Physical or digital

Mayson Heber

What do you guys prefer a physical of the album you love vinly/cassette/CD or digital? Does it matter to you? Do you feel you support your favorite bands more with physical or digital? And what do you like more cassette or vinly?

ratcharge

I hate music.

sicboy

I listen to stuff on streaming, but I stopped hoarding mp3s because I found i was just never listening to them ever and the novelty of editing tags and transferring them back and forth to an iPod wore off once I had a kid.

I prefer records, but also slave to convenience of streaming for the car/walk/commute.

terminalsunset

I listen to so much music and make so little money that I unfortunately have to rely mostly on digital. I also listen to music in the car and at work, so physical isn't always an option (though I do still listen to CDs in the car). In the ideal listening setting, though, I prefer to put on a record and typically my favorite albums in any given year I'll order a physical copy of.

kai

prefer physical media. if/when that's not possible, i use soulseek/bandcamp for mp3s, an SD card on my phone with the poweramp app, and musicbee on desktop. (musicbee has auto-tag capacity and can manage the phone sync reasonably well). streaming is evil.

Uptown ruler 666 420

Physical media first, have a Plex server with all my digital files for streaming

sicboy

I'm of the opinion that if a band/label doesn't want me streaming their music, they wouldn't put it on the services. And that's totally within their right. I'll likely buy the LP anyway. But if it's there, I'm not gonna purposely inconvenience myself for the sake of digital ethics.

mw

A little bit of everything. I have to be more conscious of spending these days, but when I can I buy as much of the things I love (whether it's new or old) as I can. I also do some selling on the side to help clear space which just leads to me buying more things that I love. Big ups to bandcamp too.

Randall

I prefer physical but spend a lot of time in the car, at work, walking the dog so probably listen to more music digitally than I do physically at this point. The streaming service pay structure is awful but I’m definitely guilty of taking part in it

elimaxxx

When I had an office job it was mostly digital, but since i'm on the stay at home parent grind i listen to stuff from my record collection. I listened to the entire thing alphabetically over that past couple of years.

AlMartinoBitesTheBigOne

Please buy records everyone 🙏

Allez Al

If it's not in my racks, it doesn't exist for me. I don't listen to music outside of my house (always podcasts) so the collection/archive is all that feels real to me. I'll check stuff out briefly on bandcamp/YouTube and then will find n buy. Pop psychology: it stops me being overwhelmed with the infinite musical options out there.

Sukebe_GG

I had to sell my vinyl collection in 1997 - such is life and they are like dead lovers to me now 😢 . Started amassing CDs a few years later and then burning all kinds of raerz mp3s/flacs from blogs/soulseek in the naughts - these days, I wish I could pay someone to sit around digitize all of that stuff. These days it's mostly Bandcamp and YT for better or worse.

Nathan Loud

I like to have fun and do both. I'm a fun guy.

I sold all my records when I had an existential crisis and moved into a small camper for a couple years. I came to appreciate a minimalist approach to possessions and now only allow physical media into my life if it has reasonable chance of entering my personal canon. Nowadays I listen to records in my bedroom and let the power of the tunes vibrate my chakras. My hearing is too damaged from rock and roll to successfully pass a vinyl vs. digital taste test but I have more of a spiritual engagement with vinyl, if that makes sense.

I feel so spoiled with the wealth of digital media in this current age. It's amazing and also harrowing. I think YouTube Music is better than Sp*tify because it has the licensed stuff but also the weird bootleg, fan-uploaded shit.

In the last couple of years, I got fairly into self-hosting, which basically means I have a small server in my house. I set it up so I have my own little Netflix at home and on my phone. It's called Jellyfin. I also use a Chromecast that's connected to the network so I can watch movies and listen to music on smart TVs, if someone has one out in the world. I got a CD/DVD drive from Best Buy for $40 and rip stuff from the library then put it on the server, it rules. It only took me five hundred hours to install. Happy to tell people more about this if you want to stop paying streaming services.

Also got back on SoulSeek recently, for the first time since before my existential crisis, when the world was still worth saving. SoulSeek is great. Finding lots of deep cuts and old faves. Less new music. I love looking at my complete Brian Eno discography and feeling like I have a little Brian Eno trapped in a box in my bedroom.

Bandcamp rules, obviously. So do all the great shows on MixCloud or whatever. Radio Garden, NTS, WFMU Archive Bunker, Internet Archive, etc. etc. Wow, so much good stuff. I spend a lot of time doing stuff and listening to digital music, making little playlists of stuff people on the internet mention.

I do love tapes. Those are good. We need more tapes out there.

Gimmie Sopor

When I am at home, I listen exclusively to physical formats. I have a large record collection that needs care and attention. Once I'm out of the house, however, I'm no stranger to digital humiliation.