Millennium One CTs, which are pretty exceptional for the price. With the office soundproofed, it's now possible to listen to music in the air in the office (after 14 years being restricted to headphones) while my wife does whatever she wants, during the day, in the living room.

In the living room, it's the best setup I've ever had.
OPPO BDP-105D, to play everything on 5" disc as well as being the connector for Apple TV so I can play high res music in iTunes through the OPPO's HDMI in
Leena Tucana II integrated amplifier, which has balanced XLR ins, which is nicely coincidental, as the OPPO has balanced XLR outs. Use a set of Artet cables and voila!
Tetra 333 Speaker stack - consisting of 222 bookshelf speaker for the top, and 111 sub (which crosses over at 55Hz) for the bottom. We have the 222's at ear level underneath the curved 55" Samsung 4K TV (which is on a wall mount stand), spread about 8' apart. The 111's are behind us, on either side of our 8' sofa, so they mirror the 222's but film the room very nicely as they're set up. When we were renovating, we ran Artet (Tetra cable...Artet, get it? ) cable behind the walls, coming out on either side of the wall units behind the sofa, so there's no cable visible, beyond a tiny bit. And our designer's woodworking guy build a custom-job cover that fits behind the amplifier and OPPO, covering ALL of the cables barring the couple you can't avoid. It's easy to remove if you've gotta get at the cables, but otherwise, especially at night, you'd never know it was there, rendering this the first setup I've ever had where there's no nest of cables visible. And beneath my Mac in the office it's similarly clean, since there's no tower on the floor, just a power bar into which most things run down behind the desk. So there's more cable there, but again largely invisible as it's under the desk in the nook where my chair goes.

All things considered, I've never been happier with my audio setup, in office, in living room, on the road...[I]anywhere/I] than I am now.