CDs I bought, the massive trove of albums I’ve ripped from friends and library CDs since around 1997 and everything dl’d from Spotify and more recently Tidal (switched not only because ethics and quality - mostly because spotify-dl started breaking up :o) now lives on my home server, backs up once a week and is available to grooving to via Jellyfin over the Net. So much debt of gratitude to Jellyfin for enabling this.

At home I’ll plug the phone into a USB Toslink box and play lossless over the speakers; in the car over Bluetooth into car stereo (which has seen a little bespoke work). Headphones I haven’t bought into, I’d rather be in the moment with all senses when out and about. Same goes for motorcycle riding, music is too much of a distraction.

New music comes along by following Pitchfork’s album reviews. They are pushed out to RSS so that I browse them over morning coffee.

There is no such thing as a favourite band when one really listens to music. I get kicks from still discovering new stuff at a ripe age. One newish band that blew my mind is black midi.

Spotify
Jellyfin
Digitized CDs (in Jellyfin)
Youtube

In that order.

I have an assorted collection of CD rips, digital downloads and files acquired through ahem other means. At home I have a NAS which keeps those files (99% of them are 44.1/16 FLACs, the rest are also FLACs in other resolutions/bit depths). On my own computer I listen to those files through foobar2000 and on my work one (since it’s a bit more limited in what I can install) I use Navidrome and its web player. Hadware-wise I have an ADI-2 DAC FS that powers either an HD 600 or a pair of HS8 speakers. I don’t do any mixing/mastering, but I’ve grown to like neutral-leaning sound. On the go I rely on the same Navidrome instance backing Symfonium running on an Android phone hooked up to a Retro Nano and IE-200. For a very long time I was avoiding Bluetooth, but turns out that this combo, at least with my previous phone, sounds significantly better than the same IEMs hooked directly to the headphone out of the phone (and running a wired DAC was a pain because it was constantly dropping out); my current phone doesn’t have a headphone out at all, and generally, even if there’s a quality loss over Bluetooth, it would be negligeable in the city noise I usually have to listen in, plus it’s cumbersome having a cable attached to my phone when I’m trying to do other stuff with it.

I gave up the idea of having everything offline on the go (although it still is at home); it’s not feasible to have to look for a phone with 1 TB of storage, and with the current one I can set up favourites so that at least a section of my library is cached on the phone and not relying on an Internet connection. Other than that it’s nice to not rely on any external services or subscriptions - everything is my own equipment managed by me.

As for the CDs I have, they’re mostly bought at shows, so hopefully a big chunk of the money goes directly to the artists; I also buy T-shirts and other merch. I also like Bandcamp, especially on Bandcamp Fridays since all the money goes to the artists, but something tells me that they’ve been trying to compensate through shipping rates - shipping a t-shirt and a CD shouldn’t cost more than parts for a complete bike (speaking from experience).

Music-wise, I can’t name one single band, but lately I’ve been into New Model Army (saw them live - they were brilliant), Converge (stoked about the upcoming album), All Them Witches, Tragedy, Aesop Rock.

Mostly Spotify, almost 80000 minutes listened this year. Also YouTube premium for full recorded sets, and music on an external drive for content not on Spotify.

Radiohead and Carbon Based Lifeforms are my favorite bands.

For algorithmic discovery, I use Spotube with the Listenbrainz library backend using their discover playlists. Sometimes I listen to playlists associated with communities I’m in, which are on Spotify so I also use Spotube. For offline listening I use Qobuz, although their DRM has broken it occasionally when I needed it so I want to switch that to Spotube as well once they improve their offline functionality and fix related bugs, or set up Navidrome.

I download from soulseek, then put it in iTunes Apple Music and sync it to my phone

spotify

its unfeasable to use anything else as i have a vast catologue

A mix of digital (bandcamp/7digital/pulled from CD - 1,132 albums currently) and physical media like records and CDs. Most of it from my ipod or from my computer which is hooked up to my hifi.

Favorite this month? Lots of Dropkick Murphys, Anciients, and Illumina A.D.

Streaming mostly, with a little vinyl now and then. A little bit of radio but even that’s usually streaming over the internet.

Actually, now that I think of it I have a tape I need to run through another tape player to confirm whether the tape is broken, or my tape player is. Bought a Sons of Butcher demo with tracks I haven’t seen elsewhere yet (have heard live) at a show a while back, played successfully once and now it doesn’t. But I only have one of those kinda shitty vinyl+tape+aux+radio+bluetooth players you see on Amazon around christmas, so it’s even odds which is busted.

Usually with my ears.

Files downloaded from Soulseek and Bandcamp. Supplemented by Metrolist.

flac files + navidrome + tempo app on mobile / supersonic on desktop

Used Spotify until recently, but cancelled my premium subscription after the recent price hike as well as the increasingly prevalent AI content. I’m now trying to build a local library of mp3 files. Not sure if I won’t resubscribe to Spotify at some point though, as I find music dicovery quite difficult without it.

I’ve been collecting vinyl for close to 20 years now. I didn’t mean to but bands and labels were just trying to get rid of them in the mid 2000s so I got a dozen or so free records when preordering CDs. About half of them were not on any other format at the time so I got a record player.

So I mostly listen on that when at home or use volumio as a multi room playback system to stream off qobuz or from a local library on my NAS. I did get into cassettes during the pandemic and do find them rather entertaining.

Favorite band is easy, its Guided by Voices. As for why I can’t really say except that they rock. You have to be able to see the brilliant uncut pop gems through the lofi tape hiss. Pretty much all their best stuff sounds like a first take demo tape.

No streaming. DAP loaded with mp3/flac/m4a/opus from ripped CDs and downloads then I make a few playlists or set random play on the while library.