I only buy CDs to rip them for FLACs. The CD players i had, caused always problems after awhile. They would skip songs, or can’t find the first song. My FLACs are on an 2020 Motorola smartphone, connected via cable to my hi-fi setup. Its so much more convinient to operate.

Just purchased a Roon nucleus. Hopefully it arrives this week. Been hearing nothing but great things about it and how it makes your CDs obsolete.

Time to go VinYl

I went exactly the opposite way. Quit with expensive streamers that are more like fashion products nowadays. Quit with Qubuz and Tidal too. The ‘convenience’ made me restless: skipping album tracks before getting known the whole album as intended by the artist. I also sold my still growing record collection, various phono stages, cartridges and the turntable beast itself.

And now: bought a new and fantastic sounding CD-player and immensely enjoy buying and playing (new) CD’s. I thought of keeping Qobuz for finding new music, but I found out I prefer Bandcamp for that. It has more than one option for finding new stuff. And a fair share for the artist from whatever I buy.

At the ends it’s all a matter of personal choice and what feels right for YOU. Enjoy the music and that Eames chair 😎

Personally, I use spotify when out and about (headphones) and to find new bands. I have a playlist of interesting new songs which if I really like I will buy the album (normally CD). At home I can stream spotify to my amp but if I’m sitting down to listen then I’ll play a CD. I also rip all my CDs, and have started re ripping them to FLAC so I can play them without getting up (old age). But while my amp has the ability to play FLAC files from a USB it seems I need a music server to give me the ability to build playlists to play digitally… Of course it’s more money, it’s always more money.

But ultimately I still love my CD collection, it has the versions of tracks that I know and like (streaming seems to have alternate versions) and it also actually HAS the song, which I’ve discovered a few times that a service just stops having tracks. Plus the ritual of putting an album on, while not quite as “purist” as vinyl, it is much more enjoyable than just poking an icon on my phone.

I’ve sold most of my commercially available CD’s as soon as it was obvious streaming would be here to stay. Still got about 1000 bootleg cd’s in a flight case and a few handfuls of standard cds that aren’t on streaming services.

Sell them and buy yourself something nice.

While it’s totally just placebo I defiently like albums more if I can listen to it physically. Not sure why, I just don’t get attached in the same way if I can’t and the songs never fully click or ingrained themselves with me. Sometimes they do, but just not as often.

I am thinking about getting a Qubuz subscription but I listen to very obscure stuff so I want to make sure they have 95% of what I listen to.

I’ve got Roon + Tidal with about a thousand albums ripped over more than 15 years.

There’s something about me playing from my cd or LP collection that makes listening a bit more intentional and thus enjoyable. I believe it’s because I curated my record and cd collection around albums I love from track 1 to end. So anything I play, I’m going to enjoy. With Roon, it can be quite random.

I ripped most of my collection to FLAC and some MP3 years ago. I got rid of my CDs that were sitting unused for years about 4 years ago when I moved.

I used Plex to manage my collection for many years, but recently tried Roon and I’m hooked. It works great with Qobuz and my collection. I’m also really digging the Arc app when I’m out and about. It works great with Apple CarPlay. Much better than the native Qobuz app IMO.

I also got back into vinyl during the COVID apocalypse to scratch my physical media itch.

I see CDs making a bit of a comeback, but I’m not going down that road again I’m content with streaming and vinyl.

It’s possible to digitize your library for streaming off a home computer which you keep online.

A couple of touring dj’s who are famous for using vinyl in their performances used some kind of analogue (it had amp tubes) setup to digitize their vinyl only releases for when they traveled to places where their records were likely to be stolen.

First let me say I LOVE physical media. But at least 90% of my listening is not a full album start to finish. The playlist is my go to listening mode and that is difficult to replicate with pure physical media.

I’ve ripped every CD I own to my Emby server and make the playlists from there. Serves me well in the way that I like to enjoy my music.

Definitely. I’m not particularly a fan of the CD format to begin with, it’s all plastiky, it flexes, it makes that squeaky noise, etc. It’s really not pleasant. I much prefer vinyl, but the quality is at least an order of magnitude worse than digital, so digital I go. And Roon makes the whole experience so good honestly.

Personally I like owning all my music and not relying on the internet. I ripped all the physical media because it’s more accessible from a hard drive.

I bought a CD player and only afterward began reading up on streamers. I bought a Bluesound 2 months later and the player has gone unused since.