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Music: Digital or Physical?

I like to...

  • physicall hold my music and look at the booklets.

    Votes: 35 57.4%

  • download music off iTunes/Amazon MP3.

    Votes: 34 55.7%
  • Total voters
    61
O

ozzyman500

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 4, 2009
1,413
0
I'm curious to see other's preferences. I only bought maybe 2 silver discs in 2010 (I have about 600 of those things). After that in March I went full on digital and have been extremely happy I don't have to worry about those anymore. My concern is that the digital format will be obsolete in about 5 years and will have all these files and nothing to play them on. I don't want a cloud, although it would be nice for MY music - but not streaming. I want to own my music, I like managing files and having it locally. What are your views?

Please post a reply too other than just a vote.
 
Digital for me, too. When I got my 2008 Toyota Yaris and found out that it had an auxiliary port for my iPhone I converted all of my music to digital and threw all of the CDs in a box. I'll never go back.
 
Digital, for the most part, but I'm starting to collect vinyls of my favorite old albums.

It's hard to do that now since many artists release great singles but their albums are terrible.:rolleyes:
 
I'm mostly digital. When I want a physical medium, I buy vinyl LPs. CDs are kind of an unhappy compromise.
 
I cannot remember the last time I purchased a CD. iTunes offers everything to satisfy my music needs.
 
Mostly digital now. I remember a time when I couldn't possibly imagine not owning the physical CD, to the point of almost obsession. But now, I've started selling off the CDs I don't want to keep and going mostly digital. Space is important, and as long as I have it backed up I'm good.
 
I buy the CDs but only to rip them to iTunes. If iTunes had less compression in their songs, I'd buy them from Apple.

Plus CDs are more versatile. I vacationed in a cabin this past weekend that didn't have an iPod dock. I was able to break out the CDs for the player and my in-laws car which didn't have an AUX jack. Without the CDs, I'd have been musicless.
 
Tilpots said:
Without the CDs, I'd have been musicless.
Click to expand...

Not true ;) - you could have used headphones.

Wow this is a pretty even poll.

I ripped all my CD's with iTunes and will usually buy from iTunes if it is the same price as Amazon. Now if Amazon is $3 or $5 cheaper I'll go with Amazon.
 
I'm 99% digital. The only CD's I buy are the ones from my favorite artist...which is about once every 2 years. But everything else I purchase is digital. Less room, and obviously much more portable. I plug my iPod into the AUX in my truck. I can't remember the last time I actually listened to a CD.
 
With old music, I do digital. It's just easier to find instead of trying to hunt down any physical media. But with new releases, I buy vinyl when I can, and CD's when I can't. I just love all the extra stuff you get with them, and having a physical copy gives me more of a sense that I actually own it.
 
Digital now but only because of the bump to higher bitrates. A few years ago when iTunes offered 128kbps i only bought a few on sale albums. There is a clear difference in the 256kbps aac offerings. I also use Amazon because some of their album downloads are ridiculously cheap!
 
Silencio said:
I'm mostly digital. When I want a physical medium, I buy vinyl LPs. CDs are kind of an unhappy compromise.
Click to expand...

I do this. But I would like to add that sometimes there isn't a digital download, or iTunes/Amazon do not have the album I am looking for.

In which case I just head over the my local record store and they almost always have it.
 
I voted digital but I tend to stream from services Spotify rather than buying and downloading. I only buy my most favourite stuff, and stream the rest.
 
I buy mostly physical CDs because I want to OWN my music and have the ability to do with it as I like, ie. sell it, give it away, etc. I do rip it to iTunes and listen to it that way, but the physical CD is there as a backup and another means to listen to it. I do buy digital "singles" from time to time, mostly from Amazon because their prices are better and they had DRM free before Apple did.
 
I had probably 300+ cassette tapes (yes, I am "that old") and 700+ purchased CDs. For a time, I even burned downloaded music to CD because that was how I transported it in my car, etc.

When I got my first iPod, though, the shift to 100% digital was swift. No looking back.

The downside to me is that music is more of a "commodity" now. I used to have track names memorized, and could rattle off producers and talk about album artwork, liner notes, and what not. Now, it's so easy to consume the music, I hardly even know the track names anymore. It's not that they're not there in the ID3 or in iTunes, it's just that with track numbers and instant track access, the name is no longer necessary to navigate the album. Sigh.

As to the arguments about quality, I find that over a certain threshold, source-quality recording is not a prerequisite for my enjoyment. Generally if it's sampled at 192kbps or better, I'm good. Neither my ears nor my equipment are sophisticated enough to justify better. YMMV.
 
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