The record to the mp3 file...

• cruiser_96

  

  Which had a better run?
  
  I think the record had the home entertainment on lock down for like, what, 40 years? Maybe 30, but still. The 8-track made it possible to transport at least two of your favorite hits with you in the car...and you were lucky if the 8-track didn't fall apart after a month.
  
  About 12 years later the cassette player and tapes made it possible for an entire album to be transported and listened to in the car! Pretty legit.
  
  Then came the compact disc! Given my youth, expendable income, the boom of the CD, I spent gobs of money trying to collect all of my favorite songs. GOBS, I say. You got me good, Media Play...Coconuts...FYI...etc. Then I determined that CD's are for poor people.
  
  The mp3 file! Remember Napster? Mixed tapes on steroids pretty much.
  
  From what I can tell, the mp3 file has more durability and mobility.
  
  Is it real or Memorex?
• hasbeen

  

  I listen to old Vinyls or stream music via Google All-Access. I rarely use my mp3s anymore.
  
  Hope this helps.
• WebFire

  hasbeen;1523688 wrote:stream music via Google All-Access. I rarely use my mp3s anymore.

  Interesting point. MP3s may take a back seat to streaming. It won't be long before you won't need to store music at all. It will all be available via streaming, to any device, on-demand. There will always be a need for storage, which will be MP3 or similar digital format.
  
  But, who knows what the future holds.
• dlazz

  WebFire;1523703 wrote:Interesting point. MP3s may take a back seat to streaming. It won't be long before you won't need to store music at all. It will all be available via streaming, to any device, on-demand. There will always be a need for storage, which will be MP3 or similar digital format.
  
  But, who knows what the future holds.

  Basically all of this. The back end of streaming is very likely an mp3 or some other compressed audio format.
  
  It's also unfair to compare mp3s to cassettes/records because one is a physical format and one isn't.
  
  That being said, I gave up downloading songs because it simply wasn't needed anymore. With stuff like Pandora, and recently Spotify/Google all-access music, etc... you have immediate access to thousands upon thousands of songs whenever you want.
  
  I think eventually buying music will go away and it'll be all subscription-based.
• dlazz

  I can't edit my above post because the new Tapatalk is a pile of shit, but I feel that true audiophiles will never go the streaming route. I still have a good chunk of FLAC files I ripped from CD's because you can't stream music THAT high yet.
• Mohican00

  

  dlazz;1523762 wrote:but I feel that true audiophiles will never go the streaming route. I still have a good chunk of FLAC files I ripped from CD's because you can't stream music THAT high yet.

  I rarely use streaming services like Spotify or Pandora because I like downloading new material off of bandcamp (or other site) that may not have been disseminated to those services yet. Probably most important is that I like to collect music like some people collect baseball cards/stamps/wayward children in their basement
• cruiser_96

  

  I miss liner notes.
• Mohican00

  

  cruiser_96;1523774 wrote:I miss liner notes.

  I know
  
  
• I Wear Pants

  I usually try to get FLAC or the highest bitrate mp3s I can for things. When I buy albums I really like it's on vinyl since they're more fun to look at and you get the download anyway.
• Heretic

  

  I've noticed that around the more music-crazy people I talk to, they prefer the older methods of vinyl, tape and CD (not sure if all three of them, or just 1-2) to digital because they say the sound quality is better. Which is understandable if for no other reason than when downloading music, there are so many sizes from 128 to 196 to the 300s where the quality really goes up with the size of the file. My ear isn't so good to really tell the difference between high quality mp3 and store-bought CD/record stuff, but the difference between low-quality mp3 and high-quality is really noticeable.
  
  I pretty much use every form of music available. Have about 30 records, 90+ tapes, 100-200 CDs, a few hundred mp3s and when I work out, I use my last.fm streaming radio station where I added virtually every underground metal group I could find.
• dlazz

  Heretic;1523788 wrote:I've noticed that around the more music-crazy people I talk to, they prefer the older methods of vinyl, tape and CD (not sure if all three of them, or just 1-2) to digital because they say the sound quality is better.

  They're wrong to say the sound quality is better. Whether or not it sounds better to them is a valid opinion.... But digital audio trumps analog (cassettes/records) almost everytime in terms of quality.
• Heretic

  

  dlazz;1523798 wrote:They're wrong to say the sound quality is better. Whether or not it sounds better to them is a valid opinion.... But digital audio trumps analog (cassettes/records) almost everytime in terms of quality.

  Probably true. Like I said, I don't notice this quality difference they speak of unless it's a lower-quality digital. Like, for example, if you do the last.fm free downloads, they come off as blah quality that don't have near the same volume level of the average internet download.
  
  I think a lot of time, they use that as an "opinion" line to add fuel to their more logical point of just wanting the actual hard copy of the music with the liner notes, as to a music buff, I'd guess it's more valuable to have an actual collection of various groups' work than to have a ton of digital files of their songs.
• I Wear Pants

  dlazz;1523798 wrote:They're wrong to say the sound quality is better. Whether or not it sounds better to them is a valid opinion.... But digital audio trumps analog (cassettes/records) almost everytime in terms of quality.

  Records can be more accurate since it's actually just a tracing of the waveform whereas most of the time digital audio is compressed. That said 256kbps and up you're unlikely to hear a difference without an insanely expensive soundsystem and a good ear for that sort of thing. And FLAC is uncompressed so there can't really be any assertion that it's less quality than a record.
  
  Cassettes are absolutely lower quality than most CDs/mp3s you'll find.
• dlazz

  I Wear Pants;1523839 wrote:Records can be more accurate since it's actually just a tracing of the waveform whereas most of the time digital audio is compressed.

  I'll take a digital recording over clicks and pops everyday
• I Wear Pants

  dlazz;1523842 wrote:I'll take a digital recording over clicks and pops everyday

  Clicks and pops are really an issue with bad players/needles and dirty/old/poorly stored records.
• Heretic

  

  I Wear Pants;1523851 wrote:Clicks and pops are really an issue with bad players/needles and dirty/old/poorly stored records.

  The latter is a bit of a problem with my record collection. My junior high self apparently wasn't the best at taking care of his stuff. Paint flecks melded to them and the occasional warping does wonders for causing things to have distorted sound and skipping. Derp on me, definitely derp on me.
• dlazz

  I Wear Pants;1523851 wrote:Clicks and pops are really an issue with bad players/needles and dirty/old/poorly stored records.

  Clicks and pops affect every record. Those other things affect the severity of clicks and pops, but it will have imperfections as soon as it's pressed
• gut

  I get all my music from MOG as it's supposed to stream at 320k (and you can cache/offline it).
  
  And my car stereo is almost 8 years old now - I still play CD's loaded with mp3's