Anyone find it far more rewarding listening to real physical CDs on a CD player, rather than using FLACs? And why do you find this?

[watchnerd]

When the bits are spinning the Doppler effect makes the jitter worse, right?

Something like that, I guess?

HDD "wow & flutter".

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

For me it doesn't make any difference, except slight bias against CD's. It's time consuming to purchase and rip music I can't find online (weeb music).

I was born in the 90's and grew up with torrents and portable MP3 players. Being a kid with no allowance, I rarely purchased any CD's.

I found what really helps my listening experience is to make the room near pitch black. It's uncanny how much more focused I am without visual stumili.

 

[watchnerd]

I found what really helps my listening experience is to make the room near pitch black. It's uncanny how much more focused I am without visual stumili.

I thought everybody learned this in their teens....

 

[Daverz]

I found what really helps my listening experience is to make the room near pitch black. It's uncanny how much more focused I am without visual stumili.

Listening in the dark is always great, if you can get the room dark. A plea to audio equipment manufacturers: stop with the bright blue LEDs!

 

[watchnerd]

Listening in the dark is always great, if you can get the room dark. A plea to audio equipment manufacturers: stop with the bright blue LEDs!

That's a disqualifier for me.

I actually won't buy gear with bright blue LEDs unless there is a way to dim it.

Several systems ago, I had some Wyred 4 Sound gear that had uber blue LEDs. I taped them over with duct tape.

Yeah, it looked classy like that....

 

[MattHooper]

I used to listen with the lights off or very low for the reasons others have stated. Great for concentration and increasing the soundstaging/imaging effect.

The only equipment I used to have in view were my tube amps softly glowing which, if I had to see any electronics, those were most pleasing.

At this point all my equipment is in a separate room from my speakers which I prefer: a clean non-distracting look.

I have friends who have all their equipment between their speakers and I find the fury of all the beaming leds and lights quite distracting.

That said, these days my 2 channel speakers are in front of my projection screen and I have dimable/programmable remote controlled coloured lighting directed at the screen, so I can have whatever shade of color, or even a bit of a moving light show, happening between the speakers which is actually quite nice.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

I thought everybody learned this in their teens....

I learned this by accident last week lol. Music has always been background music to me until I setup my dedicated listening room.

 

[gvl]

I totally agree on all points, sadly my lazy butt has its own opinion.

 

[Frank Dernie]

You can ask your personal assistants: "Hey Siri, Google, Alexa and Cortana play my music"

They can't find it.
The standard tagging system is targeted at pop music, ie "artist" and "album" whereas I am looking for "composer", "work" "version/performer".
No system I know works for that, certainly not the "noise generating" assistants I detest so much .
It often isn't even possible to find which symphony by which composer it may be in a list of "songs" labeled 5th symphony .
I have spent time tagging my own rips (I was an early adopter almost 20 years ago) at the beginning but in the end got exasperated about how bad it was and gave up in a fit of pique .
I have tried Songkong and may again, but it only takes 15 seconds or so to find the disc and put it on (OK longer for an LP) but since I pretty well always plan to listen to a whole symphony or whatever I don't do it that often.
I understand people who used to just listen to 1 or 2 tracks off each disc and listen to popular music (or anything suited to standard tagging) streaming and file based music is a no-brainer.
For me it is a frustrating, irritating blot on my spare time

 

[Frank Dernie]

I learned this by accident last week lol. Music has always been background music to me until I setup my dedicated listening room.

Intriguing.
I actually detest music in the background.
If I am listening to it I don't want to be distracted and If I am doing something else I find the music very distracting (if I like it it draws my attention away from what i am doing, if I don't I either don't notice it at all or am irritated).
I have Aspergers though so what is normal for me isn't actually normal I suppose.
Listening to music has been my principle relaxation all my life. Apart from work everything else is background!

 

[watchnerd]

Intriguing.
I actually detest music in the background.
If I am listening to it I don't want to be distracted and If I am doing something else I find the music very distracting (if I like it it draws my attention away from what i am doing, if I don't I either don't notice it at all or am irritated).
I have Aspergers though so what is normal for me isn't actually normal I suppose.
Listening to music has been my principle relaxation all my life. Apart from work everything else is background!

+1

I don't listen to background music, either.

The exception is when I do yoga, where I'll put on some ambient 'spa music' to block out noise from the rest of the world, but that stuff isn't really music,

 

[Victor Martell]

I've spent the last couple of years ripping a lot more of my CDs (around another 1000 classical and jazz CDs) to FLAC. However, I sometimes wonder why I bother.

I've re-discovered in the last months that is it far more enjoyable to just play the original CDs on a CD player, than sending them through a separate DAC.

1. Having a real physical CD, allows the album to be objectified in the mind as a real object. This allows your mind to categorize your music, including where and when you bought the album (thereby associating the music to a specific time and place in your life).

The picture on the album cover also adds to this and helps to remind you of when you first bought the album.

2. Physically putting the CD in a CD player, allows you to pause and focus your intentions on what you are actually going to do - which is: listening seriously to music. Convenience can be a negative thing in this context, as it causes a loss of focus.

Listening to music seriously is like a meditative practice and you should focus on what you are doing.

The CD (or vinyl) format encourages you to focus on what you are doing, while playing on a computer encourages the opposite mentality. The "inconvenience" of the CD (or vinyl) format is also at least a little more similar to the constraints in listening to a live concert, and prevents you from rapidly switching between different genres or albums. Therefore it is more similar to the intentions of the composer, who would expect the audience to wait patiently in a concert hall before the performance.

This is important because music is better listened to distinctly - switching too much between different albums, can be like blurring together paint, creating a muddy mix of colours in your mind.

3. Having and reading the physical liner notes, is one of the great joys of a (at least classical) music collection. Why would anyone not see the loss of them as a huge minus? While the quality of liner notes varies, a lot of them contain excellent and informative writing, which can't be found anywhere else. For example, I particularly enjoy reading the liner notes in Colombia Jazz Albums. While I often enjoy Deutsche Grammophon liner notes for their focus on writing about the particular performance and performers (I can read about the composition in a book, but not about the particular performance).

4. One of the benefits of serious listening is to escape from the distractions of modern life, including the computer screen. A traditional hi-fi system experience can contribute to this, while playing FLACs forcing you back to interacting with a screen.

When I play physical CDs, I find that I'm encouraged to sit down and listen, or even to read a book. On the other hand, with FLACs - I often browse the internet while listening, distracting one's attention.

-------- ------------

Anyone else agree or have other observations, or is this just me?

Replying without reading the whole thread - however, wanted to get my $0.02 pesos before delving into the discussion

I certainly agree with @BobbyTimmons - reason I have remained a fan of physical media and will remain so as long as it does not disappear and I am still able to play it.

Especially for classical music indeed. While in CM (classical music - abbreviation I will use from now on) the covers might not be as arresting as some of the prog rock covers (though some are!) - I love the liner notes.

It is also true that IMHO physical media encourages the of focus that @BobbyTimmons refers to. Again, haven't read the thread, but I predict there will be a few arguments

1.- Some people will explain AGAIN the benefits and convenience of digital files and of COURSE also the economic advantage of streaming. Believe me THEY ARE SELF EVIDENT! Really, please, no need to explain again. I assume that those who have switched love that convenience... no need to post "I switched and never looked back" (good for you!)... that is evident too!

2.- Some people will explain that technically there is no difference between CD and the digital file of the same rate and that higher rates are available thru files and streaming (assuming you can hear the difference - debatable of course ! Different discussion! ). We also know that, otherwise we would not be in this forum!

3.- Some people will indicate they have the discipline, concentration and attention to music/albums/works as a whole, using files and/or streaming... We are not saying is impossible nor that physical media is required... it is just that is better encouraged by physical media

4.- Last, and I hope that I see none of these, I am afraid some people will refer to the love of music - meaning, they will say "I love music, I don't need all the non-sense of packaging etc - you, vic, are a a collector, not a music lover". I really hope none of that pops up. This is the "no true scotsman" fallacy to put it simply.

How did I get here? I must confess - started out as a file person, well - due to family obligations and other circumstances I ended up with no system! For a long time, the only thing I had for music was an iPod classic and decent earbuds. I did have a significantly big CD collection, as I came of age in the height of the CD era, amassed during that time. Fortunately, did not have to get rid of it. So yes, started ripping. As circumstances changed, I went back to having a system. Because of the iPod past, it was file based. Seemed easier to just continue on that path, right?

Not with CM! A big pet peeve is metadata. Out there on the internet is horrible. From the tendency to organize by artists, bad handling of multi-composer and/or multi-artist and/or multi-work albums, people out there submitting metadata using THEIR OWN conventions (some very dumb, I will say), it is a mess for CM. Spotify is no better, specially with box sets. I do not subscribe to Tidal or Qobuz (which is classical oriented, from what I understand) they might be better. The experience with Spotify was abysmal.

All these meant I spent a long time fixing/updating the metadata to something it would make sense to this CM lover. Very time consuming. I felt I was spending more time ripping and fixing that listening. And with the amount of CDs, it felt like it would take a lifetime.

Listening on Spotify even more frustrating. One specific example, Solti's Ring - every file was named "Solti - Der Ring Des Nibelungen" and that's it! Things might be better now and they fixed that release somewhat after I complained, but that left a sour taste. And it was ONE release. It wasn't like they went back to review all their classical collection.

Decided to get a CD player. Yowsa. It was like a whole world opened. All those thousands of CDs waiting to be ripped suddenly became available. Like getting thousands of new CDs at the same time! And from then on fell in love with physical media again, including a like for vinyl, influenced by some millennial co-workers.

Rather spend the time listening, not ripping and fixing metadata. That in turn lead me to the realization of what @BobbyTimmons describes in this first post. It does help to concentrate and focus on the work at hand. This makes it that much more enjoyable

There a few more issues... Buying files feels like I am buying nothing... Releases disappearing from streaming services... how little artists gets from streaming services - specially for artists in boutique labels; they get more money from a vinyl sale than from thousands upon thousands of streams. Better way to support the artists whose work we profess to love.

Of course, to all of the above there are counterarguments. And YMMV, but this post is getting too long. I would say, though, that I like these kind of threads. They are the right kind of subjective discussions! Now on to read the thread, to see how many of my "predictions" came true!


v

 

[Sal1950]

I do all my serious listening in the dark. I've got a few items with bright blue led's that I have covered over by various means. Wish I had a place to keep all the gear someplace other than the listening room but unfortunately not. The vast majority of my listening is on my computer files, more and more lately are they are multich files as my collection grows. Lots of drive space needed !!!
I hate to state the obvious but can only mention to our members that they take away the #1 lesson of computer file based music, backup, backup, backup) from Alexanderc. I keep my main file plus a complete backup on a second drive. Drive space is cheap, the music priceless.

Before my HD crashed I loved how easy it was to search for things.

 

[MattHooper]

I hate to state the obvious but can only mention to our members that they take away the #1 lesson of computer file based music, backup, backup, backup) from Alexanderc. I keep my main file plus a complete backup on a second drive. Drive space is cheap, the music priceless.

Wise words.

My son when he was younger managed to kick over one of my work hard drives. I'll never forget the death rattle of that drive as the disc dislodged causing the reader arm to scrape over the disk. Lots of sound files gone forever. I have 3 copies of every drive now, in different places (including copies of my music drive).

That said, aside from that one accident, despite the fact we are told to presume any drive we use will fail - and I think the average time is supposed to be around 2 years - I have never had a drive fail. I mean, years and years of using so many external hard drives both professionally and personally. Knock on wood, I guess.

 

[AnalogSteph]

It is unfortunate that tagging classical is such a mess. I can see how that would be a major deterrent to those with a sizeable collection in this field. In that sense I am glad that 99% of my collection is somewhere in the "pop / rock" realm, though I do wish there were some way of easily keeping track of origin country. That has been one of the few things I could remember about a certain album I was looking for at times.

I actually like having music on while browsing forums and the like on the computer (like right now), while doing the dishes (a Clip+ connected up to an early-'80s Panasonic portable radio from the collection - how's that for listening to city pop in style ), or on public transport. However, when I feel the need to concentrate 100%, I will turn it off, as it does detract to some degree. Listening to music and doing nothing else will generally make me feel antsy, the ol' back is not helping matters... in-bed listening excepted.

I'm still managing data the old-fashioned way as I find it hard to justify the extra power consumption of a NAS... I'll manually sync the music collection on the PC with the notebook which at some point received a large enough SSD to hold all of it easily (312 GiB at this point, so not overly excessive by modern standards), and there's an external drive bay I can plug a backup drive into periodically. Any backup is better than no backup.

 

[Sal1950]

That said, aside from that one accident, despite the fact we are told to presume any drive we use will fail - and I think the average time is supposed to be around 2 years - I have never had a drive fail. I mean, years and years of using so many external hard drives both professionally and personally. Knock on wood, I guess.

My experience with HD's has been the same as yours. But the first time circumstances would have me in a position where I didn't have a backup, Murphy's Law would intervene and the drive would catch on fire and burn down. LOL

 

[Ron Party]

I have had numerous hard drives fail. I'm talking Seagate, WD, etc., not just some no one ever heard of this brand hard drives. When they fail, and they will, I deposit them in trunk of my car for later disposal at one of those electronics shredding/disposal business. I have come to refer to my car trunk as the hard drive grave yard. If you've never had a hard drive fail, well... could you share some of that fortune with me?

I've got over 20K albums stored on a NAS. I tagged all of it. If I were to lose that collection I'd probably never purchase another album and just go 100% streaming. The idea of starting over would lead me into despair. As such, I have two redundant back ups on two JBOD collections with hard drives ranging in size from 2TB to 10TB. Time to knock on the virtual piece of wood.

 

[sergeauckland]

I have had numerous hard drives fail. I'm talking Seagate, WD, etc., not just some no one ever heard of this brand hard drives. When they fail, and they will, I deposit them in trunk of my car for later disposal at one of those electronics shredding/disposal business. I have come to refer to my car trunk as the hard drive grave yard. If you've never had a hard drive fail, well... could you share some of that fortune with me?

I've got over 20K albums stored on a NAS. I tagged all of it. If I were to lose that collection I'd probably never purchase another album and just go 100% streaming. The idea of starting over would lead me into despair. As such, I have two redundant back ups on two JBOD collections with hard drives ranging in size from 2TB to 10TB. Time to knock on the virtual piece of wood.

Yes, the thought of losing my whole music collection gives me cold sweats, which is why I have two full backups, one kept off-site in case of flood or fire and that's updated monthly so the most I could ever lose barring unbelievable bad luck would be the last month's purchases.

I have kept all my CDs as 'proof of ownership' but can't imagine ever reripping and tagging that lot again. However, streaming, at least with Spotify, is pretty unsatisfactory as so much that I play is not there. As to classical on Spotify....the third movement of Beethoven's 5th is NOT a 'song'......why is every bloody track a 'song'? Anyway, Spotify is so flaky on playback I rarely get through a symphony or prog-rock album without a skip if the movement/track is longer than 5-6 minutes, that I can't see me ever using Spotify as a main source. I still buy a fair number of CDs and LPs, so my library keeps growing.

S

 

[Wes]

+1

I don't listen to background music, either.

The exception is when I do yoga, where I'll put on some ambient 'spa music' to block out noise from the rest of the world, but that stuff isn't really music,

Joan Jett's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" is great for yoga.

 

[MattHooper]

I've got over 20K albums stored on a NAS. I tagged all of it. If I were to lose that collection I'd probably never purchase another album and just go 100% streaming. The idea of starting over would lead me into despair. As such, I have two redundant back ups on two JBOD collections with hard drives ranging in size from 2TB to 10TB. Time to knock on the virtual piece of wood.

Yeah, the loss of 20K albums would suck.

I've known numerous people with astounding amounts of music on huge hard drives. I have to say that, for me personally, there is something mildly off-putting about it, almost hard to put my finger on. There are folks who have astoundingly huge music libraries who have offered them to me (to copy) and I ended up saying no. One reason is I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy about music/digital rights. But another is that there is something in the excessiveness that put me off, like "why do I need THAT much music? Most of which I wouldn't actually love, and most of which I'd never even manage to listen to?" It seems more unwieldy and unnecessary than tempting. (This btw ONLY pertains to my own personal psychological quirks about it; it's not to judge anyone else's satisfaction in having a super large music library at their finger tips).

That's another thing that I've liked in going to LPs - for one thing the money is a factor that limits the size of my music library. And both the financial and physical storage facts entail my music library is carefully curated - I don't have anything in there that I don't love (or if I do, I sell it). So it's "mine" and representative of my taste, in a way that some hard drive with a gazillion songs on it , many of which I wouldn't even know or listen to, can not be.

On the other hand, my experience of movie-owning has changed. I'm as fanatical about movies as about music and I really got in to building up a DVD collection and then a much larger Blu-Ray collection. There was at the time physical media was the only thing, a satisfaction with that physical collection, of "owning" those movies. And I tried to expand it as big as possible to give me the feeling that whatever mood I may be in would be accommodated within the collection, so many to choose from.

But these days I don't feel the same. Like CDs, my Blu-Rays feel an unnecessary space-waster. I am just as thrilled watching a movie in my home theater if it's streamed (so long as the picture quality is good) as when it's on a Blu-Ray. I'd drop all my Blu-Ray movies in a heartbeat at this point if they were all available in good quality streaming. But many of them are not, which is a bummer, so I hang on to them.

Who knows? Maybe down the line my sentiments will change again and I'll want to get rid more physical things, including my LPs.
Given how much fun it's been, I won't regret the detour, though