Owned physical media and/or downloaded music vs streaming services.

Old fogies and digital natives may be subscribing to the same exact services, listening the same number of hours, and have completely different relationships to what they are organizing/listening to.

And they may eschew new physical purchases for entirely different reasons. For one thing, one group is at the tail end of a long, strange, consumerist trip and can see the end of the road coming up.

 

Unfortunately, this statement is true of physical media as well. Plenty of music has been deleted over the years. And I'm pretty sure over 80% of all physical releases represent the same 1% of music. Unless you are lucky, it can take years to find a single release, even in an era where people are dumping CDs.

 

I’m gonna come clean. Here is the ugly side of vinyl that nobody ever talks about. After treating them like precious relics during the revival, five years later I’m back to treating my records the same way I did in 1976.

 

I believe it’s personal. I treated them with care during the 70’s and the 80’s. I’m treating them with care since late 2015. My only problem is they’re different items, I threw all my old LPs out in the early 90’s.

 

Still all physical media here.

My son has been buying CD's since he was 15 and 12 years later he still does. He uses Spotify to find new (and old music) then he buys the discs he is interested in.

My daughter (23) has a CD collection that she plays but she also streams from Spotify.

Both have amazingly good taste in music which they got from me of course !

 

I watched one of those "Clean your record with wood glue!" videos, and after peeling back the glue, the doofus proceeds to handle the 12" like a frisbee with his bare hands. Fingers all over the place. AAAAAGH!

 

CDs for me. On average 1.5 per week. No streaming. My 128 GB IPhone holds more than enough lossless albums for my current rotation. A few lossless purchases here and there to get super deluxe editions for cheaper.

TV/Movies: borrow from library and stream on Netflix, CraveTV, Prime, and Google Play.

 

I was born and raised with owning music physically. And I still collect music by buying CDs and Vinyl.
Sometimes I use Spotify to pre-listen to stuff before I decide to buy it elsewhere.

 

Did people value movies when they could only see them on TV or in the movies?

I have a number of albums that I only have as digital files, mainly due to them being OOP and too costly to buy on CD/LP. So I've never had them on a physical format but, somehow, they still manage to merge into the fabric of my internal musical timeline.

Main reason I buy physical media these days is cost (used CD's = ridiculously cheap today) or good SQ hopes (modern vinyl releases).

 

Not much of an 'audiophile' anymore and so streaming is usually fine.

 

I wouldn't count on this resurgence to be a significant impact in the overall marketplace, which is decidedly digital.

There is an infinite amount of music that I can listen to at any given particular point in time. So I don't agonize about every audio stream, record or CD that I don't have available to me. I'll just listen to some other artist or album.

If I really have to own a particular album, I just go out and buy it.

So I have enough CD's and records to suit my current needs. If I want to purchase physical media, I will. If there is something that I particularly want new, I just go out and buy it. One of our local used book stores holds an everything in the store sale $2/ea. once a month, so I can purchase all the video's, CD's and records that I want, without breaking the bank.

Right now, you can purchase many used and new CD's and DVD's, for about the same or less than the cost of a digital download. So, my preference is to own my physical media, for music that I truly want to own had have to cherish forever.

So I pay $4/mo. for my Pandora subscription, that I can play 24/7. how many songs do I get to listen to each month doing that? How much money would I have to spend on physical media, to accomplish the same thing at about a dollar a song average?

In a year, I'm spending a whopping $48, about the cost of a couple of new record albums. So, right there alone, is sufficient to have a streaming service.

Up until I got back into audio, from over a twenty year absence (where I was into video), I didn't know any of the new artists from the the late 80's on. So because of Pandora, I was introduced to both new artists and their music as well as old artists that I had not been previously exposed to during my former prime music days during the 60' 70's and early 80's. In discovering these new artists, many were not even "new" anymore, but since they were unfamiliar to me, it was just the same.

I have enjoyed the vast collection's of music that Pandora has to offer. And because of that, I have bought many new CD's and new records and for every song that I have ripped to a digital file or (in the earlier days), ripped to CD's that I could listen to in the car.

Since my last three laptops didn't have CD's built in, I had backed off on purchases of CD's somewhat. Several months back, I purchased a Brennan b2, that is a totally self contained unit and I intend to re-rip my collection to it and have it save the files as FLAC. If I want them in another format also, I can just batch convert them.

I don't quite get that either? We are talking about one digital medium over another.

See, one main reason that I own physical media, is that Microsoft and others does not know what I own or how often I listen to it, nor will they ever.

See, I'm with you on that one. I don't care to listen to "shuffled" music, because it is random and not represented the way I listen to an album in real life. When I put on an album, it is never to skip around listening to songs, I put the tone arm down and walk away, I return to turn the record over, or after the CD has finished playing.

I do prefer to have my digital music on a local server and on my portable player's.

I don't get what this "streaming" fuss is all about. People (not me) watch TV every day of their lives and that is streaming. People listened to radios and that is streaming content. The majority of audiophiles have owned FM receiver's and would play FM music through their audiophile system. Audiophiles have had cassette decks in their systems, and so on.

Just an average streaming service offers better quality content then that. I have subscription Pandora playing all the time, when I am not specifically listening to a CD or record, or ChromeCasting YouTube video's.

If I did'nt think that it sounded good, I would not do it. But, as it stands, I have no issues at all with streaming content. I didn't own or control the content of the radio that I listened to for most of my life. I understood that as did my friends. When a song became popular and we liked the group, we would go out and buy the album.

What I particularly enjoy about Pandora are my personally curated stations and the (invisible to me) playlists that are the result of their music genome project, which I think is one of the best ideas, from a purely conceptional point of view as sliced bread.

If I want to listen to specific music, then I have Spotify at $10/mo. to do this. Currently, Spotify is down, because I removed the WD streaming player that I used with it, from the system. I have a newer Roku 4k streaming box that I have not installed yet. Before that, I had Rhapsody on my phone at special $5/mo. rates.

I have both a new TT and a vintage TT, both quality tables. Some analog is "magic" some of it, not so much. Same with CD's, some sound good other's do not and those usually come across as being harsh and not very appealing.

In the beginning, I had ripped everything to MP3's. Then I ripped my modest collection to higher bit rate MP3's. Then I ripped them to FLAC and then batch converted them to AAC's and MP3's (as I have some older player's which only play digital music in the MP3 format.

Mom and pop shops, just can't compete with the big box stores and unnecessary government intervention. More are closing and few are opening to replace them. For my take, retailer's like Sears and J.C. Penney's are the cause of their own fates, due to improper management and the lack of skilled sales associates.

Sears got so bad that even attempting small cash transactions became a nightmare and their service really sucked. You could not pay me to walk into another Sears store. I can even deal with the lack of service, but when I would go into Penny's to buy some shirts and pants, nothing is organized and I spend over an hour doing what I used to do in fifteen minutes.

It is not just Amazon, it is all the big company's out there. One thing that I will say, is that I have been buying both from Amazon and eBay for years, and when there was a problem, I would call them and speak to a customer service representative and they would always handle the problem, to my complete and total satisfaction.

If a local brick and mortar store has the right qualified sales help, good customer service, proper inventory and competitive pricing, than I will always buy from them. When I enter their store, I already have these reasonable degrees of expectations before I enter, and if the store meets with my expectations, which are not excessive, I will buy from them.

Own what you personally want to own and stream the rest anytime you want. seems simple enough?

That was back in those days, there was no market for people to own movies, they would rent a movie, return it and rent another movie. VHS tapes were typically priced at $89 to $90 each, for stores to purchase them for the rental market. People had not use for owning movies. People went to out to theaters, paid their money and the theater "streamed" the movie for them. People watched the movie, and left the theater without the benefit of owning the movie.

Come to think of it, they still do that today.

Since I have had HT's with large screen TV's since the early eighties, I enjoy watching movies in the comfort of my home.

before that, during the latter 70's, before I had a VHS player, I used to screen 16mm prints in our living room and we would have a group over for movie nights.

But, all of them want to have physical media go by-by.

 

Which is exactly my point. Physical is close to 50% of the market yet it is "dying". That is STUPIDITY.

Renters are always going to be there, and they are the great little guinea pig/test rats that are a necessary component to sustain a market. Also a lot of them are the same excited fanboys that were downloading telling me to watch the crap ass bootlegs of Lord of the Rings that they snuck into a movie house to record...the same as they were making VHS recording collections (although I admit I am glad for what they did, makes good youtube clips for rare stuff). I thought..and you don't think I know how to download..you don't think I know how to pirate? I hate to break it to ya, but I actually like QUALITY over the here and now.

What they want, and what they get are two different things. They may want me to download an Amazon feeling of a couch vs having one delivered to me locally...but again, wanting isn't getting.

You see it is a common thing to run around like chicken little, proclaiming the sky is falling while ignoring the fact that entertainment is actually such a large part of spending, that the market will never be able to sustain in this capacity.

Regardless of what I or anyone else thinks they can predict, there is one true fact when it comes to history...to judge what is important by 20 years is just plain short sighted.

Streaming is the "in" thing...much like Facebook used to be. Yet there sits that item that people still want to own, and still refuse to purchase just beckoning in the printed market or in the aftermarket "used" section.

Things come and go out of print just like things come and go out of style. What it is today, may not be what it is tomorrow. The more I hear the renters with their little Nostradamus crystal ball mentality, the more I laugh at them. I mean what am I supposed to do...stop buying physical media because someone predicts its doom? Where would I be if I believed that crap? I cherish the time I learned about film on Film/LD/VHS the same as I do with bluray now.

Oh and news flash...until Netflix (for example) gets out of debt and rules and has assets that surpass what they have to license, that bubble is going to burst. If you look at the stock indexes lately compared to quarterly growth...it may happen sooner than you think. You cannot sustain 100% growth forever. I just don't know what the Netflix fanboys will ever do since they refuse to seriously diversify watching the same crappy tv shows instead of investing into the some quality material to go with their quality systems.

When I see companies like Capital talking about the Bee Gee's not being as strong I just get nauseated. When was the last time they were serious promoted? Their catalog is utter dissaray on the USA front. I am supposed to bank on a band like them actually being appreciated by today's listeners?

 

Yup, same here. As I said in another thread, I recently (2 weeks ago) got rid of all my physical media. After 45 years of moving it from place to place I decided to totally rid myself of past baggage. Next stop: retirement: media-free!!!

 

I can't imagine not owning my favorites on CD...

 

Indeed!

 

Favorites are certainly nice to 'own' for the artistic tangibility factor and for sonic preservation. Probably few people really sit down to read the lyric sheets or liner notes anymore but it's one of those quirks that many of us grew up doing.

Wasn't alive in the 1970s but I know what you mean. Vinyl takes a certain kind of person to really maintain a proper collection. Some people go through the extremes of cleaning the records every time before they're played and keep a close eye on the turntable's inner mechanics, while others are completely content with little attention paid to their setup's long term viability. It's something that I spent considerable time perfecting throughout my 20s but now kind of prefer the simplicity of plug and play and/or streaming. A lot of the time with vinyl there's just not enough time to sit down and listen to even a complete side when you other responsibilities that come first like family and career. It's easy to just pause a stream or digital device but vinyl kind of fights for your attention as others around you are as well.

 

for me it's a package deal. I always appreciate the artwork and liner notes from every CD I buy and before that every LP...I cannot have it any other way.

 

LOL! that's great...INDEED.

 

It's somewhat shocking to me that I no longer feel the need to own music. After forty years of collecting and obsessively searching out, it's just gone. I figure it must be similar to the way someone feels who walks away from a career or a long marriage.

I stopped in a large music store today and looked through the records. Other than nostalgia I didn't feel anything, and the racks and racks of used cds looked like a landfill to me.

I'm 100% streaming. Don't think I'll ever buy another physical product.

 

I decided to try Tidal. Not only do I have reservations about the sound quality, I realize that if I end the subscription, I lose access to all that music. So, no, I have to possess the music to do what I want with.

 

I should clarify. Everything important to me I ripped and keep on hard drive and an sd card. If streaming goes away they're still there.

But streaming isn't going away. Not only can I not envision a future where I buy a physical copy of something, I have trouble envisioning a future where they even bother to make a physical copy of something. It's just too obvious that computing will replace so many things.

 

It's virtually guaranteed.

 

This sounds right to me, except I think vinyl will stick around this time as a niche market. CDs though? Five more years, ten at the most, and they won’t be made anymore. Once bandwidth expands enough to support it, all the streaming services will be full-res, CD quality, like Tidal is now. Tidal allows you to buy individual files if you like, so you can own the music, and I’m sure that will be an option forever since there’s no reason not to sell those.

I use Audirvana for playback software and through the interface I can see both my personal music collection (ripped from CDs mostly) right alongside all the Tidal selections. The interface is the same, the sound is the same. If Tidal goes under, I’ll be annoyed, sure, but it won’t take long to rebuild my music lists on whatever other service I pick.

Almost all the recorded music ever released in full fidelity available almost anywhere we want it! For all the harm the internet does, this is one of the most miraculous things about it.

 

Music wise both physical and streaming though I only buy CDs to rip them as FLAC
Movies & TV is purely physical since I feel the streaming services in Australia are hugely lacking in content I like so I would rather own the disc. Plus Blu-Ray looks better than digital HD.