Is it a good idea to build a collection of digital files?

I have around 4000 albums on CD (and a similar number on vinyl).

Several years ago I ripped all the CD's to a hard drive and purchased a streamer. This is a much more convenient way to listen to them. All except my favourite 500 CD's are now in "storage" in the garage. I did however continue purchasing new albums, more vinyl than CD. I store a copy of my hard drive offsite in case of problems (also have 2 copies on site for convenience).

6 months ago I dipped my toes into the Tidal world with their cheap 4 month trial. What I discovered was that I was purchasing a lot of music just to give it a listen. Now I can do that on Tidal (largely as they do not have everything I want to listen to). Hence I now listen to more new music than before and have reduced my purchasing to those albums I really like. I have yet to move to purchasing download's - although I am always annoyed that very few vinyl albums (which cost roughly twice the CD version) come with downloads as part of the package. I guess I am still stuck in that old fashioned desire to own something physical.

1 month ago I invested in a NUC for use as a Roon server, so now I am fully immersed in streaming throughout the house. However critical listening is always in the main system.

 

In my experience it's been essential since a lot of the new music I want to hear is increasingly only available as downloads -- not on hard copy, not streaming. For example oneof the best albums I've heard this year -- Tyshawn Sorey's Unfiltered -- is only available as a download. Resale value? I don't worry about that. I've never sold a record in my life. I buy them (or pay for a streaming service subscription) to listen to them. Based on my experience though, if folks want to hear all kinds of different music that's out there, they have to be format agnostic. There's music on that was originally released on CD that hasn't made it to download or streaming services, music on vinyl that's never made it to a digital release, music available for download that's never had a hardcopy release, etc. You may be right, digital files much not be "collectable" in the way that LPs are. But if that's the only way to hear the music you want to hear, what difference does it make?

 

Like the OP and many others, I bought vinyl, then CDs. Many years ago I ripped all my CDs (about 800 at the time) and went digital only. I would still buy CDs but never play them, just rip them. Then I started buying digital downloads. (Just for the hell of it I recently made digital recordings of about 200 vinyl albums that I had not already replaced with CDs or downloads.) So I now have 1200 or so albums in my digital library. Not a huge library by most standards, but 80% - 90% of it is stuff I really like.

I resisted streaming for a long time. Didn't like the lower quality file format (even though I can rarely if ever hear much difference on my setups). Spotify was nice for playing in the car, and for discovery. I used it to check out new releases and to mine the vaults and if I liked something I'd buy the download or the CD.

Then about a year ago I started looking at the lossless streaming services from Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz. I go back and forth between Tidal and Qobuz, and will probably settle on Tidal because it has better apps and better discovery features. (I tried Amazon HD when it came out recently and it's a joke.)

I'm now starting to feel like I'm being assimilated into the streaming Borg. I haven't bought a CD or a download in the last nine months or so. In my opinion, streaming is here to stay and it's the future.

I still like having my own library for comfort and nostalgia. Plus I put a lot of time and money into building it over the years so I'm reluctant to just let it go. Fortunately, Roon software lets me keep it alive along with my streaming favorites, all integrated into one seamless library.

As for the cost, $20/month (or $10 thru Best Buy) for Tidal plus $10/month for Roon seems expensive, especially now that I'm retired and on the proverbial fixed income. But $20 - $30 a month for access to virtually all the music ever recorded is a better bargain than the two or three CDs I could buy per month for the same money. And looking at my collection of 1200 albums, I've probably spent $8000 to $12,000+ acquiring them. That would pay for 30 to 50 years of Tidal with access to virtually every album instead of just 1200, and I won't even be around that long.

So I guess if I was just starting out today I'd be all in on streaming and wouldn't bother buying (licensing) my own copies of music.

(I also get that there are folks who seek out rarities and best masterings/pressings, and I'm sure it's a rewarding pastime for them. I've never been one so that's not a factor for me.)

 

Either user error or the Macbook is a piece of crap. So much for "convenience" described upthread when it's not fit for purpose.

 

RE: backups, I highly recommend multiple backups, both physical and cloud.

One of my friends is a guy who specializes in malware/ransomware removal and data recovery. He's worked with all kinds of clients that have been targeted for this stuff, from normal people, to businesses, local governments, police departments, etc.

It is true that if your backup drives are all on the same network they will all get infected if your are attacked by malware or ransomware. A NAS or docking station that allows you to swap out a drive that's a clone of your main backup is a good idea.

RE: cloud backup plans, shop around and read the fine print. Figure out how much much it's going to cost you if your physical drive(s) fail and you have to download or buy a drive full of your files from the backup company.

Recently I received an email from a frustrated musician to his fanbase about how his backup drive failed. It had seven years worth of work on it. He only had one physical drive - no clone, and no cloud service. He is now looking at physical data recovery to get his work back and it's going to be expensive. All that could have been avoided with a clone drive and/or a $5-10 a month cloud service.

My 2 cents.

 

... the suggestion is that the Thunderbolt USB-C socketry on current Macs CAN carry audio, but there's a lot of vagueness on actually HOW to accomplish this...

What you need to know about Thunderbolt

 

Interested as well as to how this pans out.

May try the USB-C on my Surface, when time permits (it has a USB-A as well which I generally use). My old MBP is USB-A only / no way for me to mess with that one.

 

yes, it's worth it to me. i have over 10K jazz 'records' on a hard drive which i also have backed up on another hard drive.
as a musician it's valuable to me to have all of this reference material in one easily accessible location.

 

With 10K jazz records on a hard drive, I would absolutely have two(2) additional hard drives as copies of that original hard drive.

 

To answer the question first: yes. It's currently the only way my collection is growing.

As to resale value... My intention is to have and use my music collection until I die. After that, why should I care what it's worth? Regardless, my wife and kids will likely toss my entire physical collection once I'm gone.



Jeff

 

i should probably make another backup just to be safe.. at one point i did intend to make an additional copy to loan out, but i guess i lost interest

 

Yeah, all this concern with resale value? Is that a concern to music lovers? Or collectors?

 

That would be very smart.
If your main drive does go kablooey, then what do you do with your only copy? Either you try to play it or you try to make a "new" copy for backup.
And what if during the copy process, your only copy goes kablooey?(because this harddrive was just as old as the first one that died)
I like know if one drive fails, that I have two other copies as protection, and can safely make a new backup.

 

thanks .. i think you've made your point here.. i was just browsing bestbuy and the cost of storage is so low.. i think i'll actually make two additional backups

 

^This^

Grooming my music library has been a lifelong hobby for me since the mid-60's (Thanks again Mom for Electric Ladyland double album for Xmas. You done good. RIP). I went from vinyl and RtR to CDs (stopping at cassettes only to play them in my car) and now to all digital. My ever-growing but personally-selective library is currently at around 1,200 Artists and 3,000 releases (~1 GB), mostly in ALAC on a NAS so I can stream around the house to various wireless speakers (no bluetooth for me) and also for serious 2-CH listening sessions using a Kodi/NUC box. I use iTunes to organize the files and create complicated playlists and get a lot of satisfaction of out of tagging albums and tracks using MusicBranz. I've also found a lot of artwork from the Internet Archive. Kodi works very well on my big screen TV to display album covers, discart, Artist pics, track ratings, etc. Like I said, grooming this digital library is my hobby. While listening and appreciating the artists remains the primary quest, managing the whole package is very satisfying.

Given that, nearly all of my friends and family have moved on to other aspects of life and, for the most part, delegated their music life over to Spotify, using the service to create their own playlists or based on the company algorithms. That doesn't work for me. Given the chance to play music for them, my friends love my mixes of old familiar tunes along with new artists, but they also think I'm (still) a little bit kooky. I've shared my library with a few, but they don't ever put it to good use...how can they? It's my musical Tree of Life, not theirs. They don't have a clue where to start, no less take advantage of it.

Perhaps I will eventually incorporate Tidal or something like it into my mix, but I find the vastness too overwhelming and lack of ownership deflating. When the time comes for me to go I expect the value of my efforts will be lost on others and be lost to some wasted hard drives. Oh well...

[LongWindedPost OFF]

 

You are the only person that can answer the question you're asking, but what you're suggesting would always be my choice if I didn't collect records. It's pretty old-school even if I'm not that old, but I don't like the idea of streaming. The fact that I'm always only renting music combined with the non-existence of my private library (virtual libraries don't count for me) would be too alienating for me. I also like the idea that my collection is a reflection of my personality in a way that when you come to a person's home and browse through his/her books, records etc., you get a very good idea of who they are. And more importantly, one is getting to explore oneself in building the library. You have to ask yourself questions such as: what do I want? Which music do i really like? What do I find worth buying? We're giving up on very important things for the sake of little convenience.

 

I read it, why?

 

Without wanting to put words into people's mouths I think by the phrase 'I have no time' one can read 'little interest' or 'no interest' rather than a literal sense of 'no time'.
Though we all know, it's later than we think...

 

I have a burgeoning digital collection that more or less mirrors my physical collection bar a few hi-rez downloads. I love physical but I also love the digital convenience of taking my entire collection (in lossy) wherever I may go. A tad exuberant perhaps but one never knows when one has the urge just to listen to a particular version of a certain song whilst far from home...

 

It's not my place to tell you what to do, but you have to admit that your remarks ring with luddism masquerading as purity.

Being primarily an analog guy, I resisted the lure of digital audio until about 18 months ago. I had an extensive CD collection, but rarely played them. Something clicked in my head after being given a free iMac (an old one), and so I bought an inexpensive Schiit DAC and set it up as a music server running iTunes, just to see how I liked the user experience. I quickly found that I LOVED the convenience and flexibility, and it sounded every bit as good (if not better) than using my CD player (I had a Rotel RCD-1072). I've since replaced the iMac with a more powerful Mac Mini.

I have about 50% of my sprawling CD collection ripped so far, and as my digital library has grown and diversified, I listen to digital audio more and more. I use the random shuffle mode most of the time, and you'd be surprised by how many times I've discovered great music "hidden" in my collection.

 

For all of you stocking up on Hi Rez Stereo recordings, will you rebuy when they're remastered for ATMOS?

 

I like ATMOS and 7.1 surround sound etc. for my movies but not so much my music. One's mileage may vary, of course...

 

Backup, backup, backup. I greatly enjoy my Mac Mini music server AND my physical media. You can have both worlds.

 

What difference does / will "remastering for ATMOS" make to them?

 

Perhaps, I should have used the word "comprehend".

My response to your response was "what are you talking about?"
The OP isn't asking about streaming, then your response is"i streaming!!"

Sorry if I misinterpreted your initial reply.
Chip Chip, Cheerio and all that.