How Do You Buy and Listen to Your Music ?

[travisgreyfox]

I play 78's.

I like this guy ^ At home I listen mostly to my 78s. I have some 33 RPM records, but my modern record player is trash and the prices have gone up too much lately on 33s. More vinyl records have sold in 2019 than CDs for the first time since the 1980s, So I guess that is what's driving the prices up.

[gramophone-georg]

I buy my music with money, and listen with my ears.

[Marc Hildebrant]

Gang,

So, most people seem to enjoy the old music played on their old phonographs and that makes sense.

If I had some Edison Music available as a digital download or say a CD, would you then purchase the music to hear songs that you do not have ?

Marc

[Inigo]

I listen to lps, cds and 78s. I buy only 78s now, but sometimes an interesting old lp. I buy no more CDs since years ago... I have now many classical lps that a friend gave to me (rests of his parents collection, mainly late fifties to seventies). I listen to those while working... But when I listen intentionally to music, it's 78s, and I don't want to do anything but listen in the meanwhile... I also listen to YouTube recordings, 78s I don't have... I also spent some time listening to piano and organ music on YT, watching Yuja Wang, or Marc André Hamelin, or Valentina Lisitsa, all later discoveries. I like also to see if there's something new by Igudesman & Joo... Ah, and love to see Victor Borge!
Another old favourite is the Jorge Bolet masterclass, more than 2 hours, dismantling Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto. I've seen it many times, and never get tired of it...

[Orchorsol]

Buying - almost all on 78, occasionally vinyl, very occasionally CDs
Listening - the same, but also some on YouTube (aside from which I don't do any streaming of any kind, nor any social media), and CDs sometimes when driving.

[hbick2]

I am a traditional musician and have made records that were released in vinyl, cassette and CD formats. The first several recordings I did were recorded onto 2-inch magnetic tape. Since then, they have been recorded digitally, into a computer. As far as recording processes go, the latter is far superior. The things you can do with a digital recording are amazing. As far as the sound quality of the final product is concerned, I would put vinyl first followed by CD, with cassettes a distant third.

I do purchase a fair amount of recorded music. I always go for the hard copy rather than the digital download. One reason is that I want the liner notes that come with the CD. These are seldom available with digital downloads. I invariably copy the CD into my computer and transfer it to my phone so I can listen to it wherever I am. For some reason, purchasing a digital download just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s like I just bought a piece of air or the ether.

I discovered several interesting things while working on the final mix of a CD several years back. The engineer was in Nashville and I am in Louisville. Because the recording was digital, we were able to pass copies of the cuts back and forth over the internet. He would send me a copy of the rough mix and I would tell him what changes to make. Since there is a time code on every recording I was able to pinpoint the exact place I wanted to make the change. He would make the changes and send me a new mix of that cut. Contrast that with the old way where I would have to be physically in the studio throughout the entire process.

What I discovered while doing the mix is that you no longer can mix music to just a stereo speaker system. You also have to make sure the mix is compatible with headphones, ear buds and car systems, all of varying quality. With this particular CD, I was sure I had a good mix and was finishing it up with the engineer. My wife and I decided to listen to it one last time while driving in the car. When one particular song started playing, the bass was so loud you couldn’t hear anything else. This had never happened on any of the other systems even though everything I played them on was very high quality. I whipped out my phone immediately to call the engineer and tell him not to send it off yet.

The other interesting thing that I realized was that we have spent a century or more perfecting our recording techniques so we could get absolutely the best and most accurate recordings possible only to have most people listen to the final product through a two-dollar set of ear buds, often while jogging. Our beautifully crafted .aiff or .wav files are converted to a lesser quality format such as .mp3 and played over a system that can only be likened to listening to music through a tin can. It’s probably similar to what Thomas Edison was hearing when he listened to his recordings while biting into the wooden cabinet of his phonograph. Oh, well!

That said, I think my favorite form of recorded music is an acoustically recorded cylinder or disc played through a wooden horn, either external or internal. There is a presence there that has yet to be replicated by any subsequent recording process. Standing directly in front of the horn I feel like the performers are actually there behind it, performing just for me.

[Marco Gilardetti]

I'm a Hi-Fi fanatic (not really in "average" terms, but nevermind...) and I buy Long Playing records (33 RPMs) very often.

Of course I also have a "vast" collection of 78 RPMs, otherwise I wouldn't be here (the quotes are there because some poeple here pile them up by the billions!), but obvioulsy one won't find new/contemporary music on this support.

I buy CDs very very occasionally, just in order to support artists that couldn't print a LP, or when I know in advance that buying the LP version would be overkilling.

I basically never listen to YouTube or other digital stuff, PCs etc., the only noteworthy exception being the clips that fellows here upload about their gramophones. Sometimes I've listened to recors I don't own and don't plan to purchase, but I've seen that in most cases digital files given by friends or relatives linger on my PC for a decade or more and I still have to listen to them. Listening stuff from a PC simply has no appeal to me, I do it very reluctantly.

[epigramophone]

I usually buy Blue Amberols in job lots on eBay, keeping those that I want and selling on those that I don't.
YouTube is a very useful tool for auditioning unfamiliar (to me) cylinders, enabling me to try before I buy.