CD vs HDTracks vs Streaming - how to manage music purchases in the digital age.

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by Changeling, Apr 10, 2017.

  1. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    My brother who lives in Cinci experienced a failure in his cloud backup service a couple of years ago, and they lost a good portion of his data completely. These services aren't infallible, and disk is cheap. I would not (yet) recommend that you use it as your sole source of backup. He also lost half a drobo, so that's not infallible either. In my case I have had to go to a second backup to restore a corrupt album before. OK, once in the last 11 years, but nonetheless.

    Media is especially easy to archive, as it generally just accrues and is not modified. I make a distinction between archival and backup - an archive has much less traffic against it, where backup to me is around volatile content and should allow you to step back in time to recover stuff you stepped on even deliberately. This is another reason I like my metadata separate from the files (aside from naming and folder structure representing core metadata) so I can tweak that stuff all day long and not have to write megs of data to change a few strings.

    Buy a couple 4tb drives, encrypt them and rotate them once a month. In my case one at home and one at work. Hell, keep one in your gym locker or the trunk of your car for that matter. You don't even need a 'real' backup solution, there are any number of file copy utilities that will copy only modified or new files to an archive.

    The next thing to worry about is bit-rot, hence the need ideally for a journalling filesystem.
     
  2. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    Modern filesystems including NTFS, HFS+, and ext4 already employ journaling. I assume you're referring to "next gen" filesystems like ZFS. Very doable with say a little server running FreeNAS.
     
  3. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Yes, apologies, I am referring to the next-gen systems that implement (among others) block checksumming - ZFS btrfs etc. They are still a little arcane for conventional users still.
     
  4. sm31

    sm31 New

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  5. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    This is looking like an interesting file storage system, it parses out your files across multiple servers and builds in redundancies so even if a few of the servers go down, you can recover all your files: https://leastauthority.com/
     
  6. JeffYoung

    JeffYoung Friend

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    BTW, for anyone looking for cover art, http://www.slothradio.com/covers/ has never let me down (even for pretty obscure stuff that iTunes fails to "automagically" find).
     
  7. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Some CDs I need to get like the Tool albums or Prince rarities. Some music can be purchased and downloaded in FLAC from Bandcamp and Tidal. It all depends.

    I do not care for HD, best master etcetera. Enough dynamic range and an okay to good mastered recording is often enough for me.

    Everything infected with the loudness war virus, just no. That artist/producer is not worthy of my hard earned cash...
     
  8. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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  9. Murfie Inc

    Murfie Inc MOT: Murfie Inc

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    Hey All,

    It sounds like some of you may take interest in the service we provide at Murfie. Every album you buy comes with unlimited streaming and lossless download access. Further, we keep a physical copy of the disc in our warehouse (that you own) so you never have to worry about the rights being taken away and we can ship it to you if you end up wanting the physical copy. You can also sign up and ship new purchases directly to us from whatever vendor you purchase media from and we will add it to your account so you can have immediate digital access, while storing the physical media with us. Full access without the clutter.

    For those of you with physical collections at home that you want an EAC digital backup copy that you can stream and download in lossless format you should look into our kit option. We allow members to ship us their media which we rip and store, or send back if requested, and then provide streaming and download access. We can digitize CDs, cassettes and vinyl.

    I am aware that it is not a perfect solution for all the problems you all are having but we are aiming to capture the audiophiles who are also collectors and want their collection all in one place with unlimited digital access.

    Cheers,
    The Murfie Team
     
  10. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    I buy all my music on CD and I play it on CD as well. I guess I should digitize it at some point but I still haven't found a suitable / affordable solution for a digital transport using coax because I don't want to f**k around with USB to SPDIF converters or Rasberry Pi hats. I guess Im stuck with a disc transport for now.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2017
  11. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    I've seen some discs degrade within a decade - I'd rip them solely as a backup.
     
  12. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    Im thinking of digitizing everything and using a DAP with coax out as a digital transport.
     
  13. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    I've been on a bit of a download purchase spree lately while my skiing-damaged right shoulder slowly heals. Thanks to findhdmusic.com and various other recommendations, I've bought from six of the download sites that are available from the US. I mostly buy new releases, with a few re-releases and a some releases from the last decade when I discover them by accident. Genre volume: jazz > classical > world > pop (rare). Here's my site list with brief reviews:
    1. HDtracks.com: I've used this longest. Prices on the high side. Very variable when new releases show up, some never do for unclear reasons. Metadata OK but not perfect. Very minimal release information, often missing liner notes in the download. Poor site navigation. Pay with PayPal or credit card. From 100s of albums, got a couple that were messed up one way or another (missing tracks, wrong sample rates) and got refunded. Lots of emailed discount codes, sometimes worth it. Requires downloading app that works reasonably well on Macs. No way to re-download AFAIK (back up!)
    2. HighResAudio.com: Some new releases show here first. High-ish prices without discounts. Nice site navigation. Good release information both on the site and included in the download (album booklet). Good metadata so far. Easiest to pay with PayPal for US customers. Based in Germany, some releases are blocked for US customers because of region restrictions. Uses annoyingly complicated download app. Looks like you can re-download (never tried, though).
    3. ProStudioMasters.com: Pretty good for new releases. Lower prices with many good discounts. Easy to find discounted albums. Nice site navigation. Decent release info on site, better than HDtracks.com, worse than HighResAudio.com. Easy to pay with credit card. Uses slick download app that can get a bit confused but restarts without problems. Don't know if it is possible to re-download.
    4. prestoclassical.co.uk: Used this just a couple of times. Big catalog, wide price range but typically lower than 1-3. Ancient-looking site with very cluttered navigation. Release information comparable to HighResAudio.com, sometimes better. Metadata looks good. Album booklet included in download. Downloads as zip archives.
    5. eClassical.com: Just tried today. Sweden-based. Lots of interesting exotic classical releases, low prices. Bad site navigation, very slow. Decent release information, but only for some albums. PayPal. Downloads as zip archives. Terrible metadata, wrong or missing, requires metadata surgery with Metadatics or Roon.
    6. Bandcamp.com: Some favorite independent labels and artists only show here. More of what you pay goes to the artist. Low prices. Release information variable. Mostly 44.1/16, with a few 48/24 and above. Downloads as zip archives. Metadata variable, album booklet often missing.
    For widely distributed releases, ProStudioMasters is my current favorite because of timeliness, information, price, and ease of use.
     
  14. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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    This is very helpful, thanks for sharing!

    I'm now compiling a reviewed purchase list to be ticked off over the course of 2-3 years. It seems like it's going to be a 25-75% split with the bigger portion coming from downloads.
    I just need to decide and set up a cloud backup

    Failure to provide re-download is indeed a big con for download sites in my book...
     
  15. JeffYoung

    JeffYoung Friend

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    I've been using QoBuz (mostly because they tend to have what I'm looking for). For new releases they're generally on par with or more expensive than Amazon, but for old obscure stuff they can be much cheaper.

    They do allow re-downloads of your purchases. I think I've heard that they don't operate in the States, though?

    I couldn't get on with HDtracks at all. Nightmare navigation and search.
     
  16. shabta

    shabta Facebook Friend

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    An important point about HiResAudio.com is that they make a lot of effort to verify the provenance and authenticity of the recording. Some of Hi-Res stuff on HDtracks and some other sites looks like it is just up-sampled from redbook. These sites say lame shit like, "We just sell what the studio gives us." Also HiResAudio has come out against offering MQA files for reasons that should be pretty obvious.
     
  17. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Good point. Their discussion of true vs fake hires is interesting: https://www.highresaudio.com/en/content/qualityguarantee
     
  18. psuKinger

    psuKinger Facebook Friend

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    Reviving an old thread here, but I did read it top to bottom, learned a lot, and also definitely relate to/agree with/understand a lot of the sentiments expressed... For streaming I like Google Play Music a lot. The catalog is large, I like the way it automatically "filled in gaps" in its catalog with my own music library (first 50,000 songs are free) more easily/automatically than other streaming services I tried (Rhapsody, for example), it automatically makes 320 kbps MP3 copies of my 16/44.1 CD rips and HDTracks purchases, which is sometimes "good enough" for me (in the car, on the deck or patio, washing dishes with headphones on, at the office listening while I work, etc), and like others said it's great for discovery. I use it both for convenience and the way to "listen first" and decide if I want to make a permanent purchase (CD or HDTracks).

    I almost always buy CDs over HDTracks, but often only after an unnecessary amount of hand-wringing. A part of me always *wants* to buy the HDTracks, but the price is often significantly higher than the CD, and I'm personally a bit skeptical (maybe this is going to get me roasted on here) about the value of beyond 44 khz sampling rates... More than half the time (if information is available) when I check an album on a Dynamic Range Database the HDTracks version and the CD show the same dynamic range (which is often less than the vinyl). That's generally the thing that WILL get me to pay the upcharge for HDTracks, if I have some reason to believe that the HDTracks version actually has a better mastering with more dynamic range than the CD.

    I don't really care for the "wastefulness" of the CD buying process for me, because unlike many on here I DON'T spent much (any?) time looking at/going back to the sleeves/album art post-RIP. So all the plastic used in the case, the gasoline burned in the shipping, etc etc etc, all seems like a waste to me, and I'd leap at the opportunity to just buy/download 16/44.1 FLAC files if I could just get them at a reasonable price... This thread had some good/new-to-me suggestions on places to look for those, I'm gonna give a few of those a try tonight after work.

    EDIT for the question I meant to ask while responding but forgot to:
    Probably a newbie question for those more skilled/knowledgeable, but does anyone have an opinion on what (if any) impact buying a 24/96 HDTracks album and then rescaling it using something like AVS4You's audio converter (which is what I currently have available to me) to 24/48 might do/not do to audio quality? 48 is a multiple of 96, so I think it could/should work just fine (ignore every other data point), and I don't think it should do anything to the dynamic range (which was/is the primary reason, for me at least, to buy the HDTracks over the CD), but I thought I'd ask the community and see if anyone had any opinions/insights...
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2018
  19. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    @psuKinger I try to buy my FLAC downloads from other sources when I can. 7digital is a good source that offers multiple encoding levels for typically less than HDtracks. Also if you’re into electronic or experimental music bleep.com is a great source. Also bandcamp for Indy music. If I have to buy from hdtracks I use a coupon code always. Recently broke down and bought Yes The Complete Steven Wilson Remixes from HD because I couldn’t find it anywhere else as download.
     
  20. psuKinger

    psuKinger Facebook Friend

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    Thank you! Excellent source that I'd never heard of (and not had much luck in turning up when I tried to find alternatives via the Google machine). The first two groups that I tried, Skillet and Straight No Chaser both popped up with 16-bit FLAC options... very cool.
     

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