Soon there may have to be Compact Disc Fairs, for CD aficionados to gather & collect rare silver discs.

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Jan 17, 2019 10:08:17 GMT 12 michaelw said:

Jan 16, 2019 21:42:36 GMT 12 sub said:

Hmm ,thanks Cliff, options to explore. I know the Oppo 103 doesn’t do tidal or Spotify,

john;

the oppo 103 doesn't do spotify but does have a pre-loaded tidal app.

Shows my ignorance of things technical.  Have just discovered that by using the R & L buttons on the Oppo remote, there are a lot more choices available than just what is shown on the first screen that opens!  And yes, Tidal is there, along with a few other interesting links.  Will have an explore when I have time.

The last time I was in PennyLane(Chch) they still had a massive selection of new and used cds. Always manage to find some goodies there.

Another vinyl lover

Nice story.

But... " frequency responses...vinyl does not have the same dexterity in that capacity as digital "

Not sure what could be meant by "dexterity", but I my experience would probably be the opposite.
With regard to Hi-Res or high sampling rate digital, I think of analogue as having an infinite 'sampling rate'

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Vinyl does have to be carefully set up on the cutting lathe so that the cutting head doesn’t overheat on dynamic peaks, or there is too much modulation for a typical stylus to track. Also things like print through, where adjacent tracks are too close to each other and can be heard 1 revolution before or after. Digital has none of those, but it’s subject to having it sent through potentially slow internet connections or historic CD bandwidth limitations. The CD standard was developed in the 70s and current HD is better for top end resolution. But digital seems to be at the mercy of who mastered the analog onto digital format in the first place. The digital itself doesn’t seem to be a problem, more how the analog has been transferred over.
I’ve been fiddling with the different formats here and now have an Amazon HD account (not available in NZ unfortunately...yet). I compared Devo on Tidal with Audirvana, Amazon HD (which Audirvana can’t stream so far), CD and vinyl. Amazon sounds a bit closed in and lacking life. Tidal is lively and dynamic but I remember the vinyl sounding better. The CD just misses out on the top end, a bit dry. So it was time to put on the king...vinyl. It was more interesting than I thought, sounding clear and sweet on the top end but the bass had been reduced slightly, possibly to fit the tracks on the record. But the depth and ambience was much better.
So I don’t think I’ll be ditching the turntable just yet. The streaming services are great for discovering new music and if you like it, try finding the vinyl. I notice Tidal has some tracks that Amazon doesn’t, and vice versa, making both complementary to each other. Not tried Spotify so far.

AMR-iFi R&D

Oct 2, 2019 20:03:01 GMT 12 colinf said:

The digital itself doesn’t seem to be a problem, more how the analog has been transferred over..

That’s exactly my experience as well: especially on less well known material from the 60s and 70s, original vinyl clearly outperforms digital and you can sense it’s the way it was transferred. The delta is much smaller on more popular music and I guess that’s because they were transferred much better. I personally don’t see the point of buying new things in vinyl (although I do) especially since the whole process has been digital but on older material having access to original source and listening to it in the way it was intented does make a major difference.

I guess if I ever used music as a background for my daily activities streaming would be a good option. I've always regarded music rather like reading, an activity that I focus on solely without distractions. My wife occasionally plays You Tube music via the tv/soundbar as background and while I cringe at the sound reproduction she's quite happy with that. We do have a Netflix account thanks to a generous daughter but we'd be lucky to use that half a dozen times a year.
While I'm in the age group that is supposed to be apprehensive about new technology I stick with my physical items through the habit of a lifetime and I really, really do like holding an lp, looking at the sleeve, reading the notes etc.
I could never give up books for the same reason, there's just something right about holding the physical property in your hand. I reckon we have enough shrubs and trees on our section to off set our carbon footprint on that score.

While we're on the subject of Vinyl sales surpasses CD sales, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reports that, in the 1st half of 2019 in USA, Streaming ($ revenue) is now 80% of the recorded music market - a 31% 1-year increase.

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See also Feb 2018 thread - darklantern.proboards.com/thread/861/decline-sales-big-stores-abandoning

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Of historic interest, is a US sales database graph, showing the relative revenue values of different formats over the decades back to the 70s.

See clearly the rise & decline of not only vinyl records, but also of cassettes & CD.

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I stream (using Spotify as I have a premium account) and this device:

allo.com/sparky/bundle-sparky-kali-piano-2-1.html

It also has all my CDs ripped to an external HDD which is attached.

However once I've streamed something (like the Joe Henry someone mentioned in another thread) I go check whether it's available on vinyl and then go and buy it. Otherwise I move on.

Geee, that means I am contributing to the upsurge in Vinyl. I have no intention of stopping buying vinyl, however I'll quite readily acknowledge the convenience of streaming (dinner parties, raves, bbq outside, etc)!

Streaming at raves?

Jan 6, 2020 23:15:41 GMT 12 Citroen said:

Streaming at raves?

Yay! Someone read my post...

This graph, from the #RIAAMusicData page, neatly encapsulates the dramatic change in physical music sales vs digital streaming, (in USA) over the past 2010-2019 decade.

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The RIAA 2020 U.S. MUSIC INDUSTRY REVENUES STATISTICS have been published:

I think the graphs tell the story best:


- Nothing unexpected here, Streaming subscriptions continue to increase -





- Streaming now comprises 83% of total revenues (14.6% growth in 2020) -





- No increase in total physical format revenue, but vinyl sales increased 29% despite Covid restrictions. CD sales continued to decline -

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One of the main drivers I see here is cost as streaming is virtually free whereas vinyl and CD's cost. Ok I can appreciate the marketing BS stating that vinyl is a premium product (since when ?) and will be priced accordingly but how come CD's have never come down from the $34.95 price range. Surely the production cost are minimal by now ? I know for myself that if physical media were cheaper then I would buy more of it...

Well....from my point of view..those of us who have tipped large amounts of gold into kit over the years will always have it and be buying cds/vinyl no matter what current trends are...

I guess physical formats cost more to manufacture, package & deliver.
And production qtys are miniscule now, no longer economies of scale.

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Jan 15, 2019 19:03:09 GMT 12 sub said:

Iwould get into streaming if I could do it within a reasonable budget.
I would have to have a streamer I could connect to my present set up via rca to my amp.
Cons re that idea - I would need a new amp as there are no spare inputs on my Plinius 8150. To buy an amp of comparable quality is out of the question right now. Also, a brief look on line for suitable hifi quality streamers, shows prices from $2K to over $9K!

Strangely, even though I am retired from the workforce, there is not enough time in the day to listen to more than one or two LPs/CDs a day.

Perhaps of a similar age, my "streaming" is merely from a laptop or PC, through a long cable to RCA in on the amp, although there is an old M-Audio Audiophile USB DAC waiting in the wings to perhaps digitise some LPs through. So I'm only using whatever inbuilt DACs those computers have at present. Local flac files, youtube, I don't seem to have time for Spotify let alone expense on Tidal Roon & all the rest at the moment. A friend has extolled Chromecast. I do have an optical to RCA box from the TV to the amp, for movies, music docos, etc.

Instead of Chromecast presently I just have a long cable VGA out to the TV, & sound as above. I could do HDMI instead. All very frugal at present.

But like you, even with an AV amp with many inputs, I ran out of them - also wanting to connect up a second or third optical players - a better all round one and a DVD recorder - and arrange tape out say to that M-Audio DAC, so I looked around and saw things like this, just for 3 extra inputs:

www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=2993368787

Ugly, yes. I actually bought a couple (different vendor, cheaper postage, black not orange switches, about $1 ea.- but that's the only one I can see right now) and investigated inside - all laid out on a PCB and an OK switch - but haven't used them yet.

I bought also a much nicer device with just 3-way audio switching, inputs at back and a knob on top, much more stylish, which I am using to switch between turntables - just two at present.

But at least the ugly ones switch everything directly.

I also in my hunt at the time bought a "Pudney 4 WAY AV S-VIDEO INPUT SELECTOR" model no P18004.

I haven't used or tried it out, but on looking inside it seemed to have some weird floating earth arrangement, from memory.

My point is that you can easily arrange an external switch box to say an AUX input so that off it you have aux 1,2,3. Or even more.

4 pole might be easy. You could, or have someone do, such a simple switch into a box with RCA in & out.

(I see now, looking, darklantern.proboards.com/thread/2153/replace-plinius-8150 ) ...

But what is a "streamer" after all?

Cannot I do much the same thing 'streaming' from a laptop, perhaps with an external DAC if wanted fancy, into the amplifier?

Or tablet, iPad etc. wirelessly I suppose. I  was/am intending to put a silent SFF PC into the hifi stack, still deciding what OS, to play all my flac files, controllable remotely by phone (or tablet) etc. Like maybe with Musicbee on Win, but also dual booted with some form of Linux. It runs only Win 7 for now. Lots of slow frugal planning! ;=})

getmusicbee.com/

I'm aware too of Kodi.

Others might like to suggest others?

(This is being posted from a PC running MXLinux, the laptop is on Ubuntu Mate, the main music collection is still on a Windows XP workstation!)

So lots to do ... yet, to tidy everything up.

I do get news of some new music through looking at websites, from this one, stereophile, even recently twittering machines, others etc.

Yeah, I look at my LP collection with slight dismay, and my smaller CD collection. I seem to only play a few a week, maybe with guests to whom LP is a novelty.

So many LPs I haven't played, reluctant to without cleaning some of them, or many of them, and again, the time...

But I hope to go through them, clean, listen, decide on their future.

Most of my listening these days seems to be radio (Concert, checking in with National, also sometimes (especially Sundays) the Auckland student radio station 95bfm.com - and rarely a low power fm station a few blocks away - no commercial radio!) and am also on my own still exploring the flac file collection, plus a whole lot of CDs given to me after a former neighbour from my old place transcribed/uploaded everything to his PC, and gave away the discs - in zipped nice outer case folder form, having even thrown away the plastic cases as stage one!

Complete madness, I thought, especially realising on inquiring that he had used the default settings on whatever it was, perhaps 160kbs mp3.

But we've both moved from there and I have no contact details. Great jazz and classical and modern I've hardly explored yet.

In fact I've had mad ideas of turning some flacs back into physical CDs, burning discs, printing cover art, putting in physical cases. ;=})

Against the tide ! ;-) 

It's at least a way that one can convey some precious music to a friend relative or party without involving a computer.

Assuming most still have CD players.

A slightly bacchanalian (intoxicated) rave,  apologies! ;=})

RdMs post above quoting me, brought this old topic back to mind. Things have changed for me since I last posted on this thread.
In June last year I succumbed and bought a server/streamer (Innuos Zen mini Mk3) which I connect to my amp via cd inout, now that my old CD player is no longer needed.
Started ripping my cd collection to the Zen, but only done a couple of hundred or so (1500 more yet to do) before deafness intervened, and things music wise came to a stop.
If it was just the level of sound, I could get by turning the volume up, but it is the distortion in the treble region that hurts, especially strings and female voices. Experience the same distortion live, so not my system, it’s my ears!
Will experiment with streaming once I have hearing aids and finish ripping.
But on the topic, no, buying recoded music is not dead or dying. Will still buy CDs to rip to the server. And of course vinyl, but mostly 2nd hand now with new prices $50 and up.