Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Undecided

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2005
704
168
California
The other day while spending an inordinate amount of time trying to clean up my music library, I got the feeling that I should just scrap the whole thing and listen to music streamed from and selected by others. Selecting the genre would be good enough. iTunes radio, Pandora, whatever. I realize I could do that without nuking my own music library but I'm wondering if any other folks have just thrown in the towel, nuked their music library, and instead just stream music?
 

ScottishCaptain

macrumors 6502a
Oct 4, 2008
871
474
No. Streaming quality sucks.

I did nuke my library once, but that was only because I suddenly had enough disk drive space to rip everything in Apple Lossless. I enjoy owning what I've purchased on CD and being able to listen to what I want when I want. Modern day music can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

-SC
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
The other day while spending an inordinate amount of time trying to clean up my music library, I got the feeling that I should just scrap the whole thing and listen to music streamed from and selected by others. Selecting the genre would be good enough. iTunes radio, Pandora, whatever. I realize I could do that without nuking my own music library but I'm wondering if any other folks have just thrown in the towel, nuked their music library, and instead just stream music?
Why? The quality from streaming can be iffy. Also, I need somewhere to load my iPod from.

No. Streaming quality sucks.

I did nuke my library once, but that was only because I suddenly had enough disk drive space to rip everything in Apple Lossless. I enjoy owning what I've purchased on CD and being able to listen to what I want when I want. Modern day music can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

-SC
I'm actually in the middle of upgrading the quality of my CD rips. However, instead of nuking the whole library, I just delete albums out of iTunes before I rip them again. It takes a while to rip that many CDs.
 

hogger129

macrumors newbie
Feb 24, 2013
16
0
I will never pay money for a streaming service when I have the radio for free. Plus the music sounds better buying the CD and importing it as a lossless file.
 

Boyd01

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 21, 2012
7,637
4,528
New Jersey Pine Barrens
Why in the world would I want to do that? My library is filled with music I have chosen and enjoy listening to. But if you want "music selected by others", then you might as well do it. I guess your user name accurately reflects your musical preferences. :D
 

Undecided

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2005
704
168
California
Why in the world would I want to do that? My library is filled with music I have chosen and enjoy listening to. But if you want "music selected by others", then you might as well do it. I guess your user name accurately reflects your musical preferences. :D

Haha, yeah, when I originally signed up everything was taken! Well, except this one. I like "\-V-/" so maybe I should do something like that. If it can be changed.

All my music is 256kbit or less and I note there are plenty of radio streams in itunes that go beyond that.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what Apple does with radio, given that so many streams and iTunes Match too are already there.
 

negativzero

macrumors 6502a
Jul 19, 2011
564
55
If Pandora does come up with lossless streaming, sure why not!
But for now, I'll stick to ripping and downloading my songs.
 

Destroysall

macrumors 65816
Feb 28, 2012
1,293
85
United States
I would never give up my music library for anything. I prefer buying CDs and Vinyl and use the iTunes Store as a last resort of if what I am looking for isn't available easily on CD.
 

ayres

macrumors 6502
Sep 27, 2010
289
50
this is a perennial dilemma for us music lovers. fact is, streaming audio quality sucks. example: the online stream of my local public radio station is 48kbs! that's nasty. and with good headphones, i can tell vs when played on my radio. plus, you have to have an internet connection.

i think it is where you place your priorities and what you like to waste your time doing. for some, stamps. others, shiny objects. others like physical exertion. your music collection is like your book shelf. when i had to briefly store my books in some drawers, a writer friend of mine scoffed and said it's like putting your books in a coffin! don't get him started on ebooks.

anyone who's faced this issue surely has discovered the plethora of titles available on, say, spotify. i took five of the most obscure, widely-released albums i had, searched spotify, and they had all but one.

so you can simply get a stream going on pandora. and it's a great way to discover new stuff. but there is something very pleasant in retreating into my itunes library (mostly ripped lossless), playing a cd vinyl.

while it isn't a big issue to me, i want to highlight that when you listen to streaming music (or buying on iTunes), you're using a service... you're someone's data point, an exponent in an algorithm, and a dot on a slope of a graph that some executive is showing in a boardroom. there's no privacy, and they really don't give a **** about you (or the sound quality of their product). and if music listening is a passion, it's nice to have a little privacy.

all that said, there's a balance. and once you do get things sorted out with your library and it requires less work, it will always be there for you - whether or not you listen daily, weekly, or monthly. there are times i don't touch my music for weeks.
 

rillrill

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
828
624
New York
good question. i did get rid of most of my mp3 collection. i keep my rare tracks on an external hd. however, everything is on google music. i switched to all access and i'm quite happy. pinning tracks to my nexus 4 lets you dl the quality tracks. i churn through new music so fast, 7.99 is a steal to not steal or manage anything.

currently on repeat: camera obscura - desire lines
 

Creibold

macrumors regular
Feb 27, 2006
186
7
No, however, 2 years ago I had a library that I wanted to future proof. So I went through ( and am still working on) upgrading and/or finding each of the albums I had and ripping them into Apple Lossless. Harder said than done these days, that's for sure.

I suppose the nice thing is, I can have a lossless copy on my main machine, and thanks to iTunes Match, I can always download an iTunes plus copy on the fly while I'm out of the house.

For me, steaming is mostly about discovery only, as the sound quality isn't really there for me yet. Also, I've found that when it comes to classical music. streaming services (save for the Naxos Library service) have AWFUL metadata. Classical is what I listen to the most of the time, so these services are usually good only or pop/rock/Indie music - nothing that isn't main stream.
 

skiltrip

macrumors 68030
May 6, 2010
2,894
268
New York
I havent nuked it, like, its still on an external hard drive. I just uploaded everything to Google Music and I stream. Unless of course I'm using my iPod Classic, which of course also has my whole collection.

For any new music or random stuff I wanna check out I use Spotify.

I used to hate the idea of being a slave to any cloud-based connection, but I love the convenience of it.
 

Boyd01

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 21, 2012
7,637
4,528
New Jersey Pine Barrens
I used to hate the idea of being a slave to any cloud-based connection, but I love the convenience of it.

I have been around for awhile, and the whole thing seems very odd. I bought one of the first Apple ][ computers, used Visicalc, wrote my own custom programs. We were really excited to have all this computing power on our desktops without relying on a mainframe and the "high priests" of the data center.

Now the pendulum has swung fully back in the other direction, and people are willingly surrendering to "the cloud". This is progress? ;)
 

decafjava

macrumors 603
Feb 7, 2011
5,122
7,170
Geneva
I have been around for awhile, and the whole thing seems very odd. I bought one of the first Apple ][ computers, used Visicalc, wrote my own custom programs. We were really excited to have all this computing power on our desktops without relying on a mainframe and the "high priests" of the data center.

Now the pendulum has swung fully back in the other direction, and people are willingly surrendering to "the cloud". This is progress? ;)

Good point, I never liked the idea of "renting" access to music, just like I can understand the internet rage at Adobe's and Microsoft's moves in that direction to the cloud. I don't have access to Pandora here in Europe - and won't have access to iTunes radio right away - but a streaming service that can help me discover new music and drive sales is not a bad thing IMO.
 

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
Lord no. I'm still waiting for the day that Apple comes out with a digital file replacement for DTS audio, DVD audio or whatever you want to call it. I bought a few DTS audio discs back in the late 1990s because I had a friend who let me borrow one once. Yowsas. Naturally I lost the one or two I bought because that's me. That's why I sooooo prefer the ecosystem of buying from iTunes and redownloading anywhere.

But I'm no fool. I know that better sound exists. He'll, it's on every movie sold on DVD and BD. I was really disappointed at the sound in the theater where I saw "Man of Steel." It sounded like a muffled boom box behind the screen was all we had. I bought the album on Tuesday and listened to it a bit in my car and using my ear pods. Even that recording can blow you away. The theater version just sucked, and this theater opened for "Return of the King" not 10 years ago.

I spent about $250 replacing the factory big speakers in my car -- I still have the little 2.5" guys up front. Even the factory head unit pumps out enough to make decent audio there. This is where I listen to most of my music because my commute is 40 minutes one way. I didn't spend that money to listen to lesser quality music via streaming. If I need something different at times, maybe I'll give iTunes radio a shot when it comes out. I think it's fine for listening to new stuff. But just as with videos, if you hear something awesome you want to own it. If I had been streaming this MOS soundtrack, I probably would've blown by my 2GB limit.
 

Almy

macrumors 6502
Sep 27, 2008
251
0
The quality may not be there yet, but the convenience of streaming is certainly the future.
 

Boyd01

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 21, 2012
7,637
4,528
New Jersey Pine Barrens
The quality may not be there yet, but the convenience of streaming is certainly the future.

This assumes that everyone will have access to high speed internet connections. Believe it or not, some people don't. The best I can get here is 2.5m Verizon DSL. Also realize that during natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, some people were without internet connections for a week or more.
 

AppleDeviceUser

macrumors 6502
Jan 7, 2012
492
10
Canada
No way! Streaming sucks, why would you pay for a big expensive data plan just so you can listen to music, when you could pay nothing (Except for buying the music in the first place) and not wait for anything by having it on your device. The amount of music I listen to would use up so many GBs a month it's not even funny. Plus that data plan would only work on 1 device, If I streamed music to all my devices I would be paying 100s of dollars a month just for data plans.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
Never. Internet connection in my area is likely to never improve and I like my CD collection.
 

TedM

macrumors 6502
Sep 19, 2012
356
2
California
I buy my favorites and stream everything else. My opinion is that one should always buy an artist's music that they fall in love with. Its art and they worked hard to produce it. But if its catchy, but not really my thing or I don't really love it. I'd rather stream it.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.