Never downloaded music - where to go?

[SineWave]

I only have CDs and Vinyl. Never downloaded music because I'd like to have physical media, although I have ripped all my CDs and stored them on a NAS so I can play them with my Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 Network Music Player.

I'm looking to download albums that were originally released in the 70s/80s/90s (Pop/Rock/Classic Rock) and some newer music too. Reason why I'm deciding on whether or not to download or purchase CDs is that most new (vs used) CDs available from that time period are those REMASTERED ones that sound worse due to Loudness War and whatever else makes them sound bad. Are there places that let you listen to the songs (or even just song samples) before purchasing them so you know what it will sound like? I was considering buying some new music from new bands but read reviews that the recordings sounded horrible. I've recently purchased some CDs from bands with songs I really like but have a hard time wanting to listen to them since it sounds so damn compressed and distorted. Maybe the online place to purchase them have ratings on various versions of the albums to download so you can pick the one that would meet your needs?

Where are some good places to download music where you would be able to know if the recording are good or not?

 

[BDWoody]

I only have CDs and Vinyl. Never downloaded music because I'd like to have physical media, although I have ripped all my CDs and stored them on a NAS so I can play them with my Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 Network Music Player.

I'm looking to download albums that were originally released in the 70s/80s/90s (Pop/Rock/Classic Rock) and some newer music too. Reason why I'm deciding on whether or not to download or purchase CDs is that most new (vs used) CDs available from that time period are those REMASTERED ones that sound worse due to Loudness War and whatever else makes them sound bad. Are there places that let you listen to the songs (or even just song samples) before purchasing them so you know what it will sound like? I was considering buying some new music from new bands but read reviews that the recordings sounded horrible. I've recently purchased some CDs from bands with songs I really like but have a hard time wanting to listen to them since it sounds so damn compressed and distorted. Maybe the online place to purchase them have ratings on various versions of the albums to download so you can pick the one that would meet your needs?

Where are some good places to download music where you would be able to know if the recording are good or not?

Qobuz let's you stream and buy. They have a membership tier that gives a significant discount on the purchases if you buy.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Several places let you sample MP3 snippets before you buy. Amazon for one. The MP3 is good enough to find out if something is super compressed.

 

[Jimbob54]

I only have CDs and Vinyl. Never downloaded music because I'd like to have physical media, although I have ripped all my CDs and stored them on a NAS so I can play them with my Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 Network Music Player.

I'm looking to download albums that were originally released in the 70s/80s/90s (Pop/Rock/Classic Rock) and some newer music too. Reason why I'm deciding on whether or not to download or purchase CDs is that most new (vs used) CDs available from that time period are those REMASTERED ones that sound worse due to Loudness War and whatever else makes them sound bad. Are there places that let you listen to the songs (or even just song samples) before purchasing them so you know what it will sound like? I was considering buying some new music from new bands but read reviews that the recordings sounded horrible. I've recently purchased some CDs from bands with songs I really like but have a hard time wanting to listen to them since it sounds so damn compressed and distorted. Maybe the online place to purchase them have ratings on various versions of the albums to download so you can pick the one that would meet your needs?

Where are some good places to download music where you would be able to know if the recording are good or not?

+1 on Amazon HD streaming or Qobuz. To be honest , the issue of which version / master/remaster is a nightmare unless you get the CD with known provenance. If I were you, I would get lossless streaming, find the albums you like , discover new stuff, all for the price of about one new CD per month. If the versions on the streaming service arent the versions you want, buy the odd few CDs in the edition you want and rip them and enjoy the bounty of the rest of the stuff you can access easily.

 

[maverickronin]

Bandcamp probably has the best storefront. It's the easiest to use and they don't charge artificial premiums for different formats.

There are no major labels on it though since that would make like too easy for their customers.

 

[Vini darko]

HD tracks has a large catalog

 

[L5730]

Unfortunately there is no service, that I know of, that has a catalogue of the different releases of each album to let you purchase the variant you want. The industry would never allow this, I don't think, as they'd claim they were all the same thing - despite clear and obvious and measurable sonic differences between them. 14+ different 16 bit 44.1 kHz variants of Dark Side of The Moon alone, c'mon!

Generally speaking, Spotify and other streaming platforms have the latest mass distributed remaster, but not always. Spotify has a free option with ads that you can play with in your browser. A neat way to discover new or old music.

This is a central database of user submitted rip data. TT DR Database
There is enough information on what the offline DR meter does and what the numbers mean or rather what they don't.
It's not a catalogue of what sounds good or correct, and there aren't any comments on the sonic qualities. In addition many of the entries are from vinyl digitisations. There are no sound samples here either, but you can use the data as part of the detective work in finding which particular variant of a CD you want.

There are other forums where the sound is discussed. Most of the time there are no audio samples posted, and you have to read between the lines a lot and filter for those members opinions you trust.

Once you're pretty sure of which variant you want, it's a case of scouring the auction sites and contacting sellers for more information. It's a pain, but sometimes it's the only way to get a good sounding version of an album.

There are ways which may fall foul of your countries laws too, of course.


What I suppose I should say is that although folks will say a modern compressed and hyped up remaster sounds like utter trash and is the worst abomination to ever exist on this planet, for the vast majority they are not that bad, and in some cases the differences are actually quite subtle.

 

[SineWave]

Thanks everyone.

I was at HDTracks. I was surprised how expensive albums to download were over there. Especially for the CD quality ones. They are much more expensive than CDs! I would think that a CD would cost more because you are actually purchasing a physical product with artwork, versus just electrons.

I posted my same question on another website. They also linked to the TT DR Database page (http://dr.loudness-war.info). Seems like a pretty good resource, but could be time consuming (and probably worth it) and I saw some mistakes (I saw a rating for a "CD" medium that came out in 1977 - maybe an earlier beta CD?)

Do you guys download music, or stream? I don't feel comfortable paying for music files I don't actually own. I feel so old asking these questions. Feels like when I was in the late 90's to early 2000's, wondering why older people are still buying vinyl and don't own a single CD.

 

[Jimbob54]

Thanks everyone.

I was at HDTracks. I was surprised how expensive albums to download were over there. Especially for the CD quality ones. They are much more expensive than CDs! I would think that a CD would cost more because you are actually purchasing a physical product with artwork, versus just electrons.

I posted my same question on another website. They also linked to the TT DR Database page (http://dr.loudness-war.info). Seems like a pretty good resource, but could be time consuming (and probably worth it) and I saw some mistakes (I saw a rating for a "CD" medium that came out in 1977 - maybe an earlier beta CD?)

Do you guys download music, or stream? I don't feel comfortable paying for music files I don't actually own. I feel so old asking these questions. Feels like when I was in the late 90's to early 2000's, wondering why older people are still buying vinyl and don't own a single CD.

If it helps , think of streaming as (nearly) an unlimited pass to the music catalogue of the world. Dont think of it as paying for the individual files you stream. Leaving aside issues around versions/ releases of individual records, if you set up your hifi right for streaming, its far more convenient, better interfaces etc than using CDs- and you dont need to order/shop for / wait for music. Its there the moment its released to play as many times as you like through your good speakers / amps etc.

Free months trial of Qobuz/ Amazon HD/ Tidal are available - do one at a time and you can get a feel for the pros and cons without any cost. If you like the overall concept after that- pick your favourite in a few months .

 

[Sukie]

Do you guys download music, or stream? I don't feel comfortable paying for music files I don't actually own. I feel so old asking these questions. Feels like when I was in the late 90's to early 2000's, wondering why older people are still buying vinyl and don't own a single CD.

Take advantage of the free trials and see how it works out.

I think that you'll struggle to find earlier CD versions of albums on streaming (or download) sites, but hopefully you'll enjoy the experience of having music at your fingertips.

I know that remasters are a bit of minefield with some being much better than others. The good thing about streaming sites is that you can see (or should that be listen?) for yourself. Yesterday the 50th anniversary edition of "Morrison Hotel" by the Doors was released. The previous week we were treated to new remasters of Prince's "Sign o' the Times" and Lou Reed's "New York".

 

[L5730]

Spotify, to me, is like YouTube. A portal for discovery. Using a free account in a browser seems to work just fine.
Anything I want digitally, I was offline and backed up, whether that is on physical compact disk or multiple redundant HDDs. I do not want a conflict of contracts removing chunks of my music library.

HDTracks is hit and miss. Some stuff is simply the CD ran through a DAC/ADC and captured at a higher sample rate or just resampled to a higher sample rate. Some stuff is legitimately a higher bit depth variant of what went for CD (24/44.1 vs 16/44.1), these tend to be some of the modern releases, or at least post 2000 albums.

Playing detective is a pain in the backside.

Everything on TT-DR site is user submitted. If an album came out in 1977, that's the date they'll include. CDs don't often have a date when the glass master or the digital master files were actually made, they should, but they don't. Such a CD could have been pressed last month using a new glass master made only a year or so ago. Certain clues give away the ballpark time period of production ("Made in W.Germany", IFPI etc.), but sometimes packaging is left over and used for a different CD pressing. You'll get absolutely none of this on any of the streaming platforms.

 

[Chrispy]

Provenance would be nice indeed. I don't download much, usually directly from an artist's site and that's generally at least cd quality, which I prefer over an mp3/AAC file to own. I do prefer to buy cds overall for my own ripped to flac library. I use my streaming on Spotify and Pandora often for discovering stuff I like enough to want to own. Also what I've done with movies by renting before buying in most cases, and don't download movies, buy the dvd/bluray.

 

[Helicopter]

+1 on Amazon. See if they have a deal for Prime Day next week.

 

[Thomas savage]

Back to the CD rack ? ( Insert other physical media of choice)

 

[gene_stl]

I do not want a conflict of contracts removing chunks of my music library.

Would you mind clarifying that statement? tia

 

[Bob-23]

Maybe the online place to purchase them have ratings on various versions of the albums to download so you can pick the one that would meet your needs?

You might find some of the albums you like, in several 'versions'
http://dr.loudness-war.info/

If you were on Jazz ( or, to a lesser degree classical) I could recommend Manfred Eicher's ECM-Label. Usually, you can buy them unseen resp. unheard. Decent sound quality (Jan Garbarek, Dave Holland, Gary Burton, e.g.).
https://www.ecmrecords.com/artists

 

[sigbergaudio]

The larger streaming services like Spotify etc have pretty powerful algorithms to learn what you like. So you're in for a magical discovery of lots of bands similar to the ones you already love if you really use a service (not just for browsing, but actually playing through it and giving the service a chance to understand what you like).

And unlimited access to most of the music in the world for the price of a CD per month surely isn't all bad?

 

[Martin]

The best way I’ve found to find downloadable content is to google “artist name” “album name”. That will return all the locations it is available. I purchase directly from the artist if possible, then from sites like bandcamp, then others like HD Tracks or Apple Music. I only download flac or other lossless formats. I use JRiver to convert and store everything as flac. If digital downloads are not available I buy used CDs off eBay and rip them myself.

Martin

 

[renaudrenaud]

rutracker.org?

 

[Harmonie]

rutracker.org?

Wazthat
Please develop, my Russian is poor.