How many folk now use streaming and have sold all their other audio equipment?

[mikmas]

Fatuous comparison. Recorded music is an economic commodity with a price and a market. A sunrise isn't and doesn't. The comparison with TV is far more appropriate.

What on earth has TV got to do with the price of eggs??

- or crappy cardboard furniture.

[montesquieu]

It isn't on TIDAL. No cookie for me

I may try Deezer Grant.

I had parallel subscriptions running for a while - Tidal, Qubuz and Spotify - to enable me to make direct comparisons.

Tidal was the first to be dropped, mainly for its shoddy application of metadata. For classical it also had the worst selection (and almost nothing at higher resolutions).

Qubuz later went too again for the metadata issue.

It actually surprised me that Spotify won but the classical choice is actually very good and the quality good enough for my purposes given it it's not a primary source.

If your music is on Tidal at hi-res then it might well be the best choice but it doesn't suit everyone.

[montesquieu]

What on earth has TV got to do with the price of eggs??

- or crappy cardboard furniture.

Strong rebuttal there bud. You should be on Question Time.

[montesquieu]

Of course, we must factor in additional elements to our current listening choices. We can now choose to listen to specific tracks and albums at a time that is convenient to us, and, at a marginal financial cost that is (effectively) zero. Monetary prices are therefore no longer the constraint on our listening choices: time is. Relatively speaking we have gone from being money poor and leisure time rich; to money rich and leisure time poor. We also have many more opportunities for how we spend our leisure time (e.g. Netflix, computer gaming, and various forms of computer browsing and social media). Clearly, for many young people, music does not rank high on their list of leisure pursuits. It is also true, that for many people on this forum, that music has become less important as a leisure activity than it was for them in the past. It is the broadening of choice as to how we spend our leisure time and changing social preferences that determine the popularity of music as a leisure time activity. It is nonsense to suggest that greater financial accessibility to music diminishes its value. To suggest this is to make the choices required by income/price constraints a "virtue" rather than a financial necessity!

There's a lot of merit in this argument but you could equally argue that one of the reasons music no longer has the hold it has over young people that it used to have is precisely that it's a commodified, low-value experience.

Precisely some of the 'hipster' ethic (ok this is a fashion that may fade as others before it have) is to put some striving - financially and physically - back in the consumption of music, which adds to the pleasure.

[Macca]

. It is nonsense to suggest that greater financial accessibility to music diminishes its value. To suggest this is to make the choices required by income/price constraints a "virtue" rather than a financial necessity!

Geoff

It can be argued that such a restriction is a virtue, though. If we had unlimited access to absolutely anything we wanted would that improve the quality of our lives, would it make us better people, happier people? I suspect it would have the opposite effect.

[Jimbo]

Just listening to Vox Cosmica on Spotify - now ordered it on CD! Thanks everyone who found it.

[Sherwood]

Vox Cosmica Hildegarde von Bingen.

I would suggest that either your musical preferences and searches are very limited. Many of the artists and new music that I listen to will never make it to vinyl, and some probably never make it to cd.

I am not suggesting that anyone should adopt streaming technology or sign up to streaming services. However, I reject arguments that streaming has not come of age or is technically complicated or just for techies.

As to vinyl, I still have my vinyl hardware and a very large record collection and they still sound very good. However, despite the resurgence of vinyl, I do not see that it has a long term future. Clearly, some of the current popularity is from oldies (like myself) nostalgic for the physical experience of vinyl. Ultimately, economic and broader social forces will determine the future of vinyl. As good as vinyl can be, it costs many times more to get a good sound from vinyl than it does from digital. Also, we have to acknowledge that the 2 times 20 minute album format was shaped by the technical limitations of the time. Artists can now release (and sell) a single track or their complete repertoire without any obvious constraint. Additionally, I cannot see a return of vinyl stores to the high street. You only need to see how cds have diminished in terms of store floorspace in the likes of HMV, to see how physical media are on a downward decline.

Streaming is not for everyone: neither is Vox Cosmica Hildegarde von Bingen. However, it is pointless to dismiss subjective preferences as not valid.

Geoff

[User211]

I had parallel subscriptions running for a while - Tidal, Qubuz and Spotify - to enable me to make direct comparisons.

Tidal was the first to be dropped, mainly for its shoddy application of metadata. For classical it also had the worst selection (and almost nothing at higher resolutions).

Qubuz later went too again for the metadata issue.

It actually surprised me that Spotify won but the classical choice is actually very good and the quality good enough for my purposes given it it's not a primary source.

If your music is on Tidal at hi-res then it might well be the best choice but it doesn't suit everyone.

Metadata is irrelevant to me but TIDAL's blatant Jay Z marketing does annoy me. A quick Google will provide more info than any metadata held in any service.

Quobuz software was pathetic last time I tried it. TIDAL streams actually sounded better than Quobuz. I spent some time looking at the Quobuz USB output I was so sure it wasn't what it said it was. That was too much like hard work to decode to prove the point. I could have been wrong but I really was convinced it wasn't up to par for some reason.

Deezer will have its own issues - they all do but it has to be worth a try for a month I think.

[struth]

Metadata is irrelevant to me but TIDAL's blatant Jay Z marketing does annoy me. A quick Google will provide more info than any metadata held in any service.

Quobuz software was pathetic last time I tried it. TIDAL streams actually sounded better than Quobuz. I spent some time looking at the Quobuz USB output I was so sure it wasn't what it said it was. That was too much like hard work to decode to prove the point. I could have been wrong but I really was convinced it wasn't up to par for some reason.

Deezer will have its own issues - they all do but it has to be worth a try for a month I think.

make sure you download the beta hifi one for pc and click the hifi stream at bottom.

[mikmas]

Strong rebuttal there bud. You should be on Question Time.

You lost the argument way back when you misquoted me. After that, 'you reap what you sow'..