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

I buy music on Bandcamp, a lot of great artists sell their music there and you can download albums in any audio format you want.

My father uses Tidal in HiFi/Master and I think it doesn't sound nearly as good as local digital files, but it is very convenient so I can see why someone would use it.

Ripping CDs take too much time and I don't want to go to shop everytime I want to buy new album.

HDTracks are simply too expensive.. I bought Pink Floyd - The Division Bell there and it sounds really good, but I don't think I would be able to tell the difference between an HDTrack and some random recording from Bandcamp.

 

I should clarify here: If a download is really convenient and at a fair price, then I'm game.
The issue is, as many have said, it is often cheaper to just buy the CD. I have Amazon Prime. Two-day shipping is free. Plus I am guaranteed the liner notes.
I spent years focusing on vinyl as my only physical format, and while I have enjoyed vinyl, I am also looking at moving across an ocean in 12-18 months. That means I will cull my records down to a couple crates. My CDs, however, and digital files, are easily packed and shipped.

I have posted about these before, but they are key to my enjoyment of CDs:
http://www.spacesavingsleeves.com

I meant to take a picture of mine this morning but I can fit a hundred CDs in the space taken up by a lengthy hardback book or two, or maybe 8-10 records. I'll post a pic later.

They generally do stay ripped and tucked away but most are not available as any sort of lossless download and plenty aren't on Spotify either. I am very particular about having the best master and that is not what ends up available for mass-market consumption, especially when dealing with limited-edition audiophile masters. Those involve a very small company working out rights with a big record label which necessitates restrictions to keep costs down.

In general, I like to travel light and not be encumbered by physical belongings unless they serve a function or bring me joy. Records bring me joy. CDs can bring me joy. I like reading but have found that I'm not that interested in the average physical book anymore. I'd rather have an easier move next time and keep it on my kindle for later unless the physical form offers some real advantage that outweighs the convenience. If I can get 24/96 from a reputable label that actually uses more than 16 bits and extends past 25kHz, I want that more than a CD for sure. But if it's $25 for the master format? Shit, I could get a top-notch audiophile vinyl reissue for about the same and I'd have a lot more to show for it. There is no longer the big excuse of physical production costs. Same with ebooks, unfortunately. I hope the market will correct itself in the next few years.

 

Right. Though they are lossless files, any typical app has to go through the OS mixer (possibly being resampled and/or dithered) and loses that direct line to the DAC provided by JRiver, Roon and other audiophile players.

 

Also, Tidal added MQA not so long time ago.. and after doing some comparisons I can't listen to MQA, It just sounds so lifeless. It's important to note that I didn't use special MQA decoder, so I'm not saying it's all bad yet.

If there were Amazon in Poland then I would most likely buy much more CD, since you have the biggest library of albums that way, but unfortunately no such luck.

 

Tidal has never sounded better for me now that I've got it streaming through the Pi.

 

How does it compare to local files? Maybe I will try the Pi if it sounds better than on a PC.

 

Interesting discussion. Since I finished ripping my CDs a few months ago, I've been mostly getting digital downloads for convenience. I'm mostly interested in new jazz and related music (from labels such as ECM, Mack Avenue, Nonesuch, ACT, Intakt), with a smaller but significant fraction of "classical" (in quotes because it ranges from medieval (such as El Canto de la Sibilla, Jordi Savall) to contemporary (several recent Kajia Saariaho, Osvaldo Golijov, and John Luther Adams works). I get my downloads from HDtracks.com, HighResAudio.com, ProStudioMasters.com, or PrestoDigital.com depending on what's available where at what price. I also get downloads (and sometimes the corresponding CD) from Bandcamp (labels like Pi Recordings), ArtistShare, and a few others. I only go to CD if I can't find it as a download: physical storage space is at a premium at home, download gives faster access, and ripping is another step that takes time and attention. Covers and liner notes are not that important to me except in a few cases where there's something about the album that I can't find by searching online.

When I started with digital downloads, I spent some time looking at what the "hi-res" files I was getting looked like in the frequency domain. Some reissues looked fishy, but I did not see anything very weird with the new issues I typically buy, and just gave up looking. In general, for the music I mostly listen to, I find that recording conditions play a much bigger role in what an album sounds like than digital artifacts. For a recent example, compare Jason Moran's "Thanksgiving at the Vanguard" (44.1/16 on Bandcamp) with Kevin Eubanks's "East West Time Line" (48/24 on Mack Avenue). The latter sounds a lot better, but it's really as a result of a careful studio recording vs a incidental live recording (if you've been to the Village Vanguard you'll sense how hard it would be to get a really good recording done there with a live audience). But I love both

 

All hi-res is not junk, but a lot of junk is sold as hi-res.

 

I use Crashplan as well for my photography and music backup. Problem is it can be a real resource hog.

Another option for acquisition is to go to the library, borrow a CD and rip it, and return it...

 

(Marv works in intellectual property/copyright enforcement and does not appreciate this sort of discussion on the site)

 

I started by ripping my CD library and for some time I kept buying new CDs. As I listen mostly, but not only, to classical music I found Presto Classical to be a great and inexpensive source of both CDs and FLAC downloads. Recently I switched to mostly downloads.
The latest discovery was Spotify and Tidal.
The quality of lossless Tidal is much closer or identical to Spotify premium, but clearly not the same as CD, at least to my ears.
I am likely to stay with Spotify premium for discovery and portability but I think I will continue to buy both CDs and FLAC downloads from time to time.
Unfortunately I had to stop buying from Presto Classical, the company they use for secure payments has some problems you can learn about from google search but I found out the hard way. But the moment they smarten up and go Paypal I will be back.

 

Just as an aside, it appears that Bleep, one of the music vendors listed earlier in this thread, has 16/44 lossless versions of the highly regarded Sun Ra remasters, which up until now had only been released in MP3/AAC lossy formats. These aren't available on physical media at all, and are considered the definitive releases of these albums, besting even the original vinyl.

 

I've decided to do the same with my vinyl, limit it to the records I simply cannot live without.

 

I haven't done a lot of A/Bing but it sounds pretty darn close to me. Definitely an improvement over USB streaming of Tidal.

I appreciate bleep a lot. They are clearly run by real lovers of music. Which Sun Ra albums are you specifically talking about?

 

https://bleep.com/music/artist/44953-sun-ra-his-arkestra

 

Still in a lot of European and Eastern European countries downloading illegally shared music or ripping library CDs are completely legal even if that doesn't make it morally right. It is the reality so I think it would worth to talk about. Not for giving advice or tips but it would be interesting to discuss it from a moral and/or philosophical viewpoint. (from legal viewpoint its simple)

Growing up in a country where downloading and copying are legally ok, I've never even thought about it as something "wrong".
Everyone I knew was downloading music, movies, books 24/7. It's not that they couldn't afford it but rather the mentality that "why would I pay for it when I can download it for free?"

When I first went to study to a different country, where downloading pirated content is illegal and became friends with someone who actually bought his music and the discussions we had!resulted in cognitive dissonance. After I went home I started buy CD-s but still only from artists I wanted to "support".

Nowdays I just use spotify/youtube to check the music then I buy the cd or download the occasional high-res. (but it still has more to do with being a law abiding citizen and that is why I think a conversation would be good about this.)

 

This threads purpose is to discuss purchases of digital music in different formats. If you think there's a need for a moral or philosophical discussion on what is considered by many as being theft, maybe you should start a separate thread about that. However I'm not sure I would recommend it. I'm not trying to sound snarky or arrogant, apologies if that's how it comes across. I'm just trying to stay closer to topic.

Is there anyone who's just using regular hard drives in their computers without local backup (raid and/or external drives), and only cloud backup ?

 

@Changeling I am mostly doing that these days. My data on my PC has outgrown the backup drives I did use and I haven't replaced them since.

 

I'll look into this as an option as well. I'm also outgrowing space and with a definitive move to downloads my collection might expand quicker than expected.