Does anyone still purchase music?

[thisdude]

I came across an article talking about a popular artist's new album had terrible CD/download sales. And it struck me...who is still purchasing music now a day? I know there are hard core fans, sure that would explain one group. And there's vinyl fans that would explain another group. But those both are small compared to pre-mp3 days when you had to purchase music to listen to what you wanted to. There's a lot of choice for music streaming free and subscription. I haven't purchased download music since iTunes was king, so like what 2005-ish and that's probably around the time since I last purchased a CD as well. I'm not trying to say anything negative about purchasing music. I'm just curious if there's anyone out there that still regularly purchases CD or download music.  

[jnelsoninjax]

I can not remember the last time I bought physical media (CD, etc) for music, I have bought digital, but even now with Spotify, etc don't really need to do that.

[thisdude]

I don't even own a cd player or a CD-ROM drive. And our blue-ray player hasn't been used in years! I have some nice blue-rays that have tons of extras. But that's not enough to motivate me to play them over using one of the TOO MANY streaming services I have.

[jnelsoninjax]

Just now, thisdude said:

I don't even own a cd player or a CD-ROM drive. And our blue-ray player hasn't been used in years! I have some nice blue-rays that have tons of extras. But that's not enough to motivate me to play them over using one of the TOO MANY streaming services I have.

Same, except I do have a Blu-Ray player, external for my desktop, never used it though!

[SnoopZ]

I last purchased a music CD in 1998 and i have never purchased anything digitally, that means i used to get what i wanted off the net, but now i just stream.

[Jose_49]

I used to get FLAC music purchased from allflac.com, and my last CD I bought it was in 2011 (So I could rip it to FLAC). But to be honest, I haven't purchased music because I don't have the equipment to tell the difference between a good 192/320kbps MP3 file or stream.

[thisdude]

I think most us were downloading music off the internet during that time. But I don't miss the hunting and pecking for music and especially don't miss having to fix mp3 tags and album art!

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

I still buy CD's. Some of the reasons include:

 

• Many times the artists I chose to support have little to no availability on streaming services
• I regularly travel to places that that have zero connectivity. Nothing, zip, nada. 

I know I can download stuff on Spotify but I'd rather own stuff that's, well, my stuff in the event I cancel a service.   I rotate about 100 tracks (from thousands) on my device  at any given time. I own the tracks, they have no DRM and I can take them where ever I go.

 

Sure, streaming is convenient  and for most people my use case is probably not the case.     

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Yes. I steam a lot of my music but if an album “means something” to me, I tend to buy a physical copy

[nerim]

I'm not a thief, so yes I buy MP3s and CDs. 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

8 minutes ago, nerim said:

I'm not a thief, so yes I buy MP3s and CDs. 

And you consider streaming to be theft?

[Ve7878]

Yes I do. I have Spotify for trying out new music, listening on the go or for background music but I buy music on records preferably. It's nice to have a physical, tangible collection and records are definitely the most satisfying way of doing this though I'm into HiFi too and through my main system, Spotify will never match the sound quality of a record or CD. I know that Tidal exists but it's much more expensive than Spotify and much more limited in its selection of songs available.

[thisdude]

I definitely understand how having a nice home stereo system would be! I agree that vinyl does have a distinct sound. We have an old cabinet stereo that has a record player and 8 track, all work great. But the records and 8 tracks are music we don't listen to. We have it as a family heirloom. But every now and then we'll play the Christmas record in it and it does sound great, for nostalgia reasons. 

[Xenon]

6 minutes ago, Vince800 said:

Yes I do. I have Spotify for trying out new music, listening on the go or for background music but I buy music on records preferably. It's nice to have a physical, tangible collection and records are definitely the most satisfying way of doing this though I'm into HiFi too and through my main system, Spotify will never match the sound quality of a record or CD. I know that Tidal exists but it's much more expensive than Spotify and much more limited in its selection of songs available.

I had tidal for a few months and it was great. The sound quality was easily the best of all the services that I had tried. But it is expensive. 

[thisdude]

2 minutes ago, Xenon said:

I had tidal for a few months and it was great. The sound quality was easily the best of all the services that I had tried. But it is expensive. 

Were you really able to tell the difference? I tried it when it first came out. And I couldn't tell the difference between it and Pandora. I was using it on a Samsung S7 Edge and wired earbuds. So maybe it would sound better being wired connected to some good speakers and a strong WiFi or wired internet connection, I don't know?

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

10 minutes ago, thisdude said:

Were you really able to tell the difference? I tried it when it first came out. And I couldn't tell the difference between it and Pandora. I was using it on a Samsung S7 Edge and wired earbuds. So maybe it would sound better being wired connected to some good speakers and a strong WiFi or wired internet connection, I don't know?

The quality is far superior BUT that only matters if your playback hardware is able to realise this.

[Xenon]

Yea I was able to. It depends on your setup of course. I hardly used it on a phone, mostly my PC. I had the HiFi plan for Tidal and I was paying for Spotify. So I did a comparison with and without headphones. Without headphones there was a difference, but not too much. But when I used my Sony MDR7506 headphones I could hear the difference. For me, amazon music always sounded the worst.

 

Just now, Code Name: Lockdown said:

The quality is far superior BUT that only matters if your playback hardware is able to realise this.

It really does come down to the hardware. 

[xrobwx71]

1 hour ago, jnelsoninjax said:

I can not remember the last time I bought physical media (CD, etc) for music, I have bought digital, but even now with Spotify, etc don't really need to do that.

This is going to be the common theme throughout this post and it applies to me as well. 

[thisdude]

@Code Name: Lockdown& @Xenonyeah I stream from my phone via bluetooth earbuds (working out and yard work) and Bose QuietComfort 35 (working from home) and a bluetooth speaker when hanging out outside. So I don't have the equipment to take advantage of Tidal. Now I will say when it first came out, wow the UI was rough to say the least. Hopefully it's much better now.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

can't say i really buy music anymore and haven't bought a movie in years.

 

Occasionally I'll buy a few songs or an album through Amazon music but that's mostly for some lesser known EDM labels.

 

Haven't bought physical media in years though; just don't care to waste the space.

 

I mostly stream now. It's more a viable method now than it ever was before. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime for TV/Movies and Pandora, YouTube for music mostly for me.

 

My car has bluethooth so I stream Pandora from my phone when I'm not just listening to my local rock station (love the radio hosts on one of my local radio stations 89.7 The River) and if I'm traveling and expect signal to cut out I an always put a bunch of the digital music I do own on a flashdrive and play directly from that in my car.

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

I am currently subscribed to Amazon Music and was a long user of the Zune/xbox music subscriptions. Have not bought any music since ~2010 and have Sirius XM for when I am on the road. I use to go to concerts instead of buying the music.

[spaceelf]

I would buy them all from two bands I like at least, if I could find it all in FLAC or other lossless formats.  It'd take too much cash to get all the music I like, and Pandora is still ace for finding random stuff I like.

[cork1958]

I haven't purchased any physical format music in years either, which is saying a lot as I own about 8,000 cd's! My daily driver car radio is crap and only has AM/FM and a cd player. Play cd's when ever I'm in it. Have XM radio in house that I listen to mostly but still play an occasional cd when in the mood for something particular.

[thisdude]

23 hours ago, cork1958 said:

I haven't purchased any physical format music in years either, which is saying a lot as I own about 8,000 cd's! My daily driver car radio is crap and only has AM/FM and a cd player. Play cd's when ever I'm in it. Have XM radio in house that I listen to mostly but still play an occasional cd when in the mood for something particular.

8,000 CDs amazing! Where do you keep them at? And how to do access them in a usable way. How do you know what you have? So many questions lol!

[cork1958]

48 minutes ago, thisdude said:

8,000 CDs amazing! Where do you keep them at? And how to do access them in a usable way. How do you know what you have? So many questions lol!

Have a few walk in closets in basement that are pretty deep, wide and tall. Have built racks to store them in a fairly well categorized order. It is quite hard to find a specific titled disc most of the time, but with the order I have them in, I can at least find the band I'm looking for. Have a few hundred of my favorites that are stacked in regular, plain old store bought cd holder racks in alphabetical order so I can find specific cd's in those. Have always kept a list of everything  I have, so I don't have to many duplicates of titles. It has actually been a whole lot of work and at times, a PITA to have so many, but I'm always playing music where ever I'm at.