Record Player tries Spotify !

[Record Player]

Well as the thread title goes, Record Player tries Spotify !

Ive always been old school when it comes to Hifi and Music. CD, Tuner and Vinyl predominantly and was quite happy and content with that. Recently acquired a Class A/B power amp and my my, aint it wonderful. Today or rather tonight I thought Ill try Spotify and see what the fuss is all about.

Oh my word, its got everything on it !!! Just a click away. Any Genre, Classics, Jazz, Blues even filtered to Top of the Charts; you name its all there and even with the free subscription the High Audio output is great. I do not know if this changes perspective of my music listening but Im surely going to play this a lot more with the sheer reason of convenience. Technology has advanced and this is definitely the future. Its got a playlist for every bloody mood and hour !

So, what about my Record Playing passion.....does it play second fiddle ? I dont think so Maybe the frequency of record playing may come down but my love and passion of Record Playing will not change surely.

Any similar experiences and how have you dealt with this treason if I may ?

 

[RRR]

Same here. Predominantly using Cds.
Started using Spotify about 3 years back. But it doesn't hold my interest for long. It is great for discovering new music and latest releases.
However i keep changing the tracks after listening to half a song or a few songs of an artist. Whereas with Cds i go through the full cd.
If you could share which Power amp did you get that made such a big difference. Cheers

 

[Record Player]

Same here. Predominantly using Cds.
Started using Spotify about 3 years back. But it doesn't hold my interest for long. It is great for discovering new music and latest releases.
However i keep changing the tracks after listening to half a song or a few songs of an artist. Whereas with Cds i go through the full cd.
Which Power amp did you get?

Well said. I hope thats the case with me. I have a treasure chest coming my way soon i.e. a close friend extremely passionate about Jazz and Blues who is very well travelled and has collected CDs for decades is handing the same to me. Im saying three or four thousand easy ! Probably one of the best collections.

I got the V4H PeeCeeBee Monos by the designer Shaan and from a gentleman on this forum.

 

[RRR]

Lucky you to get a collection of three to four thousand at one go. It has taken me two and a half decades to reach half that figure. You could share if it's too much to handle

 

[stevieboy]

Hey Record Player, it ain't treason if there's a reason! I love Apple Music for the new artists it throws up, for the albums I don't have on record and for times when I can't physically change records, like when cooking or while out walking or in the car. The Audioquest DragonFly Red and Apple Music make a fine enough combo for me.

 

[Bhaskar Jyoti Talapatra]

Hello
Record player
I am also a traditionalist. My first love is vinyl and I have lots of cassettes and CDs which i like very much. But from two years till date I have adopted habit of listening to music using Spotify,Gaana and YT. Initially I thought that this habit would gradually keep me away from my dear vinyls. But it does not happen. Now I have different time for different media. Though I believe that vinyl and CD by far surpass the streaming services, I can't deny that I have discovered many new songs and specially new songs which I can't get in our physical media. Actually we are in a new age and we have wonderful digital platform for both audio as well as vedio. IMHO if we accept both the analogue and digital(I mean streaming services) and keep listening both then we can really enjoy music. Though you are a traditionalist, you can't regret if you use any streaming services because you can also listen to your precious vinyls when you wish .
Cheers

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Well as the thread title goes, Record Player tries Spotify !

Ive always been old school when it comes to Hifi and Music. CD, Tuner and Vinyl predominantly and was quite happy and content with that. Recently acquired a Class A/B power amp and my my, aint it wonderful. Today or rather tonight I thought Ill try Spotify and see what the fuss is all about.

Oh my word, its got everything on it !!! Just a click away. Any Genre, Classics, Jazz, Blues even filtered to Top of the Charts; you name its all there and even with the free subscription the High Audio output is great. I do not know if this changes perspective of my music listening but Im surely going to play this a lot more with the sheer reason of convenience. Technology has advanced and this is definitely the future. Its got a playlist for every bloody mood and hour !

So, what about my Record Playing passion.....does it play second fiddle ? I dont think so Maybe the frequency of record playing may come down but my love and passion of Record Playing will not change surely.

Any similar experiences and how have you dealt with this treason if I may ?

We eventually learn to harmoniously exist in the two worlds:

1. the old world of focus, quality and engagement, and
2. the new world of choice, access and anonymity

 

[square_wave]

Lucky you to get a collection of three to four thousand at one go. It has taken me two and a half decades to reach half that figure. You could share if it's too much to handle

Second in line. Stop pushing you fellas :-/

 

[RRR]

Second in line. Stop pushing you fellas :-/

 

[hydra]

Spotify isn't all that bad. I personally find their discovery engine the best (between Apple, Tidal and Spotify). I use Spotify Premium while driving, and while taking my walking breaks through the day. I don't necessarily always play Spotify through my home setup (I prefer Tidal for that), but there are some mornings when I use Spotify as my morning 'radio'.

The convenience (and dependability) to sound quality ratio of Spotify is very acceptable to me. The Tidal app on my iPad (currently used to play Tidal via the streamer) stops randomly or skips tracks randomly far too often (typically with Masters). I'll be moving to Roon in another couple of days and I hope that will improve things.

The convenience of streaming can't be beat, and I'm now listening to streamed music (mostly Tidal) about 99% of the time. My stored music or CDs or Records rarely get played.

If this situation continues for a while, I'll probably think of selling my turntable, records, CDs and CD Player, simply to cut down on the amount of kit I need to clean/protect/maintain, and to simplify my life in general. I could do with lesser wires to deal with around the rack for sure!

In case of an extended internet outage (can't be discounted completely these days) I'll always have my stored music.

 

[square_wave]

If this situation continues for a while, I'll probably think of selling my turntable, records, CDs and CD Player, simply to cut down on the amount of kit I need to clean/protect/maintain, and to simplify my life in general. I could do with lesser wires to deal with around the rack for sure!

Don't do anything hasty. Streaming is a phase. After a point, it will all balance out.

 

[Record Player]

Some very interesting views. I think its also the initial excitement of something new. While I was at it tonight, I did happen to play a few records as well and as someone righty mentioned, critical listening brings me back to Vinyl. Spotify surely will be on the cards when me is working and want a playlist in the background, starting me day etc. Currently using me iPhone connected to the Amp and dont know; a streamer maybe sometime !

 

[shibashis]

With life being what it is and I foresee it will remain this way for another 18 year or so, whatever little free time I have, it is much easier to just open the app on your phone and tap on one of your 'Daily mixes'. I love critical listening but 90% of the time I do not have either the time or the attention span to devote to critical listening. And yet when I am listening to music I want my favourite tunes to play, I want to feel the jive and enjoy my activity with music. Spotify and a network streamer combination can not be beaten for that.
At the same time and quite often too, while listening I would be acutely made aware of the limitations of the medium. For such situations you have your NAS with FLAC. At the end of the day Spotify's highest quality through a quality DAC may fall short in audiophile terms but you can not question it in terms of price to performance ratio, convenience and sheer enjoyment.

 

[drkrack]

Don't do anything hasty. Streaming is a phase. After a point, it will all balance out.

I thought same initially (coming from Cds) ; reluctantly invested in a Decent Streamer like Cxn v2. With few Cable and Network tweaks, its unbelievably good & Now there's no going back.

I Sold my Marantz CD 6006 to buy a better highend SACD /CD player but never found obsessive urge to play the Cds (which used to be the case in most upgraditis) and I'm finding Udp x700 decent enough. I have been playing lesser Cds with each passing year.

My Only Suggestion ; Never Try Streaming/Digital for the sake of trying, invest a decent amount in a comparable manner on streaming source and then decide. For eg if you have 1.25L + Vinyl Player or CD Player and Decent 1st Print CD /Vinyls (you need factor in the cost of Cds /Vinyls too) , Your Starting point for comparison should be A Streamer /DAC combo at 2.5L+ at the least , plus better than entry level Networking hardware (Cat 7 and LPSU for Every Router and Desktop Switch). And give it a enough time to tweak and customize to your liking, say a minimum of a year or so. You'll see the paradigm shift happening, if not you're at a liberty to get back to where you came from. I've seen many people erroneously Writing off Streaming music , after buying cheaper Allo Digione or Bluenode and comparing them to Their expensive (well tweaked) physical media setup, trying for only couple of months & giving up. Of course there's a genre limitation, if you listen mostly to Bollywood Oldies then I don't think Streaming is a good option, you're better off with FM and vinyls.

 

[Ashenden]

I've been using streaming for the past few years and prefer it over physical media. I was fully into Audio CDs prior to that, and nowadays I rarely play them. Services like Spotify excel in discovering Independent/obscure artists/albums which I'm unlikely to either discover from blogs/forums or find them in a CD shop (the shops here usually used to stock up on what used to sell well). If I stayed with CDs I was probably going to be stuck listening to Rock/Pop/Film songs. The change in taste meant I'm no longer bored of listening to the familiar genres and artists. I doubt if I'll be going back to CDs.

 

[greenhorn]

I stick to youtube/youtube music. A lot of the stuff that i love has never been released as digital officially, and will never show up on most digital music catalogs. But odds are someone has made an vinyl rip of it and uploaded it to youtube

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I stick to youtube/youtube music. A lot of the stuff that i love has never been released as digital officially, and will never show up on most digital music catalogs. But odds are someone has made an vinyl rip of it and uploaded it to youtube

If you like indie stuff, have a look at Bandcamp app.

 

[greenhorn]

If you like indie stuff, have a look at Bandcamp app.

Nah - old folk and country artists and their tracks that were created in the 60's and 70's and are probably dead or retired.

 

[kingfisher]

Hello
Record player
I am also a traditionalist. My first love is vinyl and I have lots of cassettes and CDs which i like very much. But from two years till date I have adopted habit of listening to music using Spotify,Gaana and YT. Initially I thought that this habit would gradually keep me away from my dear vinyls. But it does not happen. Now I have different time for different media. Though I believe that vinyl and CD by far surpass the streaming services, I can't deny that I have discovered many new songs and specially new songs which I can't get in our physical media. Actually we are in a new age and we have wonderful digital platform for both audio as well as vedio. IMHO if we accept both the analogue and digital(I mean streaming services) and keep listening both then we can really enjoy music. Though you are a traditionalist, you can't regret if you use any streaming services because you can also listen to your precious vinyls when you wish .
Cheers

Digital is good when we want to store, transport and process music. Analog is good when we do listening or amplification. By nature , every signal is analog and our eyes and ears can process analog signals only. Theoretically an analog signal contains infinite amount of information which is impossible to store or transmit.Also they are much vulnerable to noise. so its very difficult to store and transmit an analog signal. Hency we convert it to digital. the moment we convert an analog signal to digital we lose "something", even we use more bits per sample or very high sampling frequency. The reason why vinyl sounds good is its analog (ASAIK) and nothing is lost!

 

[Bloom@83]

Why is critical listening associated with vinyls is something I don’t understand.

At the end of a tiresome day , what could be more relaxing than picking a favourite vinyl from the shelf and giving it a spin while resting on a couch ? One can also work while a vinyl is spinning just like streaming from iPad , and even if the tonearm hits the wax once in a while , what’s the big deal ? One doesn’t have to turn into a nitpicking audiophile when playing a vinyl.