How Do You Music These Days?

[WildW]

I wanted to ask you guys how you are consuming your music at home in 2016. We live in a time when everything has moved away from recorded media into digital music libraries, but to be honest I still haven't quite found a nice way to interact with my music collection.

I'm mostly an album listener and I grew up collecting CDs, and I guess I still have that sentimentality that I at least like CDs as objects. Of course I have digitised everything into MP3 for portability and FLAC for quality, for as much as that is worth.

So I have a big folder full of folders of artists full of folders of albums, and some awkward folders of compilation albums that don't really know where to sit. Technology has moved on enough that I have basically everything on my phone for mobile listening with headphones, and a USB drive with plenty to listen to in the car, and that is all great. But browsing it all is a pain.

When I'm at home, sitting down to relax in the living room, making dinner in the kitchen, I want to throw some music on. I turn on my Kodi box in the living room and browse the list, scrolling a dozen albums per page, or in the kitchen I pull out my phone and hook up to the bluetooth speaker, and scroll through little menus to find something to listen to. And for all this choice and all this technology, I've not seen any interface that can come close to the speed and ease of use of standing in front of my bookcase and physically looking at my CD collection. Doing things on a screen feels so awkward.

So, what devices and what kind of interfaces are out there that I haven't seen or thought of? Or is it just me?

edit: The best thing I have seen that comes closest to the "shelf" experience is the old iPod "cover flow" with the fluid movement afforded by the scroll wheel - I loved my 3rd gen iPod Nano for that, but I've not seen anything that recreates it on Android.

 

[Kartajan]

I personally prefer Plex, but you REALLY need to organize your library properly for best results.

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/categories/200028098-Media-Preparation

 

[smitbret]

I wanted to ask you guys how you are consuming your music at home in 2016. We live in a time when everything has moved away from recorded media into digital music libraries, but to be honest I still haven't quite found a nice way to interact with my music collection.

I'm mostly an album listener and I grew up collecting CDs, and I guess I still have that sentimentality that I at least like CDs as objects. Of course I have digitised everything into MP3 for portability and FLAC for quality, for as much as that is worth.

So I have a big folder full of folders of artists full of folders of albums, and some awkward folders of compilation albums that don't really know where to sit. Technology has moved on enough that I have basically everything on my phone for mobile listening with headphones, and a USB drive with plenty to listen to in the car, and that is all great. But browsing it all is a pain.

When I'm at home, sitting down to relax in the living room, making dinner in the kitchen, I want to throw some music on. I turn on my Kodi box in the living room and browse the list, scrolling a dozen albums per page, or in the kitchen I pull out my phone and hook up to the bluetooth speaker, and scroll through little menus to find something to listen to. And for all this choice and all this technology, I've not seen any interface that can come close to the speed and ease of use of standing in front of my bookcase and physically looking at my CD collection. Doing things on a screen feels so awkward.

So, what devices and what kind of interfaces are out there that I haven't seen or thought of? Or is it just me?

edit: The best thing I have seen that comes closest to the "shelf" experience is the old iPod "cover flow" with the fluid movement afforded by the scroll wheel - I loved my 3rd gen iPod Nano for that, but I've not seen anything that recreates it on Android.

I am not sure how you are storing your media but if it is on a windows PC you should look into Mezzmo. If presentation and customizability are important, there is simply nothing better.

www.conceiva.com

Worth every penny I have paid for organizing my media. Has a Kodi Plugin and Android App for playback.

 

[Anubis]

i still buy CDs
Rip them all as FLAC
i can stream them from a central server to any device in my house using Serviio and a UPNP app on my phone

if im not at home i stream my own music to myself using google music which lets you upload like 400 gigs for free

i don't pay for any streaming services nor do i purchase music digitally.

TBH 90% of my music listing at home is done on the computer

 

[Chapbass]

I would say 95%+ of my music is done through Spotify on to my phone or computer, then chromecasted to my livingroom, bedroom, or kitchen. When portable, I can either listen on my phone, aux hookup in my car, or bluetooth to my Jambox Big.

 

[JeffMD]

%100 of my music is stored on my phone, my best stuff is high bitrate AAC. Most of my music however is overseas stuff and there are just some things I have to stick with mp3 copies of. If I want to listen to my music at home, I have speakers with aptx bluetooth, or I will otherwise turn the DLNA server on on my phone. I rarely use stream services for personal listening but if I am in a situation where I am working overnights with other people, I will setup a BT speaker with some top 80/90/2000 pandora stations.

I simply loath requiring wireless access to get access to my music and videos, it is so unreliable and expensive.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Been using Amazon music since they finally changed and allowed you to download to your SD card and not your device memory only.

They don't have "everything"....but they have more music than you'll ever listen to, and all sorts of stuff that I'd have never bought otherwise, so I'm cycling songs on and off my SD card and shuffling them.

 

[truckerCLOCK]

i still buy CDs
Rip them all as FLAC
i can stream them from a central server to any device in my house using Serviio and a UPNP app on my phone

if im not at home i stream my own music to myself using google music which lets you upload like 400 gigs for free

i don't pay for any streaming services nor do i purchase music digitally.

TBH 90% of my music listing at home is done on the computer

+1 Serviio running on my Unraid server. Will stream to any uPnP device.

 

[rchunter]

All my music (flac, dsd, etc.) is on a synology nas with (minimserver). On my main stereo I have a Lumin T1 streamer hooked to analog xlr ports on my preamp, and then I just use an ipad with lumin software as a control point.

 

[soulcougher73]

Spotify Premium. $15 for wife and I. Separate accounts for playlists, favorites etc. Whole month for the cost of 1 CD and i have access to almost everything i could want. What i cant find youtube usually has.

 

[bigboxes]

I have about 250 record albums and a handful of 45's. I have about 250 CDs. I ripped all of my CDs to V0 mp3 back in the day. Today, I rip everything I can get my hands on to 320kbps mp3. I host over 2TB of mp3's on my file server. Most listening is done on the computer in my office, where I spend most of my free time. If in the living room then the HTPC uses Kodi as the front end to browse my file server. I have "acquired" almost all of my vinyl on digital. I have no love for digital. Even though I rarely play them any longer, there's something special about holding a record jacket in your hand or watching the record spin as the needle drags through the groove. But for convenience nothing beats digital. For the car I just copy over an album to my phone and connect to my Alpine through Bluetooth.

 

[biostud]

If I can, then buy as FLAC, otherwise CD rip to FLAC and mp3 for mobile. I mostly use my headphones at home, since loud death metal is somewhat frowned upon when you live in an apartment building.
Then use spotify to listen to single songs, that I don't need to have in my collection.

 

[Naeeldar]

Spotify. Haven't ever been able to not find something I wanted and it's great to have it stored offline on my mobile. It also is pretty much all we play on our Sonos systems through out the house.

Occasionally we listen to pandora radio to find new music we like.

 

[DigDog]

youtube, only music made by non-promoted acts; so, no niki minaj, or shakira, etc.

 

[Kaido]

Spotify Premium. Ten bucks a month, 30 million songs, custom playlists, radio feature, offline playback (downloads).

If it's a one-off song I can't find there, I'll just hit up Youtube because someone always has a video with the audio track there.

 

[poofyhairguy]

My setup:

Music sources: Spotify premium or self-uploaded Google Music (for gaps in Spotify)

Music playback: I have four Chromecast audios in my house, connected to my various HTPC setups (livingroom, kitchen, mediaroom) or just connected to a stereo (garage). I cast music from one of the sources to either one of the Chromecast audios or all of them via a "Household" option I have set up in the Chromecast app. I have also gone through the house and tweaked the delays so the audio is in sync.

 

[Oyeve]

Vinyl. In fact, I just purchased a first print album of the Moody Blues - On the Threshold of a Dream, yesterday as my original vinyl wore out long ago.

I have 1000s of albums and 1000s of CDs. I ripped most of them to mp3/wav long ago and primarily listen to that. But when I am home I still crank up the turntable and listen to records. I never bothered ripping my 100s of 45s as they are of inferior quality to 12".

 

[guachi]

I have all my CDs I bought years ago ripped to my computer. Some are going on 17 years old in mp3 form.

I don't listen to tons of music. I still have my iPod from 2004 and have it connected to my car. I have no music on my phone as I haven't found a program on my phone that I actually like.

I guess if I liked music more I might try Spotify, but I don't really care.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I prefer CD still. I do rip everything to FLAC though for the PC and portability. I use foobar2000 and media monkey

 

[blackangst1]

For ripped or downloaded music, I use either Foobar or JRiver Media Center on my HTPC. For streaming, I use Tidal (for FLAC quality).

 

[Dude111]

I wanted to ask you guys how you are consuming your music at home in 2016

Usually by records,8 track tapes,VHS and cassettes

I do not like digital @ all........ (Does not sound as good,etc)

 

[queequeg99]

My setup:

Music sources: Spotify premium or self-uploaded Google Music (for gaps in Spotify)

Music playback: I have four Chromecast audios in my house, connected to my various HTPC setups (livingroom, kitchen, mediaroom) or just connected to a stereo (garage). I cast music from one of the sources to either one of the Chromecast audios or all of them via a "Household" option I have set up in the Chromecast app. I have also gone through the house and tweaked the delays so the audio is in sync.

I'm in almost the exact same boat. We have a Spotify Family account and all four members use it differently. It's a great value and I love Spotify's wide selection (now getting into some playlists to familiarize myself with acts on a punk/ska cruise we're going on next year).

I love the upload feature on Google's free service, but it still takes a fair amount of time and I've found that it can be glitchy and will sometimes lock up with upload large numbers of files. So I still occasionally use Squeezebox Touch devices to listen to ripped CDs housed on our media server (an unraid box). I'd like to find a convenient way to do that through Chromecast Audios (I know there are probably options that I just need to google and read about).

 

[razel]

Depends on what's at hand. At home for hi-res music it's off the USB into the receiver. I also have a decent collection of CDs which I slowly over the decades MP3d, FLACd, AACd and those are also in another USB marked CDs. In 15 year old daily driver, it's CDs, but I wised up and copied those onto CDRs and toss those about in the car instead of the originals. In my weekend ride, it's all USB.

I am still pretty disappointed with quality of MP3s, AACs off MS, Google Play, Amazon and to a lesser extent iTunes. The best quality I've enjoyed so far is music bought straight off bands off bandcamp.

 

[Raduque]

I buy mostly from Amazon, but I still have a bunch of stuff from when I was a kid that didn't know better and stole music.

Winamp plays it on my laptop, out via analog to a 90s-era Sony Dolby Pro Logic receiver which drives my new pair of speakers, a set of Sony SS-MF315 towers, which replaced my Akai SR-LA301s.

 

[MrSquished]

google play music. a mish mash of my own library uploaded and tracks bought and or streamed from their subscription service