preferred music format

[beerftw]

What is your preferred music format, mine is analog, and I prefer records but I have a strong like of cassettes, since I grew up with them and a walkman was the thing then while a cd walkman was for rich people.

To keep it simple, most mp3's have terrible audia, they are a lossy format but convenient, while lossless digital audio keeps all the sounds but clearer than analog. Analog though has imperfections that made alot of older bands sounds great, and much less so when remastered.

 

[Fledermaus]

What is your preferred music format, mine is analog, and I prefer records but I have a strong like of cassettes, since I grew up with them and a walkman was the thing then while a cd walkman was for rich people.

To keep it simple, most mp3's have terrible audia, they are a lossy format but convenient, while lossless digital audio keeps all the sounds but clearer than analog. Analog though has imperfections that made alot of older bands sounds great, and much less so when remastered.

CDs have many advantages... Size is one. I can play one in most cars. I can play them on a computer. CD Walkmen used to be the way to go once skip free units were available.

LP has longevity. I have had to replace a number of CDs while records 70+ years old are still playable.

Sony Mini-disks were cool as the had all the advantages of CDs were more compact and (supposedly) infinite rewrites.

 

[beerftw]

CDs have many advantages... Size is one. I can play one in most cars. I can play them on a computer. CD Walkmen used to be the way to go once skip free units were available.

LP has longevity. I have had to replace a number of CDs while records 70+ years old are still playable.

Sony Mini-disks were cool as the had all the advantages of CDs were more compact and (supposedly) infinite rewrites.

I would have actually put cd's for longevity, cd's do not degrade other than scratched, while records degrade slightly with every play, not noticable after let's say 20-30 plays, but afer 200-300 plays the wear becomes very apparent.

 

[Lutherf]

My preference is live but over the years the Rolling Stones have just become too expensive to have sitting in my den playing Paint it Black.

I probably listen through Pandora more than anything else but I do totally enjoy throwing some vinyl on the turntable. Other than that, I definitely prefer mp3 to CD as I can haul around WAY more mp3s. FLAC would be fine but the file sizes are huge and I just can't justify the disk space for the difference in fidelity.

As far as cassette tapes....I have hundreds and a player but can't remember the last time I plugged one in. My concern is always that I'll destroy the tape but I really should convert then to digital.

 

[Lutherf]

I would have actually put cd's for longevity, cd's do not degrade other than scratched, while records degrade slightly with every play, not noticable after let's say 20-30 plays, but afer 200-300 plays the wear becomes very apparent.

Melting is my problem with vinyl. Many years ago I actually ironed my Woodstock album because it had become so warped. It pretty much worked....kind of.

 

[beerftw]

My preference is live but over the years the Rolling Stones have just become too expensive to have sitting in my den playing Paint it Black.

I probably listen through Pandora more than anything else but I do totally enjoy throwing some vinyl on the turntable. Other than that, I definitely prefer mp3 to CD as I can haul around WAY more mp3s. FLAC would be fine but the file sizes are huge and I just can't justify the disk space for the difference in fidelity.

As far as cassette tapes....I have hundreds and a player but can't remember the last time I plugged one in. My concern is always that I'll destroy the tape but I really should convert then to digital.

Flac is a lossy codec like mp3, cd's are lossless, Do not blame you going mp3, if I could not have oerfection, I would take perfect convenience that can fit on my phone.

 

[justabubba]

live
turn it up
just lose the banjos (mandolins, and harmonicas)

 

[Taylor]

The only time I'm really picky is when I listen to stuff with a higher dynamic range, which tends to be older music. For whatever reason (I could throw out some guesses) my favorites tend to be analog recordings that have been remastered. Can't really explain it but the full digital often sounds "clean" but too fragmented or harsh or something.

 

[beerftw]

The only time I'm really picky is when I listen to stuff with a higher dynamic range, which tends to be older music. For whatever reason (I could throw out some guesses) my favorites tend to be analog recordings that have been remastered. Can't really explain it but the full digital often sounds "clean" but too fragmented or harsh or something.

The explanation on older recordings sounding too harsh, is because they were recorded on poor analog, and made to sound great with what they had available. When they are remastered and redone on clear digital, they tend to sound awefull, A band like the beatles would have recorded different if they had todays equipment, but they had to work with the analog they had then.

When you filter out the analog, you get cold souless music, because they worked with imperfections, while digital removes them.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

This is one of those subjects that is highly disputed by different groups, for different reasons. You are going to have the people that listen to crap on their phone that are going to have no clue what the different formats are. Then you are going to have hardcore audiophiles and their multi-thousand dollar phonographs and tube amps, saying that all digital formats are bad. Or the average joe who is stuck in the past for some archaic reason.

People are funny though. I have done the blind test with some of my friends who swear up and down that they can hear the difference between the different formats. It turns out in my not peer reviewed tests that musicians can mostly tell the difference. The non-musician audiophile friends fell for the records that I converted to 128k mp3 format.

Now that being said, I think the main factor in the format wars is what the music is being played through. And more importantly if it was a good mix to start with. Lossy is lossy and if the bit rate is low enough it sounds like crap. But then a old record sounds like crap too. Or if the needle is lame. Or if the record player is lame. And everything sounds like crap through crappy speakers/headphones.

Personally I like what I like. When possible I go with lossless.

If you like what you like thats great too..

 

[Fenton]

What is your preferred music format, mine is analog, and I prefer records but I have a strong like of cassettes, since I grew up with them and a walkman was the thing then while a cd walkman was for rich people.

To keep it simple, most mp3's have terrible audia, they are a lossy format but convenient, while lossless digital audio keeps all the sounds but clearer than analog. Analog though has imperfections that made alot of older bands sounds great, and much less so when remastered.

MP3 are lossy, but its a compromise. WAV files are huge, but theyre not compressed.

What I do is download MP3s at a higher resolution to minimize loss. 256kb to 512kb per track

Its a good balance and its hard to tell the difference

 

[vesper]

I no longer own a record player, cassette player or 8 track. I listen to CD's at home and in the car.

I have some pretty awesome speakers I hook up to my laptop so I can jam on the patio in the backyard. Not a fan of earplugs and devices that use them for listening to music.

But the grandkids are now interested in vinyl albums/45's of groups I listened to as a kid and popular music in the day of their great grandparents. Granddaughter bought herself a record player and had Beatles albums along with others on her Christmas list. The last time they came for a stay over which was late Summer, they would bring up some of these songs on YouTube and thought it was pretty cool grandma knew all the words and showed them the dances we did to them back then. It was a very fun day.

 

[Fledermaus]

I would have actually put cd's for longevity, cd's do not degrade other than scratched, while records degrade slightly with every play, not noticable after let's say 20-30 plays, but afer 200-300 plays the wear becomes very apparent.

I have her to replace multiple CDs due to delamination, pock marks, scratches on the "silver" side.

Recently learned a new term. Disk Rot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

 

[Fledermaus]

MP3 are lossy, but its a compromise. WAV files are huge, but theyre not compressed.

What I do is download MP3s at a higher resolution to minimize loss. 256kb to 512kb per track

Its a good balance and its hard to tell the difference

256kb works for me. My ears do not discern above that resolution.

 

[Fledermaus]

I no longer own a record player, cassette player or 8 track. I listen to CD's at home and in the car.

I have some pretty awesome speakers I hook up to my laptop so I can jam on the patio in the backyard. Not a fan of earplugs and devices that use them for listening to music.

But the grandkids are now interested in vinyl albums/45's of groups I listened to as a kid and popular music in the day of their great grandparents. Granddaughter bought herself a record player and had Beatles albums as reverted along with others on her Christmas list. The last time they came for a stay over which was late Summer, they would bring up some of these songs on YouTube and thought it was pretty cool grandma knew all the words and showed them the dances we did to them back then. It was a very fun day.

Ah, my daughter is hooked on vinyl,,,. New music has reverted to LPs and older albums can be had for pennies on the dollar....

A day at the thrift shops can yield an armload of music for a few bucks.

 

[Manc Skipper]

live
turn it up
just lose the banjos (mandolins, and harmonicas)

Just add cowbell!

 

[vesper]

Ah, my daughter is hooked on vinyl,,,. New music has reverted to LPs and older albums can be had for pennies on the dollar....

A day at the thrift shops can yield an armload of music for a few bucks.

Thanks for the tip. I never thought of going to a thrift store. We have a 1/2 price Bookstore on the Eastside of town along with others in the vicinity the grandkids just love to go to when they come to stay with us. One of them collects old comic books and they have them. Another is a lover of history since he was a little guy and now is in his 3rd year of college hoping to be a history professor. He has built quite a library of history books. I know over the last two decades our trips to the bookstores together have contributed nicely to his library. I do believe I have seen vinyl albums there also. Anyway, when granddaughter comes up to stay a couple of days, thrift stores will be on the agenda. Thanks Fled.

 

[Fledermaus]

Thanks for the tip. I never thought of going to a thrift store. We have a 1/2 price Bookstore on the Eastside of town along with others in the vicinity the grandkids just love to go to when they come to stay with us. One of them collects old comic books and they have them. Another is a lover of history since he was a little guy and now is in his 3rd year of college hoping to be a history professor. He has built quite a library of history books. I know over the last two decades our trips to the bookstores together have contributed nicely to his library. I do believe I have seen vinyl albums there also. Anyway, when granddaughter comes up to stay a couple of days, thrift stores will be on the agenda. Thanks Fled.

Thrift stores for LPs and Pawn Shops for CDs is the rule in Southern California. Estate sales can score big on LPs.

 

[Lutherf]

Ah, my daughter is hooked on vinyl,,,. New music has reverted to LPs and older albums can be had for pennies on the dollar....

A day at the thrift shops can yield an armload of music for a few bucks.

There's a used book store in town that's the "go to" for vinyl. It's a blast to flip through the stacks like I used to and at $2-5 for most of the stuff it's actually less expensive than when I bought the albums new.

 

[radioman]

What is your preferred music format

Amazingly, I voted for radio.
Sirius-XM in the car.
I dunno, there is just something about driving down the road of life punching buttons looking for a good song.
I'm pretty sure I'm re-living my long lost youth.

 

[beerftw]

I have her to replace multiple CDs due to delamination, pock marks, scratches on the "silver" side.

Recently learned a new term. Disk Rot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Interesting on the cd's, I knew cdr and rw were known to deteriorate after a few years, but had no idea commercially recorded ones would do the same.

The one thing that bugs me with cd music is how terrible it sounds for alot of newer cds, and the cds are the same now as they used to be, but the encoding changed. Starting in the 80's there was a thing called the loudness wars, where each manufacturor aimed to encode cds in a way to make them louder than normal encoding allowed. After a certain threshhold the encoding practices turn into lossy formats, some commercial cds sounding worse than low bitrate mp3's.

Some cd makers have gone away from it, others still use them, Things like itunes pretty much block high loudness encoding.

 

[beerftw]

Ah, my daughter is hooked on vinyl,,,. New music has reverted to LPs and older albums can be had for pennies on the dollar....

A day at the thrift shops can yield an armload of music for a few bucks.

I have noticed alot of new music comes on lp, which I currently buy them that way. The neat thing is if you buy the lp's off amazon and they are new records, most have autorip, which gives you the mp3s for free, and a physical disk with artwork that can double as a blunt object.

 

[Helix]

vinyl is my favorite, though it is the least portable. i probably listen to MP3 and CD formats the most. i also dig 8 track, but mostly because it is so clunky, inconvenient, yet nostalgic and somehow awesome.

 

[Abbazorkzog]

There is no option for all of the above.

 

[MACS-24]

My top 3 would be Vinyl, lossless, then CD.