
Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms - ingve
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/technology/personaltech/music-streaming-cd.html
======
rchaud
I'm definitely on board with physical media. Almost all the vinyl I've bought
comes with a download code anyway, and album artwork shines on a 12" x 12"
canvas much more than it ever could on the tiny thumbnail you get on a music
player app.

That being said, indie music stores like Bandcamp are digital only, but offer
one-click DRM-free MP3 downloads for purchased songs/albums. The UX is focused
on buying music first and supporting individual artists, rather than
commoditizing their sound into an algorithmic playlist where they're lumped in
with everybody else.

I honestly find Spotify and Apple Music bad for music discovery if your tastes
aren't really adjacent to Top 40 (is that even a thing today?) style pop
music. Back in the day, Last.fm used your iTunes/Foobar play history to show
you bands you'd like. The algorithm was based on user-submitted tags, and the
recommendations weren't limited to bands that had deals with the platform. I
discovered a ton of new music across very different genres there.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like the site is very active these days.

~~~
mywittyname
> I honestly find Spotify and Apple Music bad for music discovery if your
> tastes aren't really adjacent to Top 40 (is that even a thing today?) style
> pop music.

I strongly disagree. Spotify has dramatically increased the variety of music
that I listen to and introduced me to lost of tiny artists with great music.

I'm looking at the official chart top 40 online and have to go down to 7th
place to find an artist I know (Taylor Swift). Only one song on my "Release
Radar" is in the Top 40 list (Sixteen by Ellie Goulding).

I think you get what you look for with Spotify. If you listen to a bunch of
Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, you'll be recommended a things like Aria Grande
and AVICII. But if you listen to An Horse and Houndsmouth then you'll
aparently get recommendations for The Mountain Goats and Me Not You.

~~~
task_queue
> _I strongly disagree. Spotify has dramatically increased the variety of
> music that I listen to and introduced me to lost of tiny artists with great
> music._

I've used a number of music recommendation applications over the last decade.

With Spotify, I've noticed that it will become "stuck" in what I describe as
similar artist troughs and valleys. In other words, the Spotify recommendation
engine will pigeonhole your recommendations into certain subgenres, niches, or
related artists more so than say Pandora or Last.fm would.

~~~
myself248
Yup, I've had to work around this. I'll pick a song I like, and do "song
radio" to find more like it. But this makes a playlist which is basically 6
more similar artists, and no variety beyond that. But I want to branch out
more, several steps beyond that. So I'll open a particular song from that
playlist, go to "song radio" for that, and drag a bunch of songs I don't
recognize back into the first playlist. Repeat this for a few more songs. Then
once I've added a bunch more variety, do "playlist radio" again.

It's super obnoxious. I wish they had a slider for "be more adventurous"
versus "hew close to the line". Do I remember Pandora having something like
that?

~~~
kazga
Spotify automatically creates a playlist from songs you've "liked" while
they're playing on radio. So just start a certain song radio, like the kind of
songs that go into the direction you want, and then start playlist radio on
the "Liked from Radio" playlist.

------
sschueller
What bugs me is that quite a lot of things are not available. I ripped my
entire CD collection and uploaded into Google Music (not sure if that feature
still exists). I have all this music available but I can not find it on other
peoples google music. So if I share a song, they get an error. Most of this
music is nothing special and quite mainstream but if I search on other peoples
devices I can not find the songs only alternate versions from other people who
made a cover version of the song.

I am also worried now that songs will just disappear. I no longer remember
specific names but instead hit thumbs up to add them to a list. If the song
gets removed from google due to license expiring or what ever that song just
disappears from my list and in have no idea that I every had it on my list.

~~~
edpichler
Man, I lost my precious childhood videos after "saving" on the cloud. Google
deleted it because of some seconds of the background music of AC/DC's on the
radio.

~~~
fjsolwmv
You played AC/DC on multiple videos, and deleted all your originals and other
copies after uploading it to YouTube?

~~~
edpichler
Oh, now I understood your question. I lost my physical backup, and now I can't
recover it from Google.

------
kstenerud
I've got all my music ripped to FLAC, sitting on my file server, a little N40L
microserver with 8tb mirrored storage (my music takes about 300gb total). On
the server, I've got a script that uses ffmpeg to convert from flac to
whatever format I want (currently aac and mp3, which my player devices
support). The script also applies replaygain to keep the volume consistent. I
run the script once and it processes the whole shebang.

This means that I control all of my music, stored in lossless format on a
backed up server in my house, able to be deployed to any device I want
whenever I want, in whatever audio format is popular at the time, in
perpetuity.

~~~
omega3
Slightly of-topic but how do you discover new music to listen to?

~~~
kstenerud
Same way I have for the past 30 years. I listen from time to time to stations
that play the kind of music I like. Sometimes I check out various places that
have top 100 charts. If I find something I like, I go get it and add it to my
collection. Rerun the script and resync my devices.

~~~
JohnFen
> I listen from time to time to stations that play the kind of music I like.

You're lucky! In my area, there are no such stations. All of the stations are
essentially top 40 (in each of the major genres -- top 40 country, top 40 pop,
etc.), talk, and sports.

There's nothing in any of those for me.

~~~
GenghisSean
Internet radio may be able to solve your problem. Music podcasts, and internet
radio sites/apps mean geographic location is no longer the limiting factor for
what you can listen to.

There are big names like iHeartRadio and SlackerRadio but lots of smaller
radio stations have internet streams and/or apps. Podcasts are nice because
they can focus on niche genres or provide more information about
artists/releases. Mixcloud is one of my favorite sites for listening to radio
shows.

~~~
JohnFen
> Internet radio may be able to solve your problem

It's a problem that I've solved long ago, really. Internet streaming services
bring their own set of problems, so I don't use them.

I do listen to podcasts (downloaded, not streamed), but not for music.

------
SmellyGeekBoy
No privacy terrors? What short memories we have.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

~~~
dirkt
To nitpick: Pure musics CD (CD-DA) can't contain any DRM or rootkits, because
the format doesn't allow for data - it's all sound.

Only combined CD-ROM/CD-R + CD-DA formats together with the unfortunate
eagerness of Windows to auto-execute everything allows such rootkits.

So if you feed a music CD to a real old CD player, or to (say) a properly
configured Linux computer: No privacy terrors.

~~~
shuzchen
To nitpick your nitpick: there were many attempts to implement DRM even on
pure music CDs, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control)

My personal experience with this was with some import CDs (from Japan) that,
from what I recall, messed with the error correction part of the data so that
it skipped horrendously in my PC (so it was impossible to rip in cdex) but
played fine in (most) standalone audio players.

~~~
mattl
From that Wikipedia article:

"As the Copy Control discs do not conform to the requirements of the CD
standard, they are not labeled with the CDDA logo, which is trademarked by
Philips."

------
raehik
Where are my Rockbox users at? My tiny plastic Sansa Clip+ MP3 player has been
going for years, I'd be nothing without it. >10hrs playback, supports >128 GB
microSD, plays OGG/FLAC/MP3/AAC/anything. The Rockbox firmware is still being
developed, albeit at a slow pace.

By far the best combination of hardware+firmware I own. Unlikely to replace it
for another few years. Sadly not produced any more :(

~~~
anc84
Just today I thought how much I appreciate that exact setup and that I should
donate considerable money to the project.

So hereby I pledge that I will send 100 dollars this weekend. This is not even
2 dollars per months that this project provided me with a perfect portable
media player setup.

Who's with me?

~~~
raehik
I have high respect for you. As for myself, I'll play the student card and bow
out, haha :)

------
everdrive
A couple years ago I took all my music back out of google music and restored
from physical backups where necessary. Now, my audio player is an old laptop
running linux, hooked up to some very nice speakers. (it can play podcasts
too!)

The laptop just uses Rhythmbox, but you could obviously use whatever player
you like. It's the best setup I've ever had. No terrible UI, no syncing, no
garbage. I control what music is on there and where it's backed up. And most
importantly, it has separated my music from general computer use. Yes it's
technically playing on a computer it's the old linux laptop that's hooked up
to the speakers. It barely uses any power and the keyboard is in an awkward
position to type on. It's not convenient to watch videos or browse the
internet on. It's not convenient to type on. It's really only good for
listening to music. You can set it on and read, or do chores, or exercise, and
never feel the urge to jump on HN, read the news, etc. If it weren't for the
podcasts, it'd never even connect to the internet. And therefore it wouldn't
matter if it were even updated or password protected.

~~~
rochak
So, do you buy each song separately digitally or physically? Also, after
buying, how do you move it to your setup? For physical copies (CDs or Vinyls),
do you rip and convert them to .flac or .mp3? For digital, do you remove the
DRM?

~~~
jakobegger
I thought that Amazon and iTunes both have DRM free songs (for purchase /
streaming does have DRM)

~~~
code_chimp
Nice feature I found on Amazon - when I buy the physical CD they add the
albums to my "Amazon Music" so I can stream them as well.

------
Mediterraneo10
Another reason CDs are still worth considering: classical music and, to a
lesser extent, jazz CDs often feature extensive and informative liner notes
that have never been posted online anywhere. I myself typically rip all my
purchases to FLAC immediately and then I listen through my media centre, so I
often forget that I have the original physical release there on the shelf, but
when I do go back and look at that CD I am often amazed how good the liner
notes are.

~~~
leemailll
I agree. I mostly listen to classical music, although I also rip them but most
of the time I still use cds. It seems current music players on computers never
thought about creating classical music pieces playlist. I had to manually add
pieces to create them with correct order or just add albums which is the same
as just playing a cd.

In the end, I listen to music with CD players mostly, and still insist on buy
a car with CD player

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
This is primarily the fault of later era CDs when the index marks were
abandoned and small movements were separated by track breaks. Originally,
Redbook audio was supposed to always have a silent pregap between tracks and
indexes were for intra-track navigation. You will find this on early classical
CDs. Then the problem is finding a player that supports skipping index marks.

------
criddell
My daughter got a record player for Christmas last year and it caused me to
think about my relationship to music. After she got the record player, I've
taken her to the record store a few times and it was like stepping out of a
time machine. I loved everything about it (Waterloo Records in Austin is
pretty fantastic).

I ended up buying a CD player and pulling my collection out of the attic. I
had forgotten how good music from a CD sounds on a big stereo.

These days, I'm mostly listening to entire albums (even when I use a streaming
service). I've also started buying CDs again. When I stopped buying CDs, they
were usually between $15 and $25. In the past four months I've bought a bunch
and haven't paid more than $8.

I know CDs are dying and now that I'm back into it, it kind of makes me sad.
It's shocking to me to think the format was defined 40 years ago. The Philips
and Sony engineers did a fantastic job.

~~~
mirrorlake
I had a similar experience last winter when I popped a CD into my desktop.
Probably the first time I had heard music with a bitrate higher than Spotify’s
320kbps in a few years. Within a day I was off buying my favorite albums on
FLAC and making a CD wishlist. Made me remember why I bought nice speakers in
the first place.

And I’ve thought this for a while: With gigabit internet connections
spreading, video streaming services that soak up bandwidth (10-20+ Mbps all
day), WHY are companies stingy about audio bitrate? My connection can stream
multiple 4K videos, yet audio is the same (or worse) bitrate than what I
burned on CDs in 2003.

~~~
criddell
I think the bitrate stingyness comes from the fact that people tend to watch
Netflix at home over wired internet and they listen to streaming music over a
more expensive wireless connection, often on crappy headphones.

There are higher bitrate services out there. Deezer will stream FLAC and there
are probably others.

Where are you buying FLAC files from? For now I'm still happy with physical
CDs although I have ripped them to ALAC. I'm not sure what the difference is,
but when I scroll through my library on iTunes there's never anything I want
to listen to, but if I look through my physical discs I always find something
I want to put on.

~~~
mirrorlake
I like to get higher bitrate stuff from Bleep and Bandcamp.

------
atoav
I mostly buy my music via bandcamp nowadays and from time to time I buy a
vinyl. I don’t believe in the idea of the superiour vinyl sound, but I like
that it makes listening a concious ritual.

Because I DJ from time to time I like to _have_ the stuff I like on my drive
and so it ends up beeing either a download or vinyl. CD has totally fallen out
of favour with me..

~~~
TimTheTinker
I once was chatting with a producer who worked for Disney for around 15 years.
He said the so-called “warm” tone of vinyl vs the “harsh” sound of CDs is
really that the vinyl format acts as a partial low-pass filter. So it’s really
just that you’re hearing less high-freq sound on vinyl than on a CD.

~~~
ljcn
Perhaps. I have heard they also master differently for vinyl since it can't
provide the same dynamic, frequency, or stereo range as digital. Some
listeners find the result more appealing.

~~~
atoav
Sometimes the vinyl master _is_ in fact better, because it is less compressed,
because a mastering engineer can assume that people listening to vinyl got a
decent sound system, while mastering for "web" means people have phone
speakers, laptop speakers, hifi systems, whatever.

~~~
TimTheTinker
That's interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean by "compress". Do you mean
data compression, or a compressing audio filter?

Web distribution (iTunes/etc.) files come from running the CD master through
an AAC/MP3/etc. converter which does data compression only. But a
256Kbps/16bit/44.1KHz AAC (like you'd get from iTunes) is a lot higher quality
than vinyl.

~~~
atoav
You are right thats ambgious, but in this context compression refers to the
dynamic compression of the adio wave (so essentially reducing the difference
in perceived loudness between the loudest and the most silent parts of a
recording).

Data compression doesn’t make much sense here, because you usually use
uncompressed audiofiles anywhere unless it goes to the web.

------
munmaek
I buy CDs occasionally and rip them, but it's 2019, there's no real need to
amass a CD collection (unless you want to).

For most of my needs, spotify works out. I don't mind paying $10/mo since I
use the offline listening so much. I only buy and rip CDs for my own
collection if I -really- like that album or a song on it, and a web download
isn't available. Occasionally spotify doesn't have a very specific version of
a song– _Legend of a Mind_ by the Moody Blues from the 1967? BBC recording
sessions comes to mind. Or artists like King Crimson.

I don't buy through itunes because of drm and the lack flac/alac options–why
would I buy an mp3/m4a/aac file that I'm stuck with and can't transcode if
needed? Bandcamp is a great alternative if the band you want happens to be on
there. The app isn't too bad either if you forgot to download and sync an
album.

Other benefits of ripping a CD or downloading a flac/alac file include having
a perfect lossless copy. I can then transcode to any format that I want,
whenever I want, however I want, from now until forever (or at least until the
storage goes bad/breaks), without losing any quality.

With spotify pro + ublock origin, I never see ads on spotify or youtube
anyway.

~~~
Nextgrid
Just wondering how you manage Spotify + your own music collection. Is there an
app that can play both Spotify _and_ imported files and present them in a
single UI?

At the moment I can’t enjoy anything that’s not on Spotify simply because I
wouldn’t be able to listen to them really. I have hours of music on Spotify
playlists and I would only need maybe a dozen of songs that aren’t on there,
so manually switching apps for those few times would be annoying.

~~~
Garvey
Spotify allows you to import tracks from your computer and add them to
playlists as if it was on Spotify. Obviously you can only access them on the
computer you added them from though.

Not sure about the mobile app, I assume it will skip the missing tracks in a
playlist as normal but it might be possible that it picks them up if they're
present on the device somewhere.

~~~
camochameleon
You can share them to an Android or iOS device [1], but it's a little fiddly.
I'd love for them to offer a cloud music system like Apple Music or Google
Play does, as Spotify checks all the other boxes that those services don't.

[1]
[https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/listen...](https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/listen-
to-local-files/)

------
pbhjpbhj
Worth noting here that ripping a CD is a copyright infringement, yes even for
individuals, here in UK. We had about 2 years when it wasn't.

Yes, that means Apple iTunes and the like provide tools for copyright
infringement -- far worse than the young adult that got extradited to USA for
providing links on a website (which is allowed in UK law) -- and in theory
could be sued for contributory infringement.

~~~
Freak_NL
Worth noting that the UK (along with Malta) is an exception in Europe. In the
other European countries ripping a CD you own for personal use is completely
legal.

~~~
2Ccltvcm
Worth noting that the UK never had a proper revolution

------
m1el
"Why play music from your hard drive? No Ads, No Privacy Terrors, No
Algorithms"

~~~
taneq
Yeah, I feel like people have forgotten mp3s somehow.

\- Storage cost is trivial even with multiple backups

\- Can be better quality than streaming

\- Available offline, forever, at no extra cost

Sure, in some jurisdictions it's not legal to rip CDs you own but it's easy
enough to defend morally if you're doing it for private use.

~~~
loudmax
Pretty sure you're using 'mp3s' in a general sense, but I'm going to nitpick
because I love audio format geekery.

If you're going to rip your CDs, you should consider ripping to FLAC and Opus.
The only reason to rip to mp3 is that basically every legacy device out there
understands the mp3 format and knows how to play it. If you're playing back on
a phone or PC or a more modern device, you should use a modern format. Both
FLAC and Opus are totally open source.

FLAC is lossless and will reproduce your source CD bit for bit, but in a
compressed format. Listening to music in a FLAC format is the same as
listening to the original CD. Opus is a lossy format, so you lose some
fidelity by necessity, but if you make that trade it's the best quality you're
going to get. A double blind test had it outperform AAC and Vorbis, and
significantly outperform mp3.

I rip my CDs to FLAC and store those files on my NAS. Then I convert the FLAC
files to medium quality Opus files and those go on the SD card in my phone. I
don't use old mp3 players, so I can do without mp3s.

~~~
taneq
True. My collection is all in mp3 format but any local DRM-free audio format
has all the same advantages and usually fewer disadvantages.

------
x3haloed
This headline smacks of fear mongering. Privacy TERRORS. ALGORITHMS! Walking,
talking murder bots! Seriously?

Please. If you pay for your streaming service, you don't have ads. Privacy
concerns are an abstract existential concern that don't have practical effects
at least in the context of music streaming. And algorithms? I don't understand
what the fear is here. Just a general anti-technology sentiment? Why not make
a playlist of your own or simply listen to and album from beginning to end?

Maybe we've lost a little something moving into the realm of the purely
digital, but that is the essence of change. It involves tradeoffs. And change
is inevitable.

Face change with courage - not by dearly holding onto everything that was.

~~~
mrfredward
I agree with everything you just said, but I want to add a counterpoint. About
a year ago, YouTube Music started playing ads for depression medication for me
constantly. My music choice is...err...not particularly happy most of the
time. I actually first noticed the ad after listening to a song called "Happy
Pills." I have no evidence that I was profiled based on my music choice aside
from this one coincidence, but it was enough to make me question if I want
Google to know everything I listen to.

Music gives insight into the emotional state of a person, so it could become a
very real privacy concern, if it isn't being exploited already.

~~~
andai
My phone has this feature where it periodically checks if I'm still looking at
it, to turn off the screen if I'm not. It doesn't take the opportunity to spy
on my facial expression, but I reckon it won't be long.

------
rebane2001
Most of the music I listen to is from Bandcamp I like it because I can
directly support the artists and I get to show off my collection online, while
still keeping my (easily redownloadable) mp3/flac collection offline

I do like Spotify (even have a Premium subscription), but it's often missing
the artists I like and the program itself is pretty terrible compared to
something like Foobar/AIMP/PowerAmp In addition, having local music files
opens up a whole world of new possibilities, like being able to add them to
videos, having fun mixing/editing them and playing rhythm games like Audiosurf
and Riff Racer

~~~
poelzi
Me too. In fact, I find the prices and especially the flac extra price
something from the last millenium, when storage and bandwith where expensive.
Also the discography option is so wonderful, it helps with the backlog if you
dive into something new. I already got 2 or 3 labels to be there because there
was no proper place to get their music :)

~~~
rebane2001
I feel like Bandcamp is also more geared towards artists. When I discover new
music on Bandcamp, I see the custom-designed artist pages and make a
connection between the music and the artist while on Spotify and YouTube it
feels more like going from song to song, but not focusing on artists
separately (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I personally prefer the
former)

------
Nodzi
I honestly prefer Spotify. The reality is that I have 1014 songs on my
playlist at the time of writing, and it sets me back the equivalent of about
$5 PM (Converted from ZAR), and I get to be picky about what I listen to
frequently. In an album from someone, odds are that I might like 2 of the
songs at most, so buying a CD for only 2 songs is a pointless activity for me.

This means that to collect 1000 songs that I like on CD I'll have to buy 500
CDS total. That's a lot of money.

I also enjoy being able to mix up my music and not having to swap out discs
when I get tired of an artist. I understand privacy is an issue for some, but
I don't really care if Spotify collects the data of who I listen to, it only
improves their algorithm and makes my music discoveries easier.

The reality is that you're always connected to the internet, and even if you
listen to CDs on your computer the media player is still collecting your data
and behaviour.

~~~
tadzik_
> even if you listen to CDs on your computer the media player is still
> collecting your data and behaviour

I'm not sure what OS or media player you use(d), but implying that it's
somehow inherent to playing music on your computer in general is an
overstatement, to put it mildly.

As a counterpoint to your argument: I tried Spotify and went back to offline
music. I don't use CDs of course, it's all ripped to MP3 and sitting there on
my hard drives, with some of it copied over to my phone.

The internet is always there except when it isn't – cross the border to a non-
EU country with crazy roaming charges and suddenly you'd wish that you had
stuff offline with you. On the other hand with online services the music
collection you have “with you” is effectively infinite, as long as the data
connection is up. There's ups and downs to everything.

The thing that ultimately turns me off from Spotify is the client: I've come
to expect the ability to add a few albums to a makeshift playlist, shuffle the
tracks, remove some of them because I don't like them, reorder a few songs
whenever I feel like it etc. Whenever I try out Spotify it seems like my
options are either to listen to whatever The Algorithm[tm] serves me or
painstakingly create a custom playlist every time I want to listen to
something non-standard. The “Play Queue” management in Spotify is next to
nonexistent (or hidden so well in the UI that I couldn't find it), and
compared to regular desktop players like Cantata it's just annoying to use.

~~~
JCharante
I started using Youtube Music last year. Recently I flew overseas, and for
this reason I had downloaded some music (300+ songs) with their download for
offline play feature. During my layover I connected to some airport wifi, and
almost instantly I lost access to offline play of most of my songs because of
licensing issues with the country that I was in. I've since learned to always
use a VPN that terminates in the US before launching Youtube Music.

~~~
TacticalTable
I think this is more of a Youtube issue than a music issue.

I can't imagine Youtube Music is going to exist for long, given that 90% of
the GPM subscribers I've talked to would rather swap to spotify than use YTM.

------
jslabovitz
I've been collecting CDs for a few years now. I rip them for archiving and for
easy playing (iPhone, etc.), but also enjoy handling the real object. I like
the experience of simply listening to album the way it was originally intended
by the artist, in the original order, with the production values intended at
the time, not mixed up with other songs. Streaming, or even shuffling, often
makes me tense and anxious (radio did too).

Because it's a bit of a pain to get music to the iPhone (with ALAC conversion,
etc.), I recently experimented with matching albums with Apple Music and just
using that version. However, I've been disappointed that many of those albums
aren't actually the same ones as my CDs! (Again, this is Apple Music: other
streaming services might be different.)

For example, tracks might be remastered (sometimes for good, sometimes not),
and often the album is a 'deluxe' version with extra tracks. If there was a
way to 'hide' those extra tracks, I'd be okay with it, but sadly it feels like
the original intent of the artist has been corrupted by the record label to
sell more content.

So I'm slowly returning to my first method, and only listening to ripped
music, an album at a time, in its original order.

~~~
dev_dull
> _in the original order_

I agree with most of what you said, but so many albums include awful filler
music between hit songs. This was one of the reason mp3 downloads became so
popular. Everybody knew record companies were just adding filling to get to a
certain album lengths.

~~~
jslabovitz
For typical single-based pop/top-40 that could be true.

But for the long tail of most album-oriented music (including the fairly
obscure stuff I listen to), its the producer and musician(s) working together
to create a coherent artistic work.

Obviously that doesn't always result in an album of consistently great songs,
but in my experience as as an occasional musician, recording engineer, and
producer, there's always more material than will fit on the album. Part of the
creative process is to build that into a form that best expresses the concept
of the work as a whole. That usually involves selection & curation, not adding
extra filling. My opinion, of course.

------
snvzz
CDs are massively inconvenient. When I get a music cd, I just rip it to FLAC.

From that point on, I have a file. Much more convenient to work with, and
easily backed up with all the other files. Having a good backup strategy, I'm
more likely to be hit my lightning than lose a flac file.

As for buying DRM'd music online, I haven't so much as considered it. It just
won't happen, ever.

~~~
bo1024
You can now buy non-DRM music from many downloading sources, including high
quality FLAC. Example: Bandcamp

------
Nasrudith
I have been buying CDs lately but only because of market irrationalities -
bizzarely at times CD + autoripped MP3s are cheaper than just downloading. I
can only assume this bizzare inefficency is related to someone's bonuses
related to disc sale metrics or accounting and logistics which encourage
reducing unsold stock over the effectively infinite downloads.

~~~
aembleton
You can also buy CDs second hand off ebay.

------
nixpulvis
The biggest problem I have with the way I listen to music these days is that
I'm basing tricked into thinking my "library" is a collection of my music.

I get that a $10/m subscription isn't selling me each song I listen to, but it
is letting me collect them, and that collection is a lie.

At any moment it may change, songs can be deleted at will by Apple, or
Spotify. This service is great in that it exposes a much wider quantity of
artists to me, but it's a price for a radio service, not a music collection.

------
hpaavola
Any recommendations for music stores which sell mp3's? I ordered Nokia 8110 4G
and ditch my smartphone once it arrives. I think it only supports mp3's so I
need to start buying albums and not rely on Spotify.

~~~
butteroverflow
[https://bandcamp.com/](https://bandcamp.com/) ?

~~~
vbuwivbiu
Bandcamp is truely the best music platform and one of the best websites there
is today. It's fair to artists and its UX is in the rarest of states: done. I
hope to god they never change a thing.

------
apt-get
I listen to a lot of japanese doujin music (self-released albums produced by
amateur circles at conventions). This is often a couple hundred albums every
year, between Comiket, M3, and other smaller conventions. The overwhelming
majority of it simply isn't available as a physical release on typical online
marketplaces, much less on streaming services. Importing the physical release
+ ripping or relying on community downloads is often the only way to listen to
these.

These are arranges or sometimes heavily sampled albums that simply wouldn't
pass on typical streaming platforms. Just something like Death Grips' cult
Exmilitary album got removed from Spotify because it used a tad too many
samples to their taste (although luckily it's available for free on their
website).

~~~
swtrs
Is there an online community for doujin? Sounds similar to the
vapor/future/chillwave community on Bandcamp.

~~~
apt-get
Officially, not really. The 'scene' is a tad too big for that, although some
circles publish on bandcamp sometimes (mainly those who can't attend the
physical convention).

In the west, there used to be forums (like doujinstyle) dedicated to sharing
new releases after every event, which turned into large discord servers in the
past year. Otherwise, a lot of the releases can be found on Asia-oriented
private trackers as well.

These are often the only way to get a chance of actually listening to the
album, since there's generally a limited number of physical albums available
for sale at the event, and reprints during the next edition of the convention
are uncommon.

------
nickjj
Instead or privacy terrors you have other terrors like wondering if the CD
will even play, especially if you've listened to it a lot over 5+ years, even
with good care.

I'm surprised the article doesn't cover a more relevant approach like just
playing local mp3s from your computer. You get the same no ads, no privacy
issues, no algorithms but you have the added benefit of not having to lug
around a binder of CDs to play the songs you want.

This is how I've been listening to music for around 20 years and it works
nicely. Been using foobar2000 since the beginning too (shortly after the
Winamp rewrite that made it suck). It's a minimal mp3 player that uses about
5mb of RAM but has every feature I'd want for play back.

~~~
avra
I'm curious why a CD would not work anymore after listening to it a lot? Is
the laser powerful enough to damage it or is it the heat from the device
itself which is degrading the material in the long term?

~~~
ziari
The polycarbonate substrate could degrade due to temperature, humidity,
exposure to sunlight, and other environmental variables. These are concerns
for institutions with large CD-based archives (e.g., Library of Congress). [1]

In practice, though, it's far more likely that the the disc will get corrupted
from small scratches.

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/34...](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/340716269/how-
long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever)

~~~
tarcyanm
I have taken several CDs (mainly my Dad's, not my own) from unusably scratched
to relatively pristine. The really bad cases need fine grit sandpaper (wet!)
followed by plastic polishes. I generally start with Meguiar's plastic polish
and work my way to Radtech Ice Creme. In my own collection I have CDs that are
around 30 years old and are error-free. I'm not interested in formats or
services that won't last at least as long or can't be backed up to my own NAS
(nor am I interested in anything less than Red Book quality).

------
wisty
We act like we can control the internet, like a drunk thinks they control the
booze.

------
quake
A few years ago I bought an 'old' ('00 Integra) that had the stock head unit.
It would only play CD ROM. It was a total pain to find actual CDs and not
DVDs. I dug up mine and my girlfriend's old zip-up CD books full of
ripped/torrented mix-cds from when we were teenagers, and it was an actual
blast. It felt so good to rediscover some albums I hadn't thought of in the
last 10-15 years. The Integra is getting a little long in the tooth, and I'm
going to be sad that my time machine to 2005-2007 is going away.

~~~
asdff
I have the same year integra! It's leaking every fluid now and I'm going to
get rid of it soon, but the original clutch is still gripping strong

------
dastx
I keep pointing this out, but Spotify's shuffle algorithm is absolute
horrible. It plays the same 10 or so songs for hours on hours before it moves
on to the next 10 or so songs.

Their offline feature has become rubbish. Every morning I have a 10 minute
walk to the train station and I usually open spotify right after I lock my
door. Throughout this walk, spotify has played for about 1 minute in total, on
a good day this number might jump up to 4. Sluggish as hell. When I open any
of the items (my songs/home/individual playlist) the first time I load up the
app, it doesn't even load for several minutes. So until it loads, even that 1
min or so, I can't even choose a song.

I've been wanting to move away from spotify, and for me, the only other viable
streaming platform is Google Music (does that still exist?). Having tried it
for a few months, and completely cancelled spotify, it's the same shit but
combined with an even worse UI. What gives? I have a Galaxy S9. One of the top
of the range Android phones. I used to have a Xperia Z3 Compact. Which at the
time was pretty powerful.

The annoying thing is, from here its hard to move away. The only thing I've
found that makes it easy for me to move away is some project called spotitube,
which matches songs against YouTube and downloads them from there and converts
them. So sure, if I used it, I'd get the songs back, but now it's shit quality
and it's illegal.

~~~
morsch
Try putting your phone in airplane mode, or possibly Spotify's own offline
mode. I've found that Spotify works great when you have a good internet
connection or when you have none at all. It doesn't do well when you have 1
bar of edge reception, or your phone is struggling with cell/wifi handover.

~~~
dastx
So I've had it on offline mode since you've mentioned it. It works much
better. No sluggish start ups or sluggish song changes. This is really strange
as I've got 1Gbps connection at home and it still does this when it on the
WiFi. More reasons to get rid of it.

------
pier25
Off topic but...

I buy a couple of 4K Bluray movies every month. I want to get the best
possible quality and also support film makers, but damn, other than the image
quality getting movies from torrents is still the best user experience. It's
not even a money problem for me.

Not only pirated movies are available weeks before you can buy them in Amazon,
but you don't get any anti piracy ads, or trailers that you can't skip.

The available catalog in torrents is immense too. I waited like 6 months
before I could buy the Dark Knight trilogy in 4K because it wasn't available
anywhere. The Nolan 4K collection is also very difficult to get without
spending an arm and a leg in my country.

You also don't get all the regional BS. I can't even get the digital online
versions of the Bluray discs I buy because I don't live in the US. I've
considered buying digital (iTunes, Prime, etc) but the regional catalog we get
is poor. Google Play Movies for example doesn't even have 4K and, hear this,
not only most movies are dubbed, if you want the original audio and the dubbed
audio for the kids you have to buy 2 movies. Yeah. And then, since you don't
really own the digital movie you bought, it can disappear from your library or
you can lose the 4K version like what recently happened with iTunes.

I love movies, I want to spend money on movies, but damn the studios and
distributors need to find a better way of selling their content.

------
rienbdj
You can achieve most of the convenience with a downloaded collection of mp3 /
flac / alac

why use CDS?

~~~
tadzik_
I guess the CDs are the symbol here more than anything else.

I do a similar thing: I buy CDs, smell the paint, rip them into mp3, put them
on a shelf and never touch them again. Everything nicely managed by MPD.

------
Shivetya
I ripped my CDs ages ago and have listened to music in my car or on my
motorcycle through iPods or my iPhone since then. I would love to be able to
get rid of all the CDs that I have accumulated throughout the years. For the
last few years all my purchases have been through iTunes with an exception or
two done through Amazon. I even downloaded a few albums and tracks made
available by the artists themselves.

The key to me is that I am pretty much set in my music preferences. I still
hear and occasionally buy new music but for the most part its static and I am
just fine with that. Now of the streaming or the one satellite service give me
enough flexibility to hear only want I want to hear. Worse, why would I want
another monthly bill? Radio, I used to use it for commute traffic only and for
the most part its the only reason I can see using it. Even now my car can
update traffic on the navigation frequent enough to let me know what I may
encounter

~~~
matwood
> The key to me is that I am pretty much set in my music preferences.

I used to think that until I got a music subscription. I end up finding old
music that is new to me. About the only genre I do not like is country, but
even that isn't a hard rule. I also find it fun to just get lost exploring
genres of music, but I understand that may not be a common thing to do.

> Radio, I used to use it for commute traffic only and for the most part its
> the only reason I can see using it.

For me, podcasts killed the radio. Terrestrial radio feels like it's more
commercials than content. If I do turn on the radio and on the rare chance
it's not on a commercial, one is coming in the next minute or so.

------
b15h0p
On a tangent: Does anyone here have a good solution for self-operated music
playback for kids? Suitable for age 2+?

Moving away from physical media has made selecting their own music much more
abstract and difficult to manage for kids.

I am aware of the Toniebox (in germany) which operates with NFC-figurines (i
guess) which are pretty expensive.

~~~
m-i-l
I got a Taf Toys "My First MP3 Player" a few years back. Parents could load a
USB stick with MP3s on any PC (including Linux), then plug the stick into a
secure compartment on the device (requiring a screwdriver for access, like the
battery compartment). Children then had buttons for play, stop, next,
previous, volume up, volume down. Only minor issues/features were that the
maximum volume was pretty low (presumably to make it safe for babies), and it
would switch itself off if no buttons were pressed for a short while (again
presumably so it would be safe to leave unattended). Was going to post a link,
but it seems it is no longer available.

------
asmendes
How does the algorithm actually negatively affect your experience? I use
mostly Spotify, and in their case, their suggested playlists and discover
weekly actually put me on to a lot of great musicians I wouldn't have known
otherwise.

~~~
satokema
But who picks the pickers? The suits plan ahead and begin with the algorithm.

Part of the solo hobby of listening for me is discovering stuff and getting
into a favorite artist's discog in depth. Having an algorithm just recommend
stuff to you ruins the fun.

Plus, my taste is weird enough that my experience with streaming services is
they either slowly nudge me towards either the mainstream where the algorithm
can actually recommend stuff, or a weird overfitting where they end up playing
the same stuff over and over because it can't grok the true form of my
preferences. (To be fair, neither can I.)

~~~
archi42
I feel the same, but fondly remember the old last.fm recommendations. Those
were pretty good (I hope that's not just nostalgia speaking). Plus browsing
scrobbles [=playback history] of people with similar tastes was a good way to
find more great music; or explore new genres.

------
JohnFen
I'm not married to CDs, specifically. I buy them, but them rip them into
digital files and save the CDs as backups.

However, I don't use music streaming services either -- they are unacceptable
to me for the reasons the article states, and more. Instead, I keep a library
of digitized music, and either stream it from my own streaming server or put a
subset of them onto an SD card and play them from there.

That satisfies my need for quality control, to be free of tracking and ads,
and to have confidence that the music will never just disappear on me. Not to
mention avoiding an unnecessary ongoing expense.

------
Hendrikto
> No algorithms

Seems like people actually have no idea what that word means.

------
johnklos
This is why I rip Blu-Ray and DVD discs, then play from the file. I don't keep
the files. I just can't stand the forced advertisements.

------
shmerl
Why not play a DRM-free audio file (Opus, while having lossless FLAC backed
up) instead of an obsolete CD?

I don't use renting services for music, but I don't buy CDs either (unless
it's the only way to _buy_ it). I buy audio files. The benefit of CDs though
is also getting the lossless version, when digital one sold is lossy only.
Other than that - I don't see the point.

------
floor_
I buy most of my stuff from amazon and bandcamp. The convenience of amazon
just sending you a zip file is just too good of an option to me.

~~~
lunchables
>amazon just sending you a zip

I just googled this and it looks Amazon lets you download your music from
them, DRM free?

------
yoz-y
Don't all streaming services have a way to add albums to collection and listen
to those instead of a randomly generated stream? I use Apple Music and have
both albums that I can stream and music I have uploaded there myself.

There are no ads, I believe none of my privacy is violated and there are
definitely "no algorithms" assuming the author talks about curation.

------
wprapido
I use streaming services like Spotify and even YouTube purely for discovering
new music, on my terms. Music I want to listen to is music I own, as in I have
it locally, managed by me. Ads, privacy, audio quality and many other issues
plague streaming services.

------
wiz21c
I went the CD road too and use a squeezebox. Very fine.

Except that ripping audio cd is tedious. Does anyone know about a music player
that, once it sees a new CD, plays it _and_ rips it at the same time (so I
just play my CD and, next time, magic !, my CD is ripped)

------
wafflesraccoon
Not to go against the grain but I love Spotify, the Discover Weekly is killer
for finding new music. I also have a large collection of vinyl at home for
when I really want to enjoy an album.

Also because Tool won't release their albums online =(

~~~
wprapido
I also use Spotify as a great music discovery tool. That's where it stops at
though.

------
beat
You know what else doesn't have ads, privacy terrors, and algorithms?

Vinyl.

But really, I think the pleasure of vinyl is the pleasure of being fully
engaged in the act of listening. The privacy is the privacy of your own
experience.

~~~
pier25
Yeah but knowing that every time you listen to a record the needle removes a
bit of its lifespan is not a great feeling.

~~~
beat
Eh. With proper care and a well-configured turntable, records can last a long
time. And you can always buy a new one.

------
layoutIfNeeded
Or just skip the middlemen and buy directly from the artist via bandcamp?

------
mixmastamyk
I still only buy CD's when buying music, then rip to FLAC for other uses. My
Pioneer receiver can play them both, streaming services, and the horrible
local radio, so all bases are covered.

------
londons_explore
Unless it's a Sony CD... In which case, watch out for rootkits!

------
porjo
Not to mention superior sound quality! I've been listening to classical music
on Spotify and it sounds awful to my ears using headphones, even with so
called HD audio enabled.

------
bigred100
The only place I’ve heard music in years is YouTube on my phone, car radio, or
live. There’s so much on YouTube that I frankly don’t care to look almost
anywhere else at this point.

------
izzydata
I've reverted back to using a standalone mp3 player. I got one of the newest
Sony Walkmans and threw a large SD card in there. Something about it just
feels right.

------
musicale
It also sounds pretty good.

But I wish iTunes/Apple Music would switch to Apple Lossless - then I wouldn't
bother buying CDs, ripping them, and shelving them.

------
abhiminator
Reading headlines like these kind of makes me wonder -- is going back to
analog/old school devices the new micro-counterculture?

------
astraltheman
Remember when Sony BGM put the rootkit on their CDs? I guess as long as you're
not putting it in a computer, you're good.

------
admax88q
Time for the weekly NYT article lamenting the progress of technology I see.

------
ubermonkey
I used to be a serious CD holdout, but then a few things happened that changed
things for me.

 __Storage __

Look, I 'm in my late 40s. I've been buying music on CD since I was about 17.
I have LOTS. It's not really sustainable, so when iTunes went DRM-free, I
started buying the odd thing there.

I live in a place with a proper record store, so I still buy things there,
too, but mostly stuff I know I really want the best experience out of. Random
music that I kinda know I'll tire of and probably never revisit, though?
Definitely iTunes.

 __Fucking Sync. __

I 'm in the Apple ecosystem, because this works best for me and my family, but
one thing they never really sorted before Apple Music was whole-family-uses-
same-library. It was awkward and vexing, especially to the non-technical
members of the household, and so (e.g.) my wife ended up just not really
having music with her on her phone.

That's annoying. Plus, even for someone like me, it was annoying that if I
bought a CD (or a vinyl record with a download code), getting that music on my
phone was a hassle.

So when Apple Music happened, I eventually signed up, and holy cow I haven't
really looked back.

What's great about it for my wife is that she never has to bother plugging her
phone into a computer to get music at all. She can just add stuff on the fly,
from Apple Music. Maybe it's stuff we own already, but that wasn't on the
phone yet. Maybe it's new stuff she wants. Doesn't matter; still easy.

We still buy records and CDs from our local shop, too -- mostly the same
algorithm, between "I want this forever" and "this is probably transient" \--
but overall we're both listening to MORE music than we did before. I mean,
think about it: I'm paying Apple basically the cost of a CD per month for our
family account, but the world is literally our oyster. MANY times since I
signed up I've found myself reading a review of some album somewhere, and
wanted to hear it. Before, I'd have to make a note to go find it online
somewhere, or find a Youtube clip, or whatever. Now I can just _have it_ ,
almost immediately, on my preferred device and through good headphones. It's
pretty great.

Now, I'm really only willing to do this because the vendor is Apple, and I
trust them with my listening habit data. I wouldn't trust an ad-driven
provider AT ALL, which is why I never signed up for Pandora or Spotify or
whatever. But with Apple, all this is easy, and I'm not concerned about the
privacy implications.

I still have a shitload of CDs and vinyl, though. It used to be that "hey,
pick a record" was a fun party game, because so few folks have big record
collections. Now CD has picked up some of that novelty, too, and people enjoy
browsing through the CD stacks when we entertain. But that's all a special
corner case. ;)

------
AnIdiotOnTheNet
So, is the Loudness War finally over? Or are CDs still clipped to hell?

~~~
Tepix
CDs in general aren't. Some genres perhaps. But the clipping is going to be
the same even when you're streaming the songs.

------
modbom
Clickbait title... Article is just an interview with a nyt journalist who
covers the music industry. Was interested in the discussion of cd vs
streaming.

------
guest123467321
If you have a phone nearby you will never be sure who else is hearing to your
CD.

------
kome
I still use SoulSeek.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
SoulSeek was awesome for discovering music. Unfortunately, the quality of the
music shared was usually at lousy quality (96-128kbps), with the result that I
usually ended up deleting the albums later and re-acquiring them at higher
quality from somewhere else.

------
nihil75
lol where do I even find a CD player..

------
ducttape12
I think people are missing the point - his point is simplicity. This is
actually why I've stopped buying albums and switched entirely to streaming
internet radio like di.fm. I spent way too much time and effort managing my
mp3 library over the years. (ripping, tagging, file naming, album art, etc)

